A Government Dip in the Online Advertising World

Author - Tyler Knowlton

Current Online Activities

“Most people have googled themselves, but what about googling your organization?”

What can be found in 1 hour on July 2, 2008

Google
A quick Google search shows that the Government of Canada has a strong search engine presence. The top five items that appear when the terms “Government of Canada” are searched for in Google are:

Government of Canada Official Web Site
Government of Canada Official Web Site
PWGSC
Pandemic Influenza GOC info
PSC Federal Jobs Site

When the search terms “Jobs Canada” are searched for in Google the top five results are:

Workopolis
Working.com
Plusjobs.com
jobsincanada.com
canadajobs.com

This search for the terms “Jobs Canada” shows a less prominent search engine presence than the previous search.

Facebook

When the search terms “Government of Canada” are used in searching Facebook groups the top five results are:

Students working for the Government of Canada - 86 members - Jacek Rothbard (University of Ottawa) (creator)
Petition to change the name of Canada’s New Government - 55 members - Ted Betts (Toronto, ON) (creator)
Youth-Government of Canada / Gouvernement de la Jeunesse du Canada - 46 members - Tyler Johnson (Youth Parliament of Canada) (creator)
Government of Canada: Enact a Refugee Appeal Division Immediately! - 31 members
Screw the Government of Canada! - 11 members

Youtube

When the search terms “Government of Canada” are used in searching Youtube the top five results are:

Stay In School - Government of Canada Commercial - posted by TheCommercialKing
C4 - Funny Ad - Government of Canada - Amazing Hands - posted by DjC4
‘Tibet’ Protest against Chinese government in Canada - posted by cadfee100
Message from the New Government of Canada - 1 - posted by welverdorie
The Government of Canada - Marquee Room - Part 1 - posted by Kirasaw

Technorati

When the search terms “Government of Canada” are used in searching technorati the top five results are:

Fiery and funny rhetoric in Canadian Parliament over the Canadian DMCA
June 30/08 Politics
Coast Is Clear, Let’s Suck The Oil Out!
Managing the Work-Family Conflict
think drilling offshore will take care of gas prices?

Del.icio.us

When the search terms “Government of Canada” are used in searching technorati the top five results are:

The Government of Canada Launches Podcasts.culture.ca Website
Canada Revenue Agency — Main menu
Introduction to the Government of Canada Official Web Site | Canada Site
Government of Canada Site | Site du gouvernement du Canada
Service Canada - Programs and Services for You

MySpace

When the search terms “Government of Canada” are used in searching MySpace the top five results are:

MySpaceTV Videos: The Government of Canada Video Channel
Federal government of canada jobs | MySpace Jobs
MySpace.com - The Government of Canada - CA - Rock group
The government of Canada now recognizes that it was wrong to forcibly remove children from their homes and we apologize…
The seal hunt survives only because of subsidies doled out to the sealing industry by the government of Canada. It has…

The Environment

“90% of Canadian Internet users are between the ages of 18 and 24 years old”

The Canadian Internet Use Report 2007\

Creating an Online Presence

Advertising on the Web is an effective first step to creating a more complete online presence for an organization. Online advertising can be focused on specific market segments based on any common interest, demographic or cultural affiliation, with relative ease when compared to traditional media. This is partly due to strong tracking tools, “per click” evaluations, and the individualistic, customizable nature of Web 2.0.

Canadian Advertising Spending Projected Growth - Report on Business.com1
Television Ads 2007 - 2011 4.5 per cent to $4.6-billion,
Radio & Billboards 2007- 2011 11.7 per cent, to $2.8-billion
Print Media 2007 - 2011 1.8 per cent to $1.5-billion
Internet 2007 - 2011 23.5 per cent to $2.03-billion

“Internet advertising is expected to grow faster in Canada than anywhere else in the world over the next five years…”

The Globe and Mail June 22, 2007

For the People

According to a report released to Agri-food / Agriculture Canada in April 2008, Canadians view Internet advertising by the Government of Canada is as being equally legitimate as advertising in any other media. This endorsement being given on the basis that the third party Web site on which the advertisement appears has some link to the department involved. For example,: Parks Canada and Mountain Equipment Co-op.

