Outdoor enthusiasts are a picky bunch.  Over the last year, with countless campaigns under our belt, the one common thread has been the notion that simpler is better.  This goes against the grain of technology and its use in online media, as most would think you need to run multiple rich media specs with slick flash integrations in order to meet your target audience.

In fact, the opposite is true.  While you still need a strong call to action in the ad, its the ones that paint this message in a simple format that get the results.  Serving up rich media against a standard .gif logo, we've found that engagement with the logo wins hands down....by a factor of 5:1.

Which is why I think for 2010, outdoor brands should take a hard look at how they are approaching the design of their ads.  All of the major research panels point to video being the best thing since sliced bread, and one company is leading the charge.

Enter the mind boggling intelligence of Innovid.  Based out of Tel Aviv, these genious programmers have figured out a way to insert your product inside streaming ads, and allow users to engage at will.  This is huge, because here at the Outdoor channel we already know that outdoor folks hate it when a brand inserts what is called a "pre-roll" before their favorite climbing or sufing video.  Heck, even I hate them and I sell them.

Pre-rolls aren't all that bad, but the signal you are sending to the outdoor consumer is that your message is more important than their time.  With Innovid, the opposite is true:

"Go beyond conventional advertising limits using existing videos as your canvas. Integrate images into movies or use existing objects in the video, hotspot them, or tie them in with any rich media solution you want."

In the case of our outdoor network, take climbing for example.  On a monthly basis, we serve over 18 hrs per day of video content to our 1.7 million outdoor enthusiasts.  The solution from Innovid would be to insert your backpack into all the episodes where a backpack is visible and then the user could choose to click on it to learn more about your company.

Very powerful and amazing stuff.  And like I said in the beginning.  Outdoor folks are picky, so if you let them choose when they want to engage you as opposed to forcing the engagement, I think you'll find quite a few more fans in 2010.

It is not too common where an outdoor client calls over and says they want to get a campaign running with us.....just because.  Like why climb mountains right?  Because they are there.

Maybe the marketing director read something showing the massive migration of print ad spend over to online, or maybe someone built some banners for them and they feel the need to move forward?

I've turned down more of these campaigns than accepted them. It is a simple fact that if a company has a budget, has the creative completed but doesn't know more than that, what will end up happening is the money vanishes and top brass is asking, "...well that was fun, why again did we do this?"

So here are some questions I would like everyone to consider when it comes to designing their online campaign.  Know some of these ahead of time and you are more than set to have a recurring and growing ROI with your campaign:

1. Who comes to your site?
2. Why are they there?
3. What are they doing on your site?
4. What do they find most valuable?
5. What do they want from your site that they don't currently have?
6. What programs are you offering to address this?
7. What creative resources can you offer your customers to engage them on your site?
8. How will you gauge user satisfaction with your engagement programs?
9. How will you show top brass that your efforts to reach outdoor consumers addresses your sales funnel goals ( awareness, engagement, sales impact, ROI)?
10. What can you learn to develop even more effective engagement programs?

Food for thought for 2010!

Sometimes I forget just how new online media is.  I guess if you live and breath it, day in and day out you assume that most are on the same page....or at least headed in the same direction.

I want to spell out a trend that has been taking shape in the industry for quite some time.  I think the fact that comScore has even now started to tackle this issue means we all may be ready to turn a corner.

The issue is this:  More and more ad spend is coming across our desks looking for the wrong thing.  CTR.  People call me and say, "...I want to place my branding in an area of your outdoor network that has strong engagement....something with a high CTR."  Most recently, it has gone one further where people are calling and saying, "...put me anywhere you want, as the long as the CTR is higher than X%."

Listen, if you want to pay someone to pump your ads and game the system, we're not it.  And here is why:

"...because a click is such a hard, tangible metric -- despite the fact that 8% of Internet users account for 85% of the clicks (and chances are, that other 92% is buying most of your products.)"

And not only this, but more data is coming out that says clicks skew towards the lower HHI.  So by optimizing the click, what you are forcing your publisher to do is focus your branding in areas of their sites that attract candidates who are not above average when it comes to income levels.

I am hoping that 2010 will be the year that both direct clients and agencies can get beyond the CTR and begin to recognize online media for what it is.  90% of your purchases are coming from people who saw your ad, remembered it and went to a store or purchased it online.  Kind of reminds you of print doesn't it?

It's been a while since I've posted!  I'll say this....there are a ton of advertisers coming out of the woodwork this holiday season and many of them are hitting the ground running.

For our first campaign ever with Petzl, take a look at how they integrated a call to action with Flash and drive incredible interest to their contest.  Congrats to Petzl for picking us to help with this campaign: