Advertisers on Gourmet Ads are Not Just Food Advertisers

If you’re advertising any sort of food or beverage product, then Gourmet Ads is the most relevant advertising platform for you (if we do say so ourselves). This is because we manage the advertising on sites frequented by grocery buyers. They range from food blogs to recipe sites and coupon destinations. So it’s logical to use Gourmet Ads to reach you’re the grocery buyer. However Gourmet Ads is much more than that. We have a unique and unduplicated audience which is great for advertising a range of products to.

We say that our audience lives to eat, but they also like to travel, look great, stay healthy and look stylish. Typically our audience is female aged between 27 and 55 years old, but there a few exceptions to the rule. So we’ve put together a short breakdown of sectors which perform well on the Gourmet Ads network and how we would position them for your campaign.

Travel
Food and wine go hand in hand with travel which is why both our food and wine verticals are ideal for running your next advertising campaign. Because we reach the household decision maker, it’s these people which not only make decisions about what to buy for dinner, they also heavily contribute to the decision of where they go on vacation. By using some of our retargeting and behavioural targeting options, running a travel advertising campaign with Gourmet Ads is much more cost effective than running your advertising campaign through a dedicated travel vertical advertising network.

Women’s Fashion
Our food vertical is predominately female, so Women’s Fashion is a logical fit with this audience. So no matter if you’re a designer, supermarket, mall or fashion retailer your campaign will reach your target market. Our audience likes to be at the forefront of culinary trends and no doubt they like to ear the latest fashions. Be sure to have lots of visuals or rich media to promote your fashion.

Entertainment
Both TV and Movie studios are always looking for cost effective avenues to promote their latest TV show or movie. Depending if the show or movie is aimed at a female or male demographic, we can serve the ads accordingly. However most of the entertainment campaigns we’ve run seem to always choose run of network when running branding campaigns because of the wide reach they offer.

Cosmetic and Skin Care
Cosmetic and skin care companies will find they have the ability to target different age groups with their cosmetic and skin care product advertising campaigns. By using behavioural targeting together with the food vertical you could run different advertising depending on the age group. So you could target the 30′s age group with Hydration products, the 40′s Anti wrinkle and 50′s Intense Anti Ageing products.

Automotive
Unlike dedicated automotive vertical advertising networks such as AdTorque, Gourmet Ads offers automotive related companies two specific audiences. Car companies who run advertising around small cars aimed at women will find food an ideal platform to talk with potential female buyers. Our audience is also interested in green or hybrid related advertising campaigns.

Pharmaceutical / Over the Counter Medication
Many Pharmaceutical companies can find it hard to located related inventory to some of their products online. However advertising through the Gourmet Ads we’ll reach a very female audience of consumers that want so stay healthy. Some Pharmaceutical medication that treat a range of symptoms or illness such as diabetes, acid reflux / heart burn, constipation, irritable bowel syndrome, menopause, and headaches / pain would all perform well, when advertised through the food vertical.

Baby / Maternity
Moms and moms to be are definitely part of our audience, and we’ve recently started categorizing sites that have a baby / mom focus. This allows you to delve deeper into dedicate food sites which have a specific mom focus. Some will be about foods to feed your baby as well as toddlers.

Cleaning Products
Our audience of household decision makers and main grocery buyers is ideal when advertising any sort of cleaning products for around the house. Apart from kitchen related cleaning products, any sort of consumer package goods like laundry powder, carpet cleaner, bathroom and toilet cleaner is ideal. Household appliances also would perform will so items such as washing machines, dryers, vacuum cleaners etc.

Not Just Food Advertisers, but Travel and Automotive Perform Well Also

Finally and most importantly, some of the sectors mentioned above like travel and automotive traditionally seen as an expensive CPM buy within their own environment. It’s essential to remember that when they are on travel or automotive sites they are generally at the end of the buying or research cycle. The consumer either knows where they want to travel to or are working out which car to buy. When advertising in Gourmet Ads it’s about brand awareness and capturing possible customers at the beginning of the conversation. As such Gourmet Ads will be less expensive than your typical travel or automotive focused ad network. Remember Gourmet Ads is Not Just Food Advertising.

Not Just Food is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

** Updated click to read – > Advertising Trends 2012 **

10 Advertising Trends for 2011 from Gourmet Ads

For the past few years, as the year comes to a close, I’ve tried to predict the Advertising Trends for the year ahead. I’ll be the first to say that I’ve got some predictions wrong, but for the most part I think I’ve been on the money. My advertising trend predictions are simply derived from what we as a company are seeing in-market. If you’re curious to see what I wrote in previous years they can be seen here – Advertising Trends 2010 and Advertising Trends 2009.