“While there was agreement that such advertising is legitimate, participants were divided on the question as to whether a GC ad on a commercial website implies endorsement of the site. Many said no, explaining that this has to do with an attempt to increase visibility by advertising on popular sites. Many others, however, did think that advertising on a commercial Web site implies endorsement of the site or organization, even if it is only soft endorsement.“ 2

By keeping to the afore-mentioned suggestion of matching brand to department, a more focused advertisement will be needed in order to reach the market segment that already “inhabits” this Web space.

Further to these findings, the focus groups also agreed that it was important for the government of Canada to reach out to the population through currently popular websites - for example, social networking Web sites, entertainment Web sites, etc. This would be a step towards creating a stronger online presence for the federal government.

“A study by Avenue A /Razorfish3 indicates online consumers are rapidly increasing their use of such features as RSS feeds, content updating, search engines, blogs and video.” About 55% of the survey respondents said “user-generated reviews and ratings” are the biggest factor in helping them to make buying decisions. Following that same theme, 62% said they have made purchases based on online third-person recommendations such as those found on Amazon.com. Even more, 72%, said they found such services helpful.

“The survey found that personalization has hit the mainstream. As illustrated in the graph to the right, the majority of consumers surveyed (60%) personalize their home/start pages. This far exceeds the smaller number of consumers that we previously believed to be such active participants.

Further, 56% use RSS (really simple syndication), a technology that enables users to subscribe to content feeds and read them via specialized readers or on their customized start pages. RSS enables consumers to keep up-to-date on news, sports or other information. Clearly this trend bodes well for the dominant portals and search engines such as Google (35%), Yahoo! (24%), AOL (10%) and MSN (9%) which account for the vast majority of consumers’ start pages.”

Tools to help Focus

Google AdPlanner: is a research and media planning tool that connects advertisers and publishers. When using Google Ad Planner, simply enter demographics and sites associated with your target audience, and the tool will return information about sites (both on and off the Google content network) that your audience is likely to visit. You can drill down further to get more detail like demographics and related searches for a particular site, or you can get aggregate statistics for the sites you’ve added to your media plan.

Nielsen/Yahoo Consumer Direct: Powered by ACNielsen’s Homescan® consumer panel and using Yahoo!’s base of more than 100 million users, Consumer Direct enables you to link detailed demographics and offline purchasing behavior with online advertising exposure and activities. Through advanced analytical modeling techniques, clients can target consumers with compatible characteristics across Yahoo!’s vast user base.

Google Trends: With Google Trends, you can compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they’ve been searched on Google over time. Google Trends also shows how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and in which geographic regions people have searched for them most.

Viral Marketing

“Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages. The basic form of viral marketing is not infinitely sustainable.”4

Case Study - The Dark Knight movie 2008

The marketing campaign for the 2008 film The Dark Knight combined both online and real-life elements to make it resemble an alternate reality game. Techniques included mass gatherings of Joker fans, detailed and intricate Web sites that let fans actually participate in “voting” for political offices in Gotham City, and even a Gotham News Network that has links to other Gotham pages such as Gotham Rail, a Gotham travel agency, and political candidate’s pages. The movie also markets heavily off of word of mouth from the thousands of Batman fans.

The essential element that runs through all of these techniques is user participation, feedback and consequent adaptation of the campaign based on received feedback. The power of the campaign once launched, lies in the hands of the viewers/consumers.

Case Study - JC Penny 2008

The retailer is reportedly aghast about an allegedly un-authorized clip, most likely created by Saatchi & Saatchi, the retailer’s ad agency, which is about to become YouTube’s most popular clip. The clip suggests that teenagers may have sex — and that J.C. Penney endorses the idea. According to J.C. Penney spokespersons, nothing could be further from the truth, but the company is still worried that someone might get the wrong idea.

