The CEO Game

Blow for Yahoo? Strike on Bing? Google Acquires Teracent for Targeted Display Ad Technology

Internet giant Google announced today on buying Teracent, an American startup company which specializes in display advertising. This is another step in Google’s waged war on the control of the advertising market, with the arch rival Yahoo and newly sworn enemy Bing by Microsoft. Unfortunately, the financial terms are undisclosed and haven’t been revealed yet. Google whose income comes mainly from textual advertising which is search related, intends to maneuver the purchase in order to base its status in the field of online graphical targeted advertising. This announcement underscores Google’s plans to double down in display advertisement.

A New Age For Interactive Ads?

This is no surprise, last year Google completed purchasing the online advertising company Double Click, which also deals with display advertising for 3.2$ billion. Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt claimed on September that Google plans to return to making purchases, after a minor pause, or setback if you wish, due to the global financial crisis. At the time, he also said that Google wishes to “buy a company a month” (on average). It seems Google is keen on fulfilling its chairman’s announcement: under-less than two weeks ago, Google bought AdMob, which provides solutions for cellular marketing for 750$ million in shares in a deal which is meant to sweep the cellular advertising market.

Teracent was founded by Vikas Jha, former vice president of Inktomi, a software company which was acquired by Yahoo. Teracent, the California based company runs software that lets private advertisers, agencies and ad networks to deliver multiple versions of ads to different users across the Web and on mobile phones. It is triggered by certain information that can be determined on the user from the web such as location, gender, income and interests. A fashion giant like Lacoste or Calvin Klein would be able to use Teracent’s technology to advertise a promo for its winter collection for Vancouver viewers, while users from Sunny San Diego might see new summer accessories.

This concept is nothing new, many competitors such as Tumri and Dapper have been behaviorally targeting viewers so they can promote customized ads. The only difference is that Google is going to use the software to automate display ads in the same manner it did with search ads, trying to make web display ads relevant more than ever for both advertisers and consumers. This move means that the entire search industry could be shifting to display ads. It’s also a slap in the face of Yahoo who previously partnered with Teracent for some business ventures. Up to now, Yahoo has surpassed Google in display ads.

In conclusion, the move comes as a blow to Yahoo, which may have to end the aforementioned partnership with Teracent, but it’s a big win for the marketers, which will be able to create interactive ads that will customize themselves just like search ads do, hitting the iron when it’s hot. Just so you know, last year, the popular Internet search engine had an income of 22$ billion, I suggest keeping an eye on the next year’s income.

More from The CEO Game on Google: Google’s investment in the EBM, and Google Planet.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

Most of the time, when one encounters an act of unprofessionalism we tend to related it, in our mind, to small and unsuccessful businesses. The main reason we have this connection between unprofessionalism and small businesses is due to the fact that most small businesses don’t hire professional marketing companies to design their marketing message. The reason for this fairly simple: They don’t have enough money to pay for it. Well the fact that you lack the money to hire professional marketing company doesn’t mean that you are hopeless, here are few tips that will help you create a professional looking marketing campaign but under a tight budget.

Small Business Marketing

Internet Marketing:

Internet marketing does require a financial investment and basic technical knowledge, but there are ways that you can create a successful low cost marketing campaign. Internet presence is a must in today’s financial age and the easiest way to reach the masses.  There are many ways to create an online presence, some might be: Social networks, Targeted Ads or even Search engines. You should explore all those tools for better understanding of what each of them has to offer. Anyway the first step you should perform in your internet way is to create your own site because it gives a way to reach you (Using blogs, forums or even simple contact details).

Branding:

A small business has some advantages; two of them are agility and the ability to produce new product or services fast. When you talk about branding, being a small business is not a strong point. In order perform a successful branding plan your brand should project an image of a strong and a leading product and not a small fragile one. Those attribute are usually associated with large companies, therefore when you brand you must present yourself as if you are equal among the large companies. In today’s world projecting a strong image is a far easier task than it used to be. Using low-cost services such as: ready to go web site templates or even professional business cards is quite cheap and can add a lot to your business image.

In the CEO Game, you will start as small business owner. Knowing how to act among the larger fishes in pool will be a must if you want to eat and not be eaten. Using intelligent marketing tricks and hard work will be the keys for getting to the next level.