What I can say about the digital advertising space is that it changes rapidly and you need to keep up with advertising trends, especially for agency media buyers and brand advertisers. How we operated or worked has changed significantly over the past few years.

As we go into 2011, the majority of commentators (if not all) are predicting growth across the entire digital advertising industry. For us however there are two advertising trends which I believe are real industry game changers; Video Advertising and Real Time Bidding. Both of these will change how consumers interact with ads, as well as brand performance and ultimately overall campaign results.

So here are our 10 Advertising Trends for 2011 from Gourmet Ads…

1. Video Advertising (Pre Roll)
During 2010, video advertising matured into a real product for many publishers, and we believe this trend will continue in 2011. This was for the most part due to video ad servers working to both VAST 2.0 and VPaid standards. We believe that Pre Roll will continue to dominate. It’s expected by the industry common standards for Non-linear / in-player ad units will finalize specifications making it easier for advertisers and media buyers to produce one set of creative for multiple publishers. Right now many publishers have their own standards, making it a headache when developing nonlinear video creative for multiple publishers.

At Gourmet Ads we’ve heavily invested in to both development of our food video advertising offering as well as working with key players on VAST 2.0 and Player integration. During 2010 we started adding a number of food publishers with video content and we believe this trend will continue into 2011. For publishers, the key when it comes to video is having quality content and we expect there to be investment made in this space also in 2011.

2. RTB (Real Time Bidding) & DSP (Demand Side Platform)
If you attended ad:Tech in New York back in November you’ll know the two buzzwords there were RTB and DSP. Over the past twelve months the industry has seen a massive growth in companies offering a real time solution (I’ve heard there is now over 50 in the US market alone) as well as large agencies investing in establishing their own trading desks. The DSPs basically allow agencies to buy an audience using some sort of data segments in real time.

For the most part, this activity seems to be have been restricted to the USA only, however we strongly believe that an advertising trend for 2011 will be a number of DSPs will pop up in the UK, Europe and Australia replicating the growth of the USA.

3. Data, Data, Data.
We’ve already mentioned Real Time Bidding above, but the underlying foundation of RTB rests in systems being able to understanding the characteristics of the audience, and in the case of RTB making a buying decision at that time if they want to purchase the impression. This all occurs using some sort of Audience Data usually acquired from one of the number of data suppliers out there. In addition there are some interesting products such as Quantcast’s “Lookalikes” which allows you to buy precisely the audiences you want, based on targets defined by your own audience data. i.e reach an audience you want using audience characters in line with conversion data for example. We believe that an advertising trend in 2011 will be for companies like Gourmet As to take a look internally at their own data sets and start allowing advertisers to target this data. This is certainly something we’re working on both a technical and a marketing perspective and believe that others are taking similar steps right now.

4. Location Based Marketing
Remember when you Location Based Marketing meant you were sent an SMS if you walked past a store. Hasn’t it changed dramatically with 2010 being the year for location based services. Not only did the likes of FourSquare and Facebook allow you to “Check In” to places, but local coupon based services like Groupon grew at unprecedented levels, so much so they just turned down a $6 Billion acquisition from Google. There is no reason why this mobile focused advertising trend won’t continue in 2011 and beyond where local retailers can take advantage of technology and preciously market to audience in a given geographic region.

In addition to mobile Location Based Marketing, Gourmet Ads is currently seeing unsurpassed levels of enquires about running campaign with some sort of geo targeting focus. This is either national brands running ads in specific locations, or more regional companies using digital to geographically target their consumers either at the state level or right down to the DMA or postcode.

5. Consolidation of Ad Networks
There was a period of 3 weeks in October and November this year where we saw one video ad network buy another every three weeks. Talk about dog eat dog. We haven’t seen this trend really in regular display ad networks for some time, but we think it has to happen. If you haven’t checked out the Luma Partners Display Ad Landscape chart you have to. It illustrates not only how many of the companies in the Display Ad Landscape work with each other, but you’ll notice how crowded the space is. As such there has to be some market consolidation. Not so much for companies that have a niche like Gourmet Ads which only does food, but we believe that there will be consolidation for ad networks which have a general focus and have no niche.

6. Mobile Advertising
An advertising trend which we’ve said it for the last three years is Mobile Advertising, but 2011 will be the year that Mobile Advertising takes off. Not only are smart phones like iPhone and Android handsets selling like hot cakes, you’ve now got additional inventory from devices like iPad which are as mobile as phones with larger screens. Apart from Apple’s own iAd Network, the leaders in this space have been publishers like the New York Times really experimenting with mobile ads.

For Gourmet Ads, the advertising trend of mobile advertising is significant. We have run some initial campaign tests, but in Q1 2011 we’ll be exploring how to give advertisers the ability to reach household grocery buyers in store, thus helping influence the consumer at point of sale in the supermarket.

