So a few weeks ago within ShopLocal.com, a key switch was made to the method that most users of the site browse the weekly ads. The traditional HTML powered weekly ad experience was replaced with a CircularCentral powered experience. Whenever a drastic change is made to a core feature of a web site, there is always some real risk associated with user adoption and usage.
Here is the new CircularCentral based weekly ad viewer that is front and center within ShopLocal.com
Well the votes are in. Users are making their voices heard loud in clear, in terms of page views per visit (which is really a measure of content consumption). On average over a 25 day period (1/1/2010 – 1/25/2010), the users of the new CircularCentral weekly ad experience showed a lift of 160% in the number of pages views per visit.
Wow. For a publisher site (such as ShopLocal.com) that means real money. Every time a publisher can increase the number of page views that users create, that in turns creates more display ad inventory. Even if the inventory becomes remnant and monetized via ad network backfill, this is extra money in the pocket of the publisher (be it at a lower CPM that direct sold inventory).
And from a user perspective, it’s a win as well. Essentially what this change in weekly ad viewers did was to tear down barriers so as to make viewing and interacting with the weekly ads easier, faster and an overall richer user experience. Those are qualities that users will always reward you for, typically in terms of using and engaging with your product more.
As a side note, the team did end up keeping around the traditional HTML weekly ad experience for a few reasons such as SEO benefits (the Google bot much prefers HTML based content over Flash content) and for those users that are either on slower internet connections or just have an established preference of browsing via this more traditional method. In either case, the traditional option is not the default method for viewing the weekly ad content and it is downplayed.
The results are so clear - uses interact and consume more content within the new CircularCentral view - at an increased rate of 160%
As a side note, the team did end up keeping around the traditional HTML weekly ad experience for a few reasons such as SEO benefits (the Google bot much prefers HTML based content over Flash content) and for those users that are either on slower internet connections or just have an established preference of browsing via this more traditional method. In either case, the traditional option is not the default method for viewing the weekly ad content and it is downplayed.
So with both Wal-Mart and Best Buy trying out augmented reality (AR) within their print ads / Sunday circulars recently, no one outside of these two retailers really knew how successful the general consumer adopting was to this new way of interacting with print ads online. Until now when Best Buy went on the record with a recent AdAge.com article (9/5/09) written by Abbey Klassen. The top-line metrics of success that Best Buy cited were:
About 6,500 people tried out Best Buy’s augmented reality insert — more than double the company’s expectations (out of a total print circular distribution of around 43 million)
78% of the people that actually went to the site wanting to see the experience had a webcam.
A high click-through — 12% — to other pages (from the core AR page): the Twelpforce page, the Next Class computing page or to the dot-com site for the Toshiba computer itself
Going to do more (next one in Sept is the rumor) so to continue to learn and refine program
Best Buy called their augmented reality (AR) experience "Best Buy in 3D"
Seems like a lot of effort to get 6,500 people to interact. However my guess is that most consumers just didn’t understand what to do, what the value of doing it would be or just all together didn’t pick up on the simple fact that this augmented reality experience was available. The core AR idea has legs, it just needs to be implemented, messaged and promoted in different ways that retailers I am sure will learn with more time and experience using this new technology. Below is a complete re-post of the AdAge.com article…
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Best Buy got props on Sunday when its weekly supplement came equipped with a 3-D notebook computer — that is, if you had a webcam and held the circular up to it, you’d see a 3-D image of a Toshiba laptop, thanks to the technology known as augmented reality.
About 6,500 people tried out Best Buy’s augmented reality insert — more than double the company’s expectations.
Augmented reality has garnered more than its share of enthusiasm from early adopters and tech geeks, but its marketing value is yet to be determined. Is it a passing fad or truly useful in creating richer digital-marketing experiences? In Best Buy’s case, the weekly insert was sent to its normal circulation of 43 million and, on Sunday, about 6,500 tried it out — more than double the company’s expectations. Still, it’s a small number and may temper other marketers’ augmented-reality expectations. We talked to Spencer Knisely, director-brand identity, print and design at Best Buy, who shared early results and promised this wouldn’t be the last we’d see of AR at Best Buy.
Ad Age: Explain the reasoning behind this circular. Spencer Knisely: There’s lots of talk about the impending demise of newspapers and circular readership, and there’s truth and fiction in that issue. But certainly all parties can agree it’s in transformation. Inserts have a role to play in their own migration. We started this journey [of making circulars interactive] with SMS messaging and IVR [or interactive voice response]. … Both of those return to your customer ratings and reviews and a link to something else. We’re trying to think of the circular, instead of being the end of all promotional activity, as the beginning. It’s a great organizing tool for promotional activity, but it doesn’t offer all the different connections that we want.
Ad Age: How did people use it? Mr. Knisely: It was hard to predict what the adoption would be. We knew a couple of things. We knew we have weekly circ of 46 million, and we had spoken with our business team, computing and computing accessories team and said, ‘What’s the install base of webcams?’ They believed 20% of households have a functioning webcam. So knowing those things, we projected maybe 2,500 people would give it a shot. We were surprised to learn many more connected with and used the experience — 6,500 was the last report, and that was just for one-day activity [on Sunday]. In fact, 78% of the people that actually went to the site wanting to see the experience had a webcam. Either our webcam projections are wrong or we overindex and the people reading our inserts have kept up with technology and have the latest gear and know how to use it.
Ad Age: How clear was it [in the circular] that you need a webcam to do this? Mr. Knisely: There was a footnote at bottom of the page, and buried in with all the other footnotes — the legal disclaimers and such — there was a note that said you have to have a webcam. Whether that’s prominent is really debatable, but we did technically tell folks they needed one.