Ailon.

The CEO Game.

Market research supplies information that assists in marketing-related decision making. Through market research you can understand the business environment, assess competitive advantages, recognize threats and opportunities, measure performance, and develop an action plan for your product, advertising or distribution channels.

Searching For the Right Information.

In many cases market researches is an effective tool in getting information that supports decision making. Should you perform market research for every business call? Well, the answer is no. There are some situations that don’t require market research. To help you determine when you need market research, you should examine the following questions:

Is the research relevant to the marketing decision that we have to make? You probably should not perform market research just to satisfy your curiosity. You should only perform market research when it’s relevant to questions about your current strategic planning. Market research should supply all the information you need currently, depending on the types of decisions you have to make, and the current circumstances.

Is there any available information that can assist in the decision-making process? Occasionally you can find a lot of valuable information about the decision your about to make inside your organization. This information can be found in different kind of forms. This information can be from different market research done for other purposes, past experience of different persons, or different databases or software such as ERP, CMS and other organizational systems. You should try avoiding performing market research when it’s not really needed.

What are your time constraints? Performing market research requires time. You need time to gather relevant information from the field or even insert it into your systems. Performing the market research should be done under the consideration that it should be done before the relevant decision has to be made. Performing market research under too tight a schedule might cause inconsistent data and mistakes.

What is the Cost vs. Benefit ratio? It’s important that you first assess the value of the information that will be provided from the market research. It’s important to weigh the value of the information versus the relevant expense to see if it pays off or not.

In the CEO Game marketing research is one of the main tools in your marketing arsenal. Using it wisely can help you gain a strategic advantage over your competitors. Waiting your time on non-relevant market research will leave you behind.

Ailon.

The CEO Game.

Since marketing is one of the key corner stones of a successful company I decided to devote this post for some marketing strategy basics. In one of my searches I found this video that sums up the marketing basics that every CEO has to know and doesn’t have the time to learn anywhere else. Take in mind that knowing the basics is only the first step in a long journey for success. Another key issue is knowing when and how to combine the other factors in the company’s tool bar in order to achieve a better synergy. Like we mentioned before one of the key tools of succeeding in the CEO game is building an effective marketing plan which also includes branding your products. We in the CEO game will continue posting post about how to improve your marketing strategy in the next few weeks.

Ailon.

The CEO Game.

Branding is a business method which creates an image in the mind of the public about a specific product. Branding a product allows the product to be recognized as a different product from other similar products. Branding allows products to be perceived as unique in a relation to a specific attribute. In order to successfully brand a product the product must have a positive effect on our daily life style. Trying to brand a “weak” product won’t succeed on the long run and might even back fire. The process of branding a product might take months or even years, especially if the branding is targeting the international market.

What Is Your Brand?

The steps for creating a brand are first performing a market research and review. This step is a critical step in the branding process, without performing the research you will be lacking the basic tools which will help with dealing with the market’s needs.  This step will contain all of the important factors that you will need to analyze such as the product itself, the product advantages, weakness and the competition. After you finish performing the market research the next step is building your branding strategy. Branding a new project requires having a work strategy which will allow you to reach your branding goals in the most effective way. A quality branding must require a building an effective work strategy based on past experience in the branding field.  The third step of building a brand is to create and design a product concept.  This process will contain the creation of a product logo, symbols and writing the marketing message of your product. The final step of product branding is assimilation of the product image in the public’s mind. This step will be usually made in the interaction points between the company and the costumer such as ads, stores or sales points.

In the CEO game branding is a key tool in your marketing arsenal. Learning how to use branding correctly in this serious game will allow you to attain a reputation of your products that will assist you in your sales.

Ailon

The CEO Game.

What is Behavioral Economics?

Logically wrong.

Behavioral economics is an academic field combining the departments of economics and psychology, providing useful implementation of studies done in behavioral science, in order to understand better the subject of decision-making at the economic field, and how it affects the economy: prices, investments yield, resource allocation etc.

The discipline deals mainly in rationalism or irrationality of market agents and public trends for decisions making.
Models of behavioral economics combine insights from the field of psychology with the theory of neo-classic economic.