It seems doubtful that there is any truth to the statement that the advertisement is un-authorized. An advertising agency creating an un-requested ad for one of their largest clients is unlikely, let alone distributing it on the Web and at prestigious film festivals (Cannes). A more plausible scenario would be that JC Penny has a found a clever way to create a controversy surrounding their online presence - a sure fire way to drive traffic to their video.

New Technique:
1.) Hire an ad agency to make a clever/risque commercial that will help your brand appeal to a new younger audience.
2.) Unleash the video out on the internet covertly.
3.) As soon as it starts to get popular, act aghast and mortified at the implications it makes about teenagers.
4.) Get your ad agency to follow your lead and deny everything.
5.) Enjoy the benefits of you success

The techniques of viral marketing may seem complex and even a bit cheeky, and truth be told, they are. This, however, is the reality of the new marketing environment. Engaging viewers/users is key to all viral marketing campaigns and the online population is becoming increasingly savvy to most marketing techniques and ploys.

Google trends June 30, 2008

Objectives

“No matter where you are. No matter what you are doing. Your business presence is online. Open 24/7, 365 days a year” Advance Branding

Build and Maintain a Strong Web Presence

Disseminate Essential Information
Reinforce the Government of Canada’s Web Presence

As we have discovered in the “What can be found in an hour” section, the Government of Canada’s Web presence is strong in search engine optimization - an indicator that the Government of Canada is in control of it’s own Web Sites.

What is shown in the rest of the searches on Web 2.0 sites is that the Government of Canada is not in control of it’s Web 2.0 presence. The nature of social media is for users to generate content and build discussion surrounding a topic. This has begun to happen on all of the major social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace) as well as video sharing (Youtube) social bookmarking sites (delicious) and in the blogosphere (technorati). What is apparent when searching these sites is that the Government of Canada is being discussed, but is not part of that discussion.

One sample objective of online advertising (in it’s formal sense) could be to build the Government of Canada’s overall presence with Canadian citizens who are online. Online advertising in the informal sense is used to reinforce the traditional advertising through the underlying discussions that are taking place on the websites that are potential hosts for the traditional advert.

For example: Should the Government of Canada decide to take advantage of the targeted advertising that Facebook offers, it is important for the Government of Canada to be aware of and a part of the discussions that are taking place on Facebook. If a jobseeker sees an ad on Facebook for Jobs.gc.ca and is intrigued, there is a good chance that that person may search Facebook for more information.

Messages

“The medium is the message” Marshall McLuhan

To Each Their Own

Messages conveyed through online advertising should meet the the needs of the department/agency that is creating the ad. All advertisements should reinforce the Government of Canada’s overall Web presence by containing common elements that will make each online activity easily identifiable as being official Government of Canada correspondence. Covert postings of Government of Canada videos to Youtube may help distribute the content, however this is only meeting one objective online advertising - information dissemination - and does nothing to build the online presence of the Government of Canada.

Best practices of communication always include some form of dialogue. Information dissemination, being the primary goal of internet advertising, can be achieved through proper planning and research into which Web sites a particular audience frequents. The dialogue aspect comes into play through the supporting online activities that accompany the Web advertisement - Facebook groups, blogs, Myspace profiles, Youtube Video comments, etc. The advertisement should direct the viewer to a Web site that enables user interaction with the Government of Canada as well as being easy to navigate essential information.

Audience

Who is Searching for the Government of Canada

Every message will have a unique audience, however, it is prudent to know where the majority of people who are actively searching for you information are located. The following is a graph representing the top searches for “Government of Canada”

The following is a graph representing the top searches for “Jobs Canada”

Strategic Consideration

What considerations should be taken into accounts when advertising online?

Third Party Endorsement

Is the nature of the advertisement such that a Government of Canada endorsement of the host site is implied?

Advertisement Juxtaposition

When buying online advertising it is important to consider where the advertisement will be appearing and what will be appearing alongside of it. For example:
TORONTO (Reuters) - The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have pulled online job recruitment advertisements that mistakenly appeared on Web sites with links to a prominent U.S. street gang.

