by: David Polinchock
Once again, another great example of what's wrong with the advertising industry. Who wants to have their IM's clogged up with all kind of marketing messages? Anyone? And while I have seen some great uses of IM technology in the past, it involved creating custom IM interfaces, not simply doing programs with existing IM systems.
I know I hammer this message a great deal, but you need to engage the audience, not interrupt them! It's not about whether you can grab them while they're engaged in something else — you need to engage them in you. And enough already, impressions don't count. Engagements do!
A new report by JupiterResearch, a unit of JupiterKagan, finds that as few as 7 percent of marketers count advertising in instant messenger programs as part of their media plans. Entitled "Instant Messaging: Reaching a Young, Engaged Audience via an Underused Medium," the report sees value in instant messenger ad placements as a component of network buys.
Portals like MSN, Yahoo! and AOL actively promote their Instant Messenger (IM) platforms to marketers, yet many are still reticent to include the medium in the mix. This is despite the platforms' heavily engaged audiences and huge impression counts.
"If you're looking at a campaign across the network, it's a fantastic way to leverage that and make sure your presence on Yahoo!, MSN or AOL is across the whole platform," said Sapna Satagopan, lead analyst on the JupiterKagan report.
Link: Report: IM Underused as Ad Medium.
Original Post: http://blog.brandexperiencelab.org/experience_manifesto/2006/05/report_im_under.html