Ad Age: Was Toshiba involved? Mr. Knisely: We discovered the technology by just investigating what kind of cool things we can do out there, and we contacted our partner here in town, Modern Climate, which built the experience for us. We said, “Hey, we heard you’d done one of these in the past. How hard would it be for you to do one for us for the insert in six weeks or so?”
At the time, we weren’t thinking about engaging our vendor partners or as a cooperative investment opportunity but as a new thing to do with our insert that would be kind of fun. We have the opportunity now, having proven that it did work, to go to our manufacturer partners and asking if they have an interest in expanding the kind of messaging you can deliver. Ultimately the front cover is a fixed amount of real estate; you can only say so many things. But if you get yourself to the cover, this can be a portal to lots of other messaging, should you choose to do that.
Ad Age: Can you tell what the real business result — or conversion — of this was? Mr. Knisely: We don’t know that yet. We saw comparatively high click-through — 12% — to other pages: the Twelpforce page, the Next Class computing page or to the dot-com site for the Toshiba computer itself. But aggregated, a 12% click-through on an experience like that is fairly decent.
I believe we’ll be able to see who actually made a purchase … through cookies placed on the machine. They’ll tell us where you came from, and those are the kinds of things we’re watching now too.
We’re also watching now for the secondary bounce we’re getting. Lots of folks saw it in the insert, typed it into their browser directly, and that was the Sunday experience. But there was also the opportunity to share this through social-media sites, and we’re seeing our second and third bounces as people are referring it to their friends and family. How many echoes do we get — and how long do they last — from one placement in the circular?
Ad Age: Would you do this again? Mr. Knisely: We have plans to do more AR in the future, active projects on the books. Our point of view is you have to offer a range of ways for the consumer to interact. It’s too early to tell whether any of these things is a replacement of — but they’re certainly an enhancement to — a traditional insert.
It amazes me all the time how powerful HTML + DHTML + Javascript can be in creating rich, engaging web pages. Some clients, for the various reasons detailed below decide that for their online weekly ad (eg SmartCircular) site they want to have both a HTML (dial-up) and a Flash/Flex (broadband) version of their site.
Top Cited Reasons For Deploying A Matching or Corresponding HTML Version Of A SmartCircular Site:
Bandwidth / Internet Connection Speed: Some retailer’s customer base is a little behind the technology adoption curve, so to ease concerns around site load and performance times a matching or corresponding HTML site is deployed along side the richer, more animated and engaging flash/flex version.
Adobe Flash Player: To access an Adobe Flex site, one needs to have version 9+ of the Adobe Flash Player browser plug-in installed. There are a few folks out there with either an older version of Flash Player installed or no Flash Player installed. So to still offer this small sub-set of users access to the weekly ad, a matching or corresponding HTML site is deployed along side the more interactive Flash version.
So let’s play a little game. Below are two SmartCircular 4.1 sites. For each client (Target and Toys “R” Us) there are two versions of the site. One in HTML and one in Adobe Flex/Flash. Can you spot the one that was created in HTML and Flex/Flash? The ShopLocal design and UI/UX team has come a long ways to be able to disguise and dress up HTML so much. The illusion can be pretty darn convincing.
Number #1
Number #2
Number #3
Number #4
Answers:
Toys “R” Us – #1 is the flex/flash site and #2 is the HTML site
Target – #3 is the HTML site and #4 is the flex/flash site
Leave a comment and tell us how many you got right!
Imagine a day where there is a large flat panel screen / monitor in all public places displaying a mix of useful localized information and some advertiser content. Well that day just got a whole lot closer when Danoo acquired IdeaCast this week.
From a retailer perspective, this really is becoming an interesting advertising opportunity to reach some serious eyeballs (30MM) with engaging, out-of-home video advertising. Since typical video creation and production is really an expensive and time consuming task (just ask anyone who has had the privilege of making a 30 second TV commercial spot), to create content for these digital out-of-home networks (such as Danoo and Adspace Digital Mall Network) becomes a real barrier to entry, especially if the content has to be produced on a weekly frequency AND if the content needs to be localized (to account for retailer versioning in both product assortment and pricing differences)
Not anymore. Given the automated methods of taking data and converting it to video that innovative companies like:
have been crating and pushing for years, retailers can now take back end data feed content and convert this into engaging video advertising relatively cheaply and easily. This trend of recycling existing marketing assets seems especially relevant given all the pressure on marketing and advertising budgets to delivery greater results with less funding.
Here is an example of how a select set of weekly ad items (pulled using ShopLocal’s proprietary Wisdom of the Crowds popularity data) could be converted into full motion video advertising for distribution on a Danoo type network for Ace Hardware. Note the interactive and location specific map that appears in the right hand part of the video that literally charts out how a consumer from their current viewing location could get to the closest Ace Hardware store location.
Here is a second example featuring Target content of how a print circular that is digital converted by ShopLocal could be reworked into video content for distribution across the newly expanding space of digital out-of-home ad networks.
And for good measure, here is a third and final example featuring Walgreens content of the same weekly ad / circular based video concept. Also noteworthy, thanks to our friends over at Danoo for sharing these great demos that highlight this concept very well.
In a deal designed to consolidate the highly fragmented digital out-of-home industry, Danoo has acquired IdeaCast from National CineMedia for undisclosed terms.
As part of the deal, National CineMedia and Danoo’s investor, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, will each hold a minority interest in the new combined company and have seats on the company’s board of directors.
The deal brings together four digital out-of-home networks: Danoo’s City network in coffeehouses and cafes across five top markets; Danoo’s Traveler network in airport newsstands rolling out to 40 airports; IdeaCast’s Health Club TV Network in 1,000 clubs across 100 markets; and IdeaCast’s Airline TV Network, installed in 7,800 seatbacks on JetBlue, Frontier and Continental Airlines. Combined, the networks reach 30 million monthly consumers.
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