7. Socially Enabled Ads
Socially Enabled Ads are about engagement, not CTR and we’ve seen this advertising trend pop up in Q3 and Q4 in 2010 and we believe it will become the standard as we roll into 2011. Socially Enabled Ads means that when running the advertisement there is space on the ad with links to the brand or companies social pages like Twitter or Facebook. A lot of print and TV campaigns are running this sort of messaging. A company which produces these ads very effectively is Spongecell. Be prepared to see more creative being socially enabled in 2011.

8. Increased spending by FMCG & CPG Brands.
Again an advertising trend we mentioned last year and the year before, but it’s actually happening in some markets now. Many of the large FMCG / CPG companies are now actively spending online and consistently from month to month. I guess what we saw more of in 2010 was brands run more campaigns throughout the year, opposed to reserving all their budgets for Q4 like has been done in previous years.

In terms of an advertising trend, we’re predicting we’ll see a raft of more small to mid sized companies move to online in 2011 where they can easily compete with large FMCG / CPG companies, possibly more so on a localized / geo targeted basis.

9. Non Standard IAB Units
During 2010 we’ve seen a massive growth in requests from media buyers for Non standard IAB Units and we believe that this advertising trend will continue into 2011. Sometimes referred to as “Beyond the Banner”, Non standard IAB Units provide advertisers a creative executive that grabs the viewers’ attention. The key executions we’ve worked with are ;

• Background Advertising
• Content Page (like this Recipe Pages for KitchenAid)
• 800×600 Anchored Floating Creative which “float above the content then disappear)
• Totally customized units – an example we’ve done a few times is a 990 x 300 which has been placed underneath the top navigation on our publishers sites.

The challenge with going down the path for media buyers of using Non standard IAB Units is that they do required additional resources on the creative side to execute. We’ve had plenty of agencies and advertisers want this type of activity but fall short either not having the budget or resources to create custom sized ads or content. Additionally we’ll see these booked for longer periods such as 12 months or at least by the quarter, which takes me into Sponsorships…..

10. Sponsorships
Sometimes including Non Standard IAB Units and other times just regular display ad units, sponsorships have been an advertising trend that we’ve seen occur during 2009, 2010 and will continue into 2011. For those that are not familiar, this is where an advertiser buys a fixed placement for a period of time of a particular ad unit. An example could be a 12 month buy out of say the Recipe Homepage. Typically we have seen sponsorship type placements booked on a CPM basis, we believe the trend will move into a fixed type pricing for sponsorships.

We’d love to get your feedback on some of our 2011 Advertising Trends. So feel free to leave a comment.

Advertising Trends 2011 is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

Our Q4 Advertising Packages include High Visibility Ad Units

From our blog yesterday about Q4 Advertising Campaigns, we thought we should publish a second blog about Q4, however the focus today is about our Q4 Advertising Packages. Over the past 3 years, the Gourmet Ads reach during Q4 has increases approximately by 20-25% compared to throughout the year. As such, this is a great time to book campaigns as the audience numbers increase.

Altogether we’ve got very different types of Q4 Advertising packages available on Gourmet Ads, each of them not only feature extremely competitive CPM rates on display ads, but they include high visibility ad units which are ideal for any food company or CPG advertiser who wants to reach the main household grocery buyer.

Highlights of the Q4 Advertising packages include;

• 1-day Roadblock sponsorships with Premium IAB placements
• 300×250 in-banner video supported with Premium IAB placements
• Brand Over the Page Takeovers with Premium IAB placements
• Background Skins with Premium IAB placements
• Pre Roll Video with 300×250 Companions

Also if you don’t have creative assets, Gourmet Ads can help develop these for you.

In terms of Value Add, depending on your budget, we can provide a varying level of value add such as brand pages and other long term creative placements.

So if you’re tasked with running advertising campaigns aimed at getting in front of grocery buyers and household decision makers, then Contact Us for a copy of the Gourmet Ads Q4 Advertising Packages.

If on the other hand you know the type of campaign you’d like to run, Request a Proposal from our team or Download our Media Kit for more information.

Q4 Advertising Packages is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.

** Updated click to read – > Advertising Trends 2012 **

Last year we wrote a blog called 2009 Advertising Trends where we looked gave a somewhat forecast of what we thought the trends would be. Some things we got right, others we didn’t.  Certainly 2009 for most advertising companies is a year they’d rather put behind them.

So looking forward into next year, we thought we should but together a list again, this time with our 2010 Advertising Trends we think will happen in 2010. Some are from foundations of things that we’ve seen in mid to late 2009, others are purely speculative.

Any way we’d like to get your thoughts and comments on our 2010 Advertising Trends predictions. Because its 2010 we thought 10 would be a good number to start with.

