Secrets to Improve Your Mobile Ads' Click-Through Rates

Jumptap teamed up with Dynamic Logic and Celtra analyzed thousands of mobile ads to determine what small details make a mobile campaigns work, and what makes them flop.

Everything from the number of words an advertiser uses to how many colors are featured in the ad directly correlate with click-through rates.

For example, having a person in a consumer-tech related ad increases CTR by 72%.

The fewer colors you have in an ad, the better. Try to keep it to less than three.

The image to the left, for example, is what you SHOULDN'T do

Jumptap determined that being excessively wordy is also a turnoff. Ads with four words or less get 28% more clicks on average. It's even more pronounced in the tech industry:

Here's what works, and what doesn't.

For most industries, Jumptap found that "ads with a call to action performed about the same as ads without. This goes against everything we’ve ever learned." Ads with weak calls to action performed worse. The exception: ads for the entertainment industry.

Here's an example in which the call to action is buying a ticket.

On average, an ad with an image of a person gets 20% more clicks than an ad without. Those numbers are higher in the tech industry.

Show how the product makes people happy.

It's also a good idea to invest in rich media.

Videos also up engagement, and it isn't just for movie trailers.

You also know when to reach the right audience. Restaurant ads do better over the weekend. Tourists click on more ads around 10 a.m.

Conversion rates also depend on how mobile ads target their audience.

It doesn't make a lot of sense to put a Lexus ad in front of a guy who can never afford to buy it.

Source: www.businessinsider.com

Here's The Big Downside To The Publicis-Omnicom Merger

The first "Publicis Omnicom Groupe" press conference ended today amid applause and smiles at the news that the two ad agency holding companies will combine to become the world's largest ad network, with $23 billion in revenues.

But applause for what, exactly?

The merger will come with some significant downsides. Here are a few of them:

1. There will be layoffs. The companies said in their press release that they expect to get $500 million in "efficiences." That means job cuts. 60-70% of holding company operating costs are salaries. So $300 million of those efficiencies are likely to be duplicate salaries that can be cut. If you assume that the fully loaded cost of an employee is about $200,000 per year (including benefits), then that could mean up to 1,500 jobs lost. Most of those jobs will be in administrative and back-room positions. Wren said "there's no planned job cuts," but believe that when you see it.

2. Shareholders get chump change from the deal. Normally when there's a merger between two publicly traded companies, the acquired company's shareholders get their stock bought out at a premium, thus rewarding them for putting money into the company. Not this time. Because it's a merger not a takeover, neither stock will get a premium.  The deal is actually designed to prevent that from happening. Omnicom holders will get a $2 dividend. Publicis holders will get 1 euro.

3. Omnicom CEO John Wren will get richer. Already one of advertising's richest men, the deal will likely trigger a change in control clause that will net Wren upwards of $4.3 million. It's not clear what will happen to the OMC shares he currently owns — more than 1 million of them, worth about $70 million. (Levy gets his full deferred compensation in the event of a new majority shareholder. That payment was already agreed before the deal, due to Levy's impending retirement).

4. Clients will leave these two networks. Both Omnicom CEO John Wren and Publicis CEO Maurice Levy gave little detail on how many client conflicts the combined company now has. Wren said there were about $6.5 billion in overlapping revenue on shared clients. He added that he did not believe the conflicts — in which the company finds itself serving two rival clients — would result in material losses. But tell that to Coca-Cola, which is now required to tell its marketing secrets to Publicis' Leo Burnett, all the while knowing that Pepsi is listening to advice from Omnicom's TBWA. These two agencies are now a mere phonecall apart. Maybe their two soda giants will live with the conflict. Clients have become increasingly tolerant of them over the years. But not all will. S.C. Johnson, for instance, is known to be rabidly anti-conflict — so that account could well bounce out of BBDO and head toward WPP's Ogilvy, the other agency on the business.

