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Coke just released its new strategy to reach its Korean market by tapping mommy blogs to be make its product more desirable to a younger audience. Coke believes these “digital influencers” will produce a strong word-of-mouth campaign at a fraction of the cost of traditional media. (from Advertising Age, July 2010)

Coke first built a relationship with these bloggers not only to properly inform them of Coke’s products but also to ensure that the blogger’s brand marketing would be consistent with Coca-Cola. Coke’s new attempt in social media marketing seems to be accurately executed, as 43% of Koreans maintain a website or blog daily, while 9 out of 10 twenty-somethings log in to a social networking site daily. Coke hopes to expand their blogging network to the rest of Asia as well as Australia within the year.

Broad Street Interactive frequently engages mom blogs in parent targeted campaigns with much success. Typical campaigns would include healthcare-related, daycare-related, and awareness-related campaigns that would not only benefit the blogger but their audience as well. Moms usually are the chief household operators and make the big decisions that affect the whole family, so it is crucial to inform them about potential products and programs that could enhance their daily lives in a way that they feel safe and secure. This is where building trust with the mommy blogs is critical and knowing what is best for them and our clients can pay off in the long run. A trusted blogger usually means trusted advertisements, which will lead to better campaign results and a higher ROI.

In the end, it is all about connecting a community of online moms and enlightening them about the new and upcoming ways of parenting and the lifestyle that accompanies those trends.

Are you interested in reaching a blogging audience? Contact us!

As social media is beginning to outweigh traditional media, people are now finding new ways to get their news and entertainment online. It used to be easier to map the demographics of a particular website, but with social sites like Facebook and MySpace, it is becoming harder to target a specific demographic. It is imperative to understand the trends that lead this shift in media and how ethnic minorities are more prevalent online than we may assume.

In a 2009 study by the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication from Florida State University, data was collected to examine the patterns of social media behaviors of different ethnic/cultural groups in the US. The results showed that ethnic minorities visit social networking more frequently than non-Hispanic Whites.

The data was then extrapolated to determine which social networking site was deemed most popular among the users in the study. English speaking Hispanics again were at the top of the list with MySpace being the most preferred social site, followed by Facebook.

Although these statistics are interesting, finding the reasons why this shift in media is occurring among ethnic minorities will give advertisers and marketers a better understanding on how to engage this audience.

English speaking Hispanics tend to be a younger demographic than non-Hispanic Whites, and there isn’t any doubt that a younger generation is more accepting of emerging technology, but age is only a partial explanation for the use of social media. Factors like culture are more likely the relevant key driver of social behavior online.

Culturally, Hispanics are more collectivistic than non-White Hispanics and tend to look for advice from others when making important decisions. With social sites like MySpace and Facebook, these ethnic minorities can be connected to family and friends who are dispersed geographically. Also there tends to be a lack of content available online that is culturally relevant and in-language; ethnic minorities are forced to use social media in order to create and share their own content.

Although social sites provide a platform that allows people to organize and enhance their experience with others online, culture is still the bond that brings people together. Advertisers and marketers must focus on the cultural aspect when trying to reach ethnic minorities and reinforce their audience’s views and beliefs in the brands they are trying to promote.

The transparency of ad placements has always been a struggle between advertisers and blind ad networks. Not knowing where your advertising dollars are going can cost you valuable impressions and clicks towards a campaign. As advertisers have less certainty to where their ad budgets are being allocated, service providers that offer ad-verification placements are becoming more popular.

Why won’t it become standard for ad networks to show clients the site list where they are placing the media? It seems that if a client needs to hire a 3rd party ad-verifier because they do not trust the network they work with, then they shouldn’t be working with them in the first place.

These ad-verification providers, like DoubleVerify, AdSafe and AdXpose, are able to track client’s ads using tracking pixels embedded in the ad tags. They are then able to monitor where the ads are being placed and remove them from sites that are inappropriate to the client—not to mention a refund from the publisher’s network. These ad-verifiers do more than just ensure that your ad doesn’t appear on adult content sites, but also review any specified IO agreements like page placements and geo-targeted placements.

“The use of verification is growing exponentially,” said Kent Wakeford, chief revenue officer of AdSafe. “It’ll become standard in online media buying.”

Although this new ad-verification service is able to catch and report the problem of misplaced ads, it doesn’t necessarily solve it. Even if the ad is taken down from an inappropriate site, the inventory bought is still lost from the media buy. The client is now getting a reduced number of impressions and has nowhere to place the excess media.

Fees for such services are about 5 cents per thousand impressions and although that seems low, it is an unnecessary expense to a client for trying to place media fairly. Fully transparent networks are the only way to give clients the confidence of using an agency without having to hire ad-verifiers.

Here at Broad Street Interactive, our ad placements are fully transparent on our hyper-local CPM ad buys. There is no “blind ad network” so you don’t have to worry about not knowing exactly where you are spending your money. When you pay for a media buy with Broad Street Interactive you get a full site list and approval of each media plan before we place any ad.