Neuromarketing

MRI is being used as an additional research armoury for marketers. Jack Daniels commissioned research on brain stimulation on images as part of their ad creation. So while digital marketers get fired up about the possibilities of behaviour and psychographic search across loose networks of sites (Openx, Google Admanager), marketing is already paving the way for plugged in neuromarketing. Yikes! Guardian Technology Article by Nick Carr

Granted triggering firing synapses while the subject is encased in an MRI machine might be a large step from the measurement of purchase intent, but it does put into a different context the controversy being kicked up about BT, TalkTalk, Virgin chats with Phorm and it’s ISP based user behavioural tracking. Guardian Technology Article by Charles Arthur

On the one hand we have marketers potentially being able to map reactions at a cellular level and on the other planting of cookies across general net surfing.

From peanut butter to jelly

Is it a clever strategy to get Microsoft to up it’s non-solicited bid, or do the decision-makers in Yahoo! really believe that they will be able to double it’s cash generation ($1.9 – $3.7 billion) over three years. Yahoo! might have brand and scope but it’s share of global search has been seriously eroded by the goliath Google.

Underpinning the predicted growth are the staples of online; search, email and mobile albeit with an increased social slant. Advertising is also key and the hopes are that the release of Panama last year will result in an additional $1.4 in search advertising (reflecting market growth) over the next 3 years. Yahoo! expect an additional $1.9 billion from display and video search (ahead of market forecasts).

With the infamous peanut butter manifesto leaked at the end of 2006, there was a focus on the use of API’s to increase Yahoo!’s sphere of content influence while remaining at the heart of the web. Now it seems that Yahoo! is focusing on some advertising jelly to sweeten it’s future.

Vital Yahoo! Stats:

• 305 million unique monthly users to homepage
• 262 million unique monthly users of their mail

Google and accessible digital marketing

Almost a year on, but Google can finally go ahead with the Doubleclick acquisition. You’ll remember that both Yahoo! and MSN argued that the purchase was anti competitive. Europe has ruled in favour of Google who has always maintained that display advertising DoubleClick was complimented but Google’s text ads.

On another note, Google has launched Google Ad Manager , a stripped back, easy to use ad server for publishers. From a digital marketing point of view, Google can only be applauded for their release of products which allow even the most neophytic online marketer access to tools that will help increase their effectiveness. In the last year or so Google Analytics with it’s joined up tracking, Ad Sense and AdWords interface changes, the expansion of webmaster tools, Google sites and docs has had a really positive affect on how site owners view digital marketing, making things less confusing, more transparent and reducing the barriers to marketing success for many smaller companies.