5. There will be an effective duopoly in advertising. Although there are several other agency holding companies to choose from, the lion's share of the business will now be controlled by just two companies, Publicis Omnicom and WPP. Craig Le Grice, the former digital lead at WPP and now chief innovation officer at Blue Rubicon, tells me, "How much competition does this create? In markets like the U.S., specifically, how much trust can there be with such a duopoly?  I am unsure that major clients like Procter & Gamble (etc) want to have to choose between just two holding companies for their billion dollar annual spends. Even if they do, the lack of competition will reduce the need to genuinely create stand out work — which is a blow for strategy and creative."

So there it is. The top named executives in both companies will likely get bonuses triggered by change-in-control clauses. Shareholders get very little. Clients get less choice. And employees get to update their resumes.

Source: www.businessinsider.com

Publicis Omnicom: An effectiveness 'heavyweight'

The merger of Publicis and Omnicom would create a dominant force in the world's effectiveness competitions, judging by analysis of this year's Effie Effectiveness Index.

The Index (www.effieindex.com), which is produced by Effie Worldwide and Warc, tracks performance by agency networks and their holding companies in Effie competitions around the world. It awards points for finalist and winning entries in these competitions.

The 2013 Index, released in June, showed WPP as the 'most effective holding group', with 669 Effie awards or finalists and a points total of 2539.

Omnicom and Publicis came in second and third, respectively. A combined Publicis and Omnicom, however, would have dwarfed WPP with 1037 Effie awards and finalists, and a points total of 3929.

The merged company would have led the field in every geographic region. Omnicom was already the Index's leading holding group in North America and Latin America. In Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Middle East/Africa, WPP topped the 2013 rankings.

In terms of individual networks, Omnicom houses four of the global top 10 in the 2013 rankings: BBDO Worldwide (which was second only to WPP's Ogilvy & Mather); DDB Worldwide, OMD and TBWA Worldwide. Publicis is home to just two of the top 10: Leo Burnett Worldwide and Publicis Worldwide.

One of the major questions around the deal will be unpicking potential client conflicts. Omnicom's high-scoring work in the 2013 Effie Index rankings includes campaigns for PepsiCo, McDonald's, Johnson & Johnson and Volkswagen. Publicis agencies have scored highly with campaigns for both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, as well as Procter & Gamble and Toyota.

The proposed deal, announced on Sunday, was presented as a merger of equals which, if approved, would give the combined entity the required scale and investment to deal with major changes in the advertising and media landscape. The deal is expected to release $500 million in cost savings - though exactly how those would be made remains unclear.

Omnicom chief executive John Wren, who will become co-CEO of the new group, told the Financial Times that "lines have blurred completely", with new competitors coming in every day. He added that the pace of change is going to get faster. 

Predicting that the merger would create more powerful solutions for clients, Wren explained that both groups have experience of ad-buying and technology partnerships with digital giants such as Google. Publicis's strategy in recent years has been to buy digital agencies, including LBi and Razorfish, whereas Omnicom has focused on growing organically in this area. 

Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, described the move as "extremely bold, brave and surprising" and predicted that further consolidation of the industry is inevitable. Speculation has already begun as to whether WPP will seek a similar mega-deal with one of the remaining smaller holding companies to make up ground. But several industry insiders remain sceptical.

David Jones, chief executive of Havas, said clients want agencies to be more "agile" and "not bigger and more bureaucratic and more complex", while Bert Foer, head of American Antitrust Institute, predicted that clients of the two companies would object to the deal.

Another major question will be whether the combined organisation will be able to use its scale to deliver greater savings for clients in media buying.

Dominic Proctor, global president of GroupM, WPP's media investment unit, told Campaign that getting scale in media investment is critical for clients. But he argued that both Publicis and Omnicom had so far struggled to join up their existing media-trading operations, adding: "It only works if it all joins up."

