Topics for 2/21/2010

Here are the proposed topics for this week's episode of The BeanCast, and as usual we'd love to hear your thoughts and questions.

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This week's panel will be Tyler Hurst (tdhurst.com), Jennifer Leggio (ZDNet, Mediaphyter, Quick'N'Dirty) Angela Natividad (Hypios, AdVerve) and John Wall (Marketing Over Coffee).

TOPICS

Olympic Effectiveness...At a Price: Despite not selling out ad inventory and despite decline in overall buzz over the Olympics, the early reports are that the advertisers are getting good value for their spend during the games. But this seems to jibe with overall online sentiment that NBC's coverage is poor as a whole. First, the good. John, why are the ads tracking so well? Is this a good sign for the Olympics as whole? Is the main benefit to advertisers the aggregation of content during primetime here in the US? Are the ads even particularly good? What tactics do you see that are particularly interesting or effective? And what about this primetime issue. Is NBC's effort to maximize impact for advertisers coming at the expense of viewer enjoyment? Is this a dangerous game that could kill Olympic interest or something that audiences are just going to accept more over time?

Sentiment Limitations: This week I've been part of a lot of chatter online regarding sentiment analysis. Sentiment measurement is still a pretty hot new tool for most marketers. But some, including Ben Kunz over at Thought Gadgets, questioned how it's being used, suggesting that sentiment alone led automakers to build more SUVs a few years ago. Jennifer, is sentiment analysis alone misleading us as to real trends in market desires? What are the real advantages of sentiment measuring? How is it best incorporated into overall analysis of markets? Are the tools themselves partly to blame for skewing our impressions? How does sentiment analysis need to improve? Obviously this tool is here to stay, but will over-hype severely hinder its growth?

The Ugly Power of Pre-Roll: One of my favorite people online is Jim Louderback, the outspoken CEO of Revision3. He always has some great thinking about measurement and effectiveness of online video. And this week in Ad Age he voiced some interesting perspective on Pre-Roll ads attached to online video. Because even though it's vilified, it's also extremely effective. Is effectiveness the be-all, end-all measurement of whether a tool should be used, Tyler? Should advertisers be concerned about the hatred for the format by the audience? While effective, does it leave consumers with a bad impression of your product? Do we really even need to be looking for alternative advertising tools for online video when pre-roll is so effective at evoking response and recall?

Fortune 500 Failing At SEO: Here's one that's kind of shocking in our optimized world. Apparently while the Fortune 500 is great at buying keywords, they are failing abysmally at optimizing their sites for organic ranking. John, why is there a continued resistance to SEO among the biggest corporate players? Is this simply a product of arrogance — we don't need to optimize, because everyone knows us? Is there a real danger these companies face or are they right in thinking they're too big to worry about it?

Facebook Directing More Traffic Than Google: Finally, Facebook had a big week. The latest research shows that they surpassed Yahoo! to become the #2 most-trafficked site and they now also direct more traffic online than Google. What do these numbers mean, Angela? Is this another indication that social links are more effective than searched link? How valuable are these numbers in the end if they're not tied to profit generation? Is Google still most important simply through the weight of their profitability or can Facebook capitalize on this sea-change?