Canada’s renowned police force removed the ads after it learned the RCMP brand appeared alongside “inappropriate material that belonged to the 18th Street Gang,” Sgt. Martin Blais, a media spokesman for the Mounties in Ottawa, said on Monday.

“It was extremely inappropriate — poor language, everything you can imagine,” he said without providing further details.

Reuters - Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:53pm EST

Accessibility

If the advertisement is for a job competition, does the ad give unfair advantage to those candidates who are able to more readily access the Internet. Barriers to access could include; no, or poor Internet connection, lack of expertise, visual impairment, or other physical disabilities.

Official Languages Act
Does the advertisement meet the Official Languages Act - and is the host Web site a consideration for such requirements?

Tactics

Where to begin?

Multiple studies in 2004 and 2005 have shown that it is through a combination of traditional advertising and Internet advertising that the greatest results are achieved.

2005 - Fifth Canadian Media Optimization (CMOST) study completed with Unilever Canada and Unilever’s agency PHD Canada.

Key Findings

The addition of online and/or outdoor advertising to a combination of television and print advertising lifted aided advertising awareness by over 33 percent.
The combination of television, print and online was especially effective in increasing brand attribute scores against this very specific female target group versus television alone.
Online advertising out performed television in terms of raising purchase intent for the products, however, the combination of television, print and online maximized purchase intent an astounding 47 percent higher than what was achieved by using television alone.

The study revealed television’s enhanced ability to reach the 35-49 year-old segment of the female target group, while online did a more efficient job of reaching the 18-34 year-old cohort.
ROI analysis also demonstrated that within the same over all budget, aided brand awareness would have been best achieved, by reducing television and outdoor channel spends and instead, increasing dollars allocated to print and online. In fact, according to the modelling, aided awareness would have been best maximized by funneling a full 40 percent of the budget into online.

2003 - Third Canadian Media Optimization (CMOST) study completed with General Motors and M2 Universal

Key Findings

28% increase in aided brand awareness for the total sample
63% jump in aided brand awareness for the “in market group”

One of the most direct measures that media can affect is aided advertising awareness. In this case the results were also dramatic. During the campaign when online was added to TV plus magazines there was a:

18% lift in aided ad awareness for the total sample
51% jump in aided ad awareness for the “in market group”
Additionally, important learning was achieved around online media frequency of ad exposures and the effect of online media on heavy versus light television viewers. Significant best practices continue to be gathered by the participants and IAB Canada. In addition, the synergistic effect of multiple media and the value of the use of complementary media to television were clearly demonstrated.

Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada 5

Resources

Can the New Media be Economical

Internet advertising costs money - budgets are being shifted to accommodate this new trend in promotions. Money is being taken away from more traditional advertising mediums and placed in the interactive category. Beyond traditional advertising, there are other resources required to maintain an effective online presence.

Some of these other resources are: Human resources - labour, time, knowledge - training. An educated and knowledgeable workforce is a good step toward effective monitoring of the new Internet landscape. If the workforce knows to whom their findings and items of interest to the organization should be directed, monitoring online presence can be delegated to the masses.
“The three most common ways in which online advertising is purchased are CPM, CPC, and CPA.

CPM (Cost Per Impression) is where advertisers pay for exposure of their message to a specific audience. CPM costs are priced per thousand impressions. The M in the acronym is the Roman numeral for one thousand.

CPV (Cost Per Visitor) or (Cost per View in the case of Pop Ups and Unders) is where advertisers pay for the delivery of a Targeted Visitor to the advertisers Web site.

CPC (Cost Per Click) is also known as Pay per click (PPC). Advertisers pay every time a user clicks on their listing and is redirected to their Web site. They do not actually pay for the listing, but only when the listing is clicked on. This system allows advertising specialists to refine searches and gain information about their market. Under the Pay per click pricing system, advertisers pay for the right to be listed under a series of target rich words that direct relevant traffic to their Web site, and pay only when someone clicks on their listing which links directly to their Web site. CPC differs from CPV in that each click is paid for regardless of whether the user makes it to the target site.