Marketing Match

Publicis

Publicis Groupe was founded in 1926 by Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet in Paris after he left his job as a salesman in the family furniture shop. It now employs 60,000 people and controls some of the world's biggest advertising budgets through media buying agencies including ZenithOptimedia and Starcom MediaVest. Coca-Cola is amongst its most prized clients, with Publicis advised on its high-profile sponsorship of American Idol and the 2012 Olympics.

Its family of agencies includes Saatchi & Saatchi, Bartle Bogle Hegarty and Leo Burnett, which created the "We All Make the Games" campaign for McDonald's during the Olympics. In the digital arena, it owns Razorfish, which acts for Samsung and has helped push digital revenues to 33% of group income. Clients include Nestle, Walt Disney and Mars. In a sign that rival firms do not always object to sharing advertising groups, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen are among the car brands it worked for last year.

Omnicom

John Wren, who earned $14.8m (£9.6m) in 2012, was among those who helped found Omnicom in 1986. The group depends on the US for 52% of its revenues, but its advertising agencies are global. The stable includes BBDO, which employs 15,000 people in 79 countries, and DDB Worldwide, which looks after Band-Aid and Neutrogena owner Johnson & Johnson, and the oil major ExxonMobil. It was DDB's Munich subsidiary, Heye & Partner, that devised the "I'm Lovin' It" slogan for McDonald's.

Omnicom's TBWA\Worldwide agency counts Apple, Absolut vodka, Sony PlayStation, Michelin, Mars and Visa as clients, and employs 11,000 people in 77 countries. The company has a decades-old relationship with PepsiCo, for whom it created the slogan "The Choice of a New Generation", and for which it negotiated sponsorship of X-Factor programmein the US and last year's Super Bowl halftime show with Beyoncé. As well as McDonald's, Omnicom and Publicis share household goods firm Procter & Gamble, and cosmetics group L'Oreal as clients.

Understanding the Arab Digital Generation

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

A new generation is emerging in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Born between 1977 and 1997, this demographic is 40 percent of the MENA population. A growing number of them are extremely active online and in social networks. They are the Arab Digital Generation (ADG). Digital technology gives the ADG the potential to affect society and institutions in unprecedented ways.

DIGITAL LIFESTYLE: HOW THE ARAB DIGITAL GENERATION USES TECHNOLOGY

• 83 percent use the Internet daily

• 40 percent use the Internet for at least five hours a day

• 61 percent spend more than two hours per day on social networking sites

• 78 percent prefer the Internet to TV

• 54 percent have higher education levels; this proportion is higher for women (60 percent) than men (49

percent)

• 16 percent access the Internet from schools or academic institutions; 76 percent access it from home

• 63 percent express a desire for freedom to do and say what they want as long as it does not harm others

• 37 percent say they can freely express their opinions without fear of the consequences

• 53 percent research companies and products online, and 51 percent spread the word about their experiences with companies—both good and bad

• 37 percent believe that technology has reduced family communication and cohesion

• 41 percent search the Internet in both Arabic and English; 21 percent chat in both languages

• 48 percent are not satisfied with the quality of local websites; 47 percent are not satisfied with local

versions of international websites

• 37 percent are not satisfied with the availability of Arabic websites

• 46 percent of unmarried ADG members expect to choose for themselves whom they will marry

• 8 percent use an online platform to connect with government or political leaders

• 31 percent cited lack of trust in leaders and fear of being targeted as the main reasons for not communicating with political leaders

• 42 percent do not buy products online because they prefer to deal with a person; 38 percent worry

about website security

• 48 percent believe that the region’s healthcare services require technological upgrades; 43 percent believe

this of education services

• 56 percent of those unemployed cited lack of opportunities for work

• 40 percent stated that education does not prepare students for the job market

• 43 percent of ADG members would like to start their own business; just 3 percent want to work for a local company with no international presence

• 24 percent believe that media content is totally controlled by government

The Arab Digital Generation Is Growing Fast and Will Continue to Do So

Online Entertainment Is Popular with the ADG

The ADG Loves YouTube

ADG Internet Access Exceeds Traditional Media Usage

The ADG is Still Hesitant to Buy Online

The ADG Has Many Internet Access Devices

The ADG in the GCC and Levant Follow Global Trends in Device Preferences

On-the-Go Internet Access Is Higher in the GCC and Levant Than the Global Average

The ADG Wants More Flexibility and Freedom

The ADG Wants to Define Its Life Choices

Source: Booz & Company–Google Arab Digital Generation Survey 2012

Some facts about the Youth in UAE

TV remains the number one source for news at 72 per cent, online news sites stand at 59 per cent, while newspapers are used as a news source by 24 per cent of the Arab youth. 

