“I just recently discovered Pinterest and a couple weeks ago, I finally got my invite to join (yes, it’s invite only!).  If you haven’t used or heard of Pinterest, it’s a really cool social networking site where users create boards and “pin” or post interesting photos from different websites or by uploading their own photos.  The boards can be categorized by topic and then other people can comment on each photo.  It was one of the top ten most visited social sites in 2011!  Right now I see it as more of a B2C social site, but eventually, I can see it moving towards B2B as it gains in popularity.”

“Per this article on mashable.com (http://mashable.com/2012/01/10/pinterest-business-consumer-engagement/), there are a couple of ways that brands can utilize Pinterest to their advantage.  I thought two of these would be a great way to interact with customers: “New product approval” and “display various sectors of a company”. 

The first, new product approval, can be used as a pseudo-focus group.  I think this is a great way for companies to introduce a product in the early stages and see how consumers react to it by how many “pins” and “repins” they get.  They can also monitor comments on what they post. 

The second, displaying various sectors of a company, would be a great way to showcase a company – its products, people and company culture - and that would help build awareness and further interest in a company.  The article goes into further detail about these two and other ways to utilize Pinterest.  I personally love this site and have never really been this into other social sites.  It’s a great way to categorize things that you like and find new things you never would have known about.”

Why is this important?

Well apart from the very obvious implications for Indian media consumption patterns, the long term impact of internet enabled tablet devices, available  for very low cost and on a global scale are massive. Already many developing countries have largely bypassed the traditional “computer internet” access model, moving directly to smart phone mobile access. However we all know small screens have inherent limitations particularly for marketers. In a world with huge volumes of large screen mobile devices the media consumption shift will be significant.

Are we ready?

Typically I would say B2B marketers and even many B2C marketers are not yet embracing the power of mobile media. Issues around targeting are foremost in holding back campaigns since device, demo and geo targeting are fine for general consumers are of limited value when the audience needs to be more tightly defined. However as devices multiply and publishers create meaningful volumes of ad inventory in contextual relevant editorial specifically for these devices then many will be playing catch up.

What should we do?

Marketers need to carve out budget to test mobile. Now is a window for companies to use mobile while expectations are low and learn vital lessons. As an example as part of our 2011 EMC brand campaign we tested advertising in New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Financial Times iPad apps and gained a huge amount of insight. The client’s willingness to test means the whole team, from creative to media, now has a better idea of how the audience uses the devices and what content they engage with the most. We know now where to put efforts and investments of both time and money and have set some basic metric benchmarks for any future campaigns.

Next steps

2012 will be a mobile year for Just Media. We have already embarked upon a more aggressive research program to evaluate tracking and metric methodologies beyond those we know and use today. Our mobile campaign experiences with EMC and other clients has led to many questions and a desire to refine what we already do and find ways around the limitations that we face for targeting. New clients are invited to be part of that process of expanded knowledge building so we are collectively ready for “mobile campaign 2.0”.

Most platforms we looked at offered the same capabilities, with sometimes the only difference being how much client service they promised. Besides guaranteed brand safety and the quality of inventory, sophisticated audience targeting options and easy reporting/data visualization; we had a self-serve platform in mind. MediaMath made the cut in the end and we’ve been very happy with this decision ever since. It comes as no surprise that they got very high scores in “The Forrester Wave TM: Demand-Side Platforms, Q4 2011”.

Check out the study here on MediaMath’s homepage: “http://www.mediamath.com/solutions/forresterwave.”

I’d love to find out why Google didn’t want to participate in the study!

Happy analyzing!

Frauke Cast, Trafficking & Analytics Manager

So, what is it? Basically, a DSP is a method for gaining access to the high volumes of remnant or unsold inventory that almost every site has in abundance. The difference is that rather than being sold on a commodity basis via a network, it’s purchased on a bidding model enabling every impression on sale to be priced at the true value rather than an artificially created one.

At Just Media, Inc., we have recently started testing a trading desk for small portions of media buys. Initially, we have principally been using it for retargeting, but now we are also using the desk for audience specific segments and the results have been fascinating. CPM’s are being drastically reduced, but most importantly, minimum buys are eliminated; allowing quick testing of different filters. It’s fast, efficient and driven by data. It learns too… dynamically optimizing buys to the key call to actions our campaigns require.

This technology might not change every media buy we do, but it has the potential to impact on many  strategies and make targeting the long tail of media even more productive and controllable. Yes, it’s one more vehicle that you should expect your agency to employ, but one very worthy of testing and refining right now.

For more information on how a trading desk might be right for your campaigns or simply to learn more do not hesitate to reach out.

Dick Reed, CEO

Just Media, Inc.

ceo@justmedia.com