Abbreviated Marketing News Round-up
Display Ads Stimulate Search, Confirms Eyeblaster Study
Open a browser window and type in a URL. It’s simple enough, but more often than not, people rely on search engines to find exactly what they need. And the keyword search terms tell the paid-search ad-serving platform the type of targeted advertisement to present.
But typing a Web site address into the browser and landing on a page might not make the searcher’s intent as apparent as typing a search term into the keyword query box. So, both search and display campaigns must work together to provide marketers the biggest return on investment.
Marketers know this, but apparently most don’t bother to tap into agencies and technologies that allow them to not only measure the benefits, but also connect media allocation to unify campaigns, according to Didit Chief Executive Officer Kevin Lee.
iTunes Breaks 10 Billion Song Downloads
It’s official: Apple has broken the 10 billion song barrier. Just a few minutes ago, Apple’s song download counter hit the mark, something it has been counting down to for the last two weeks.
Apple has been hitting some nice milestones recently. Just last month, Apple’s app store surpassed three billion downloads, a massive feat especially when you consider that iTunes has also been around longer than the app store.
The 10 billion mark is an important reminder of just how powerful Apple has become in the music industry, though. That’s billions in revenue that Apple has generated for the music industry, but also billions that Apple has pocketed for itself. And while digital competitors have popped up, none have come close to Apple’s music dominance.
Yahoo on Wednesday will announce a global partnership with Twitter to integrate real-time search. As part of Yahoo’s Open Strategy to make the Web more open, people will have the ability to update their Twitter status and share content from Yahoo in their Twitter stream.
The integration follows similar moves by Google and Microsoft Bing, as well as Yahoo’s agreement with Facebook in December. The deal allows Facebook users to share content from Yahoo sites with friends, such as comments on Flickr and Yahoo News.
Integrating Facebook and Twitter into Yahoo’s sites allows anyone with a Yahoo ID to post status updates to multiple social networks simultaneously. Being signed into the network also lets Yahoo serve up relevant content specific to each person as they travel across news, sports, finance and other properties.
Abbreviated Marketing News Round-up
Google Surpasses Coca Cola to Become the Second Most Valuable Brand on The Planet
Google has reached another milestone in it’s relatively short history and surpassed Coca Cola, Microsoft and IBM to become the second most valuable brand in the world.
The search engine is valued at $36.1billion and considered a more powerful product than the planet’s best-selling soft drink ($34.8bn), say analysts Brand Finance.
But for the second year running both are behind retailer Wal-Mart, the supermarket giant, which is worth $41.3bn. Google, which has risen in the table from number five to number two, shares top ten status with other technology brands including IBM (4), Microsoft (5) and HP (9). GE, HSBC, Vodafone and Toyota complete the top ten.
Poor Customer Service Costs Companies $83 Billion Annually
Genesys, with research firm Greenfield Online and Datamonitor/Ovum analysts, measuring the cost of poor customer service in the U.S., found that enterprises in the U.S. lose an estimated $83 billion each year due to defections and abandoned purchases as a direct result of a poor experience. Nearly two-thirds of consumers said they had ended a relationship due to customer service alone. The survey participants said that when they end a relationship, 61% of the time they take their business to a competitor.
Facebook has replaced Yahoo as the second-largest U.S. Web property and is closing in on No. 1 Google, according to the latest data from Web analytics firm Compete. The social network in January drew an audience of nearly 134 million unique visitors, surging past Yahoo’s 132 million. Google remained the top site, with a monthly audience of 148 million. (Google overtook Yahoo as No. 1 in Feb. 2008).
ComScore’s estimate of Facebook’s audience isn’t quite as large. Its latest figures show Facebook doubling its audience in 2009 to 112 million, but still ranked fourth behind Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Compete’s methodology includes reliance on a panel of 2 million U.S. Internet users selected as a representative cross-section of the population. ComScore also uses a panel of 2 million, but half its members are outside the U.S.
Comcast Changes Name To Xfinity, Customers Don’t Care
Comcast, the biggest cable provider in the United States, is changing its name. According to the company’s blog, Xfinity will now replace Comcast as the company’s new product name in an attempt to show customers that it’s not the ”same old company,” but rather an innovator. That could be a tough sell considering the company’s current reputation as a behemoth with terrible customer service.
If Xfinity sounds familiar, it’s because Comcast used the name back in December when it announced the launch of Fancast Xfinity TV, providing the internet TV platform a host of popular TV shows, including The Simpsons and The Sopranos. The company actually announced the name change on its blog last week, but is only making a big publicity push for it now.
