In My House "CPK" has always stood for California Pizza Kitchen – but since we OD’d on their salads, the phrase has been jettisoned from my vocabulary. Until now…

Cost per Keyword ("CPK") is a new SEM buzzword, according to this eMarketer article. A new Doubleclick report found that keyword prices rose steadily through Q3, but Fathomonline’s most recent reports (through November) found that CPK was relatively steady (and a little bit down) for the last few months. Still, even Fathom acknowledged – in October 2005 – that there has been a 19% average increase in CPK over the last year.

According to this eMarketer report, Yahoo! has the largest unique audience and is second only to AOL for average time spent/user (for obvious reasons).

The larger point of the article is that portals are back in vogue. Will portals again begin to sieze back some of the pricing power that they held during the boom?

aQuantive’s Avenue A/Razorfish acquired London-based digital marketing agency DNA – extending their global reach and acquiring some impressive clients (like BMW).

According to this Ad Week article, DNA expects revenues in fiscal 2006 of $8-$9 million. aQuantive is putting $4.8 million up front, with the remainder to be based on performance.

Paul Epstein, CEO of High Voltage Interactive, thinks that it may be time to revise Ed Mayer’s 40/40/20 direct marketing rule for the Internet, according to this iMediaConnection article.

Ed Mayer’s direct marketing rule (created well before the Internet) breaks down as:

• 40% audience
• 40% offer
• 20% creative

Epstein thinks that that 40/40/20 rule is still valid for direct mailing, but direct marketers on the Internet should change it to 25/25/25/25:

• 25% audience
• 25% offer
• 25% creative
• 25% technology

David Verklin (Carat) predicts that online ad spending will grow from 8% to 15% "in about 36 months," according to this Mediapost article. Verklin made these comments at UBS’ 2005 Media Week conference in New York.

Other analysts still predicted big growth – just not as aggressive as Verklin:

* "Piper Jaffray analysts Safa Rashtchy and Aaron M. Kessler, who predicted online ad budgets would grow 27 percent per year to reach $55 billion in worldwide ad spending by 2010"

* "ZenithOptimedia’s revised forecast is about
half as bullish as Aegis’ Verklin, calling for online’s share of U.S.
ad budgets to grow by about 50 percent over the next three
years–rising from a 6 percent share in 2005 to 8 percent in 2008"

On a side note, Search is getting a lot more press as a potential branding medium. Check out this quote by Verklin: "Everybody from Kraft Macaroni & Cheese to direct marketing will be in search."

Ad Age reports that a new Universal McCann report projects that global ad spending is up 4.8% in 2005 (revised down from their earlier projections of 6.1%); US ad spending projections for 2005 are 4.6% (revised down from 6.4%).

But growth is in the forecast for 2006: Global: 6%, US: 5.8%

MySpace’ s audience has increased 609% in the last year – to 25 million users! The audience is young, but the ad dollars are sure to follow. But this eMarketer report cautions:

"Employing
alternate marketing techniques that spread praise for a product through
users rather than traditional visual advertising could be more
effective on social networking sites"

Tim Armstrong, Google VP of Ad Sales, thinks that 2005 is the year that large corporations are jumping from "testing" the Internet as an advertising medium, into committing real budgets, according to this Reuters article.

And what % of overall budgets does online command?

"… analysts believe around 5 percent of U.S. advertising dollars will be spent online this year, from around 2 percent just a couple of year ago. In short order, 10 percent or more could move online…"

Armstrong points to two reasons why budgets are increasing:

1. "Consumer adoption of the Web has far outpaced advertisers commitment to
   the medium"
2. "More recently, Madison Avenue executives have begun
   advising clients to close the gap by committing more dollars online"

There’s a third reason, yes? That is that advertisers are seeing measured results – thanks to better buying/reporting/analytics and of course, Search.

Nielsen and Activision have released a study that found that "highly integrated" ads in video games (as opposed to static ads) can "make players feel more positive about a product," according to this SFGate article. But relevance – and non-annoyance – is key to successful integration.

This Wall Street Journal
article on the same study points out that relevant in-game advertising
"enhances the realism of games." The author also expands on the study,
and writes that companies are beginning to put together rate-cards for
in-game ads.

I am just coming to grips with the stature that gaming has achieived. Robert A. Kotick, chairman and chief executive of Activision confirms its importance in the SFGate article:

"Here is this medium that has more consumption by males 18-34 than television today…"

This Wired article details that Sony’s grafitti marketing efforts may actually be backfiring – as real grafitti artists are tagging over the ads.