"TV is still the number one source for Arab youth. Some 72 per cent say that's where they get their news from. But only 40 per cent trust what they see on TV. Social media, online media are the way ahead and that's where the Arab youth are increasingly looking for their news coverage,” Jeremy Galbraith, CEO of Burson-Marsteller, Europe, Middle East and Africa, told Gulf News. 

64 per cent of Arab youth use Facebook and socially interact or follow their friends, celebrities, and social commentators, respectively. About 94 per cent of their Facebook friends come from their own country. 

Four out of ten Arab youth actively post tweets and nearly half respond to them. Eighty-seven per cent of them follow friends, while 46 per cent follow celebrities and 21 per cent follow journalists. 

Media Spends in UAE (United Arab Emirates)

The UAE advertising industry accounted for a 33 per cent share of the GCC’s total ad spend estimated at $4.8 billion in 2012 to remain number one, as the print media continued its dominance with a 71 per cent share of the overall market.

According to a report carried out by OOXmonitor, a web-based service that provides advertising monitoring in the Middle East, digital ad spend grew by 12.6 per cent in the UAE compared to 5.3 per cent in Saudi Arabia in 2012. The UAE accounts for 47.1 per cent of GCC online ad spend.

As per our study, the Advertising spends in UAE grew by 9 per cent in 2012 and Newspaper accounted for a major share of 53 per cent. The details of spends in each media are given below:

Year 2011

(Amount in Millions US$)

MEDIUM	YEAR 2011	AD PIE %
Newspaper	853	55%
Magazine	231	15%
Television	166	11%
Outdoor	132	9%
Online	96	6%
Radio	52	3%
Cinema	15	1%
TOTAL	1,545	100%

Year 2012

(Amount in Millions US$)

MEDIUM	YEAR 2012	Ad Pie %
Newspaper	887	52%
Magazine	240	14%
Television	156	9%
Outdoor	220	13%
Online	108	6%
Radio	50	3%
Cinema	29	2%
TOTAL	1690	100%

The media industry in the UAE has brighter prospects because of improving literacy rates, favorable young demographics, higher income levels and technological advancements.

United Arab Emirates - From a Media Perspective

UAE Population

Emirati (19%)	1,040,055
Other Arab and Iranian (23%)	1,259,014
South Asian (50%)	2,736,986
Other expatriates (includes Westerners and East Asians) (8%)	437,918
Total Population (July 2013 est.)	5,473,972

Age Structure

0-14 years:	20.6% (male 577,599/female 551,346)
15-24 years:	13.8% (male 449,258/female 306,410)
25-54 years:	61.5% (male 2,570,054/female 798,070)
55-64 years:	3.1% (male 127,569/female 40,996)
65 years and over:	1% (male 33,481/female 19,189) (2013 est.)

Median Age

Total: 30.3 years

Male: 32 years

Female: 25 years

Other Facts

Population Growth: 2.87%

Net migration rate: 15.04 migrants / 1000 population

Urban Population: 84% of total population

Rate of Urbanization: 2.3% annual growth rate

Obesity - adult prevalence rate: 32.7%

Education expenditures:1.1% of GDP

Total Literacy: 77.90%

Male Literacy: 76.10

Female Literacy: 81.7%

Unemployment, youth ages 15-24: 12.1%

Later we will be discussing how to reach all of the above through Media in UAE.

Source: www.cia.gov