Our 2010 Advertising Trends

1. Media Buying via Vertical Ad Networks
We saw during 2009 a great deal of media buyers and media planners starting to include more vertical advertising networks into their client media plans. There is no question that Vertical Ad networks are an efficient means to reach niche audiences. So we believe that this trend will continue into 2010 and beyond. The key for all vertical ad networks (including us here at Gourmet Ads) is to ensure that we continue to deliver value for money on premium sites, whilst ensuring we provide quality audiences, reach and creative execution for all media buys.

2. Increased Online Media Spending
We’ve already seeing an increase in the budgets for 2010 RFP’s during Q4 in 2009. Companies and their advertising agencies that were only doing short term media buying are already asking for 12 month plans for 2010. We believe that as companies continue to reduce their TV, Radio and Print budgets they’ll be seeking to reach consumers online where the metrics can be measured. We’ve even heard from food companies that previously didn’t have an online strategy hiring digital teams and/or digital agencies.

3. Pre Roll Video
During 2009 we had a lot of agency folks indicate they were testing various video formats for clients. Some tested in-unit video, standalone video, pre roll, mid roll, post roll and video on interstitials. Agencies are now indicating that what is working for them is pre roll video and preferably with a companion ad. So we expect during 2010 that we’ll see increased demand for pre roll video inventory.

4.Increased spending by FMCG & CPG
This was a key advertising trend prediction last year and we’ve started to see this happen. Although some campaigns I question the messaging and creative, but overall many of the large FMCG / CPG companies are now actively spending online and consistently from month to month. We’re  predicting we’ll see a raft of small to mid sized companies move to online in 2010 where they can easily compete with large FMCG / CPG companies, possibly on a localised / geo targeted basis.

5. Beyond the Banner / Non IAB Sizes
Throughout 2009 the buzz word on nearly every RFP was “Beyond the Banner” and we don’t think this will change as we head into 2010. We believe that advertisers will be asking for more Non IAB units as part of campaigns from simple logos to standalone rich media. So what kind of Beyond the Banner / Non IAB Sizes solutions excite advertisers? Try changeable backgrounds, recipes integrations, brand integrations and widgets to name a few. Additionally we’ll see these booked for longer periods such as 12 months or at least by the quarter.

6. Behavioral Targeting & Retargeting
If you’re at Adtech New York recently you would have noticed the vast amount of companies offering both Behavioral Targeting and Retargeting solutions. I even heard of one company that said vertical networks don’t have to have recruit publishers just gain access to pixels on people’s computers! We’re running more and more long term campaigns which include Behavioral Targeting of some sort. They are great for ecommerce sites and anywhere where conversions are critical.  and we expect this advertising trend to continue well into 2010 and beyond.

7. CPM rates increase
We’re already seeing CPM rates increase in Q3 and Q4 2009. CPM rates for the most part are back at sensible levels compared to early 2009 when they were extremely under valued. Major publisher had to significantly discount. Although some markets are taking longer to recover than others, CPM rates across the globe are certainly increasing or are stable.

8. Interstitial Advertising
We touched on this above under Beyond the Banner / Non IAB Sizes. As brands are looking for higher visibility in more non IAB units, Interstitials are a great way to deliver them and we believe that during 2010 more advertisers will be requesting them. They’ve been the secret for many direct response advertisers for sometime because of their high click through rates as well as engagement rates. Its not always inbound interstitials, some of our publishers who provide gateway content are offering outbound interstitials.  Finally, don’t just expect to see static or rich media on Interstitials. We expect to see more 10 and 15 second video being used on Interstitials as advertisers look at more high profile avenues to engage with audiences.

9. More Coupon based Campaigns
Given the economic climate of 2009 we saw a great deal of brand campaigns which include some sort of discount coupon. For the most part these Coupon based campaigns have performed extremely well and we expect this advertising trend to continue in 2010. The majority of coupon campaigns have been run by large food companies, however we believe that in 2010 we’ll see smaller food companies and even wine companies using these sort of tactics to drive sales. Expect to see even more and more ecommerce sites using this tactic to drive sales.

10. Gourmet Ads will be the largest Food Network globally
Obviously as I’m in the driving seat, I can say with confidence that Gourmet Ads will continue to grow in our key markets of America, UK, Canada and Australia. Apart from this we’ll also start to see other markets emerge in Europe and Asia. We’ll continue to recruit quality publishers with fantastic audiences ensuring that campaigns perform.

We’d love to get your feedback on some of our 2010 Advertising Trends. So feel free to leave a comment.

2010 Advertising Trends is a blog post from Gourmet Ads Food Advertising network, providing Display Advertising , Video Advertising and Supermarket Advertising solutions to reach the Grocery Buyer online.