CPA (Cost Per Action) or (Cost Per Acquisition) advertising is performance based and is common in the affiliate marketing sector of the business. In this payment scheme, the publisher takes all the risk of running the ad, and the advertiser pays only for the amount of users who complete a transaction, such as a purchase or sign-up. This is the best type of rate to pay for banner advertisements and the worst type of rate to charge. Similarly, CPL (Cost Per Lead) advertising is identical to CPA advertising and is based on the user completing a form, registering for a newsletter or some other action that the merchant feels will lead to a sale. Also common, CPO (Cost Per Order) advertising is based on each time an order is transacted.
Cost per conversion Describes the cost of acquiring a customer, typically calculated by dividing the total cost of an ad campaign by the number of conversions. The definition of “Conversion” varies depending on the situation: it is sometimes considered to be a lead, a sale, or a purchase.

Though, as seen above, the large majority of online advertising has a cost that is brought about by usage or interaction of an ad, there are a few other methods of advertising online that only require a one time payment. The Million Dollar Homepage is a very successful example of this. Visitors were able to pay $1 per pixel of advertising space and their advert would remain on the homepage for as long as the Web site exists with no extra costs.” 6

Evaluation

Web Metrics

One evaluation technique/tool that is built into Internet advertising is Web Metrics. Most Web sites make their traffic reports available to users and advertisers. This information can be useful - but it can also be overwhelming, and when not analyzed properly, misleading.
“For example, on the content side, let’s say your average visitor looks at three pages in a visit. However, what if you knew that a visitor who comes to you from Google looks at eight pages and one who comes in from MSN only looks at two pages? This information is crucial because it can directly impact your advertising strategy and profitability.”
Bryan Eisenberg, The ClickZ Network

“Bob Ivins, who is in charge of all non-American business for comScore, a big Web-measurement firm, says that the Web produces data as “a fire-hose shoots water”, and that working out what those data mean is rather like “putting a straw into the fire hose to take a sip”. Get the angle even slightly wrong, and you are blown away.

In the old days of traditional media, measures may have been simpler, but they were also dumber, says Randall Rothenberg, the boss of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade association. In broadcast television or radio, firms such as Nielsen or Arbitron traditionally give gadgets to samples of volunteers that measure what their televisions or radios are tuned to; or they ask people to fill out diaries describing their reading, listening and viewing habits. Both methods produce notoriously unreliable estimates.

The Web is an open book compared with those old media. Search advertisements, the text links on the results pages of search engines, charge advertisers only when a user actually clicks, thus expressing an interest.” 7

Sources
Canadian Media Optimization Study - Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada - Accessed June 30, 2008
http://www.iabcanada.com/newsletters/040705.shtml

Canadian police ads pulled from U.S. gang Web sites - Reuters Mon Feb 19, 2007 5:53pm - Accessed July 8, 2008
http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1941717120070219

Digital Consumer Behavior Study - Digital Design Blog - Accessed July 8, 2008
http://www.digitaldesignblog.com/2007/09/28/digital-consumer-behavior-study/#more-22

High Speed Growth: Online ad spending in Canada - Grant Robertson of Report on business.com - Accessed - July 8, 2008
http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070622.wrmedia22/BNStory/robMarketing/home

How to Interpret Web Metrics - Clickz - Accessed July 2, 2008
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=992351

New technologies and Government of Canada communications, Phase 1 : Qualitative research with Canadians, Sept. 17 - 20 focus groups - Library and Archive of Canada, Electronic Collection - Accessed July 8, 2008
http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/200/301/pwgsc-tpsgc/por-ef/agriculture_agri-food/2008/130-07-1.index.html

Online Advertising - Wikipedia - Accessed July 2, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_advertising

Viral Marketing - Wikipedia - Accessed July 8, 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_marketing

Web metrics, Many ways to skin a cat - The Economist Online - Accessed July 2, 2008
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10217991

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