Ok, that was a bit long and confusing.
So what is behavioral economics is all about?
It means that economics is not something you can measure in logical terms. The main key factor for eco-changes is humans, and those creatures as you already know, aren’t that rational.

If you study the cognitive and emotional factors, on a certain group, you may find explanations for some of the groups economic decisions.
One of the most important issues are the effect on market decisions and public choice.

Why we need it?
because we humans act irrational!

• Why gambles in casino are keep gambling although they know they’re gonna lost all their money?
• Why people always say they need to save money for retirement, start exercise, stop smoking, keep on balanced nutrition- and still do nothing?
• Why victims, who have been treated improperly, demand revenge, although it damages their interests?

All those (and many more – I can go for hours), harms the ‘economic person’ model, which has been the base of the classic and new-classic economics for hundreds of years.
The ‘economic person’ take rational and logical decisions, motivated by personal interests, after considering the cost-benefit and try to maximize his profits.
The ‘economic person’ is a wise, reasonable, selfish and analytic person, showing perfect self-control, and act in order to achieve his future goals. He is not moved aside by his mental or physical states.
This man is the base of all the economics theories and models for the past hundred years.
There’s one problem – He does not exists!

While dealing with real people, you find out different types of irrational behaviors.
Some actually damages the person himself, some showing altruist behavior and far from the one’s interests.
The bottom line: psychology takes huge part on the process of decisions making, revealing the conflict between logics and passions.

People, like animals, have basic tension between provide themselves immediate satisfactions, and patiently waiting for future satisfactions.
They want it here and now, and also wish to think about tomorrow.

In general, people act irrational when they are underestimating in the value of the future.
They (humans) spend too much value and effort for things we want to do right now, on the expanse of the other good thing we can do in the future.

And still- marketing is everything!

It has been shown that the wisdom of marketing is the base for motivating the mass and the crowd to change their way of thinking and choose one product over the others.
Marketing is a key factor in which the economic person reaches all the irrational ones, and affects them to do what is right, diverse from the immediate satisfaction desired.

Marketing, by the orientation of behavioral economics, must take into consideration the population it’s aiming too.
Geo-location, age, education, standards, latest trends and culture are one of the many things it should consider.

Is it also relevant for the CEO Game? Of Course!
One of the most important roles the CEO need to be very close to is the Marketing department. It must be creative, smart, and targeted.
The difference between become the hottest trend and be another shelf product as many others, is by taking the public heuristics into consideration.
Learn the area, learn your potential consumers, feel the market and think how to become outstanding (original rather than normal).
Develop a marketing plan and sale your products as they are the best thing the community could ask for, be aggressive but gentle, think big and give credit for your buyers.

And the most important, always remember that humans are irrational. You can’t predict the future.

Cheer’s!

Nimrod

The CEO Game.

Every entrepreneur now how important is the business plan, but not everyone take seriously the importance of the marketing plan. Especially at the early stages of their new business.

Your way to move one step forward

What is a marketing plan?
the marketing plan describes in much details all the marketing actions a business need to do in order to achieve its business goals.

Why it is important?
it allows every business to think through its business targets and goals it wish to accomplish in the short, mid and long terms.

What’s in the plan?

1. Management brief
   1. Short!
   2. Everyone who reads it will understand where the business stands today and where it heads.
2. The business targets
   1. What do you wish to achieve
3. The current situation
   1. the product: functionality, appearance, branding, guarantee, packing, support
   2. the coast: funding, discount
   3. the distribution ways: who are the distributors, what is their motivation, their marketing share , logistics, their location, the level of service
   4. the marketing: advertising, public relations, the use of media and budget.
4. Market analysis – where is our business according the market trends.
   1. What is the size of your potential market?
   2. What are the weakness and strengths of the business?
   3. Where are the business stands?
   4. What are the market last trends?
5. Customers analysis
   1. how to reach new costumers,
   2. who are good customers
   3. in which clients to invest
6. Marketing plan alternatives
   1. Analyze each alternative
   2. Visualize your alternative
   3. Examples
   4. The chosen plan in details, advantages and disadvantages.
7. Impact of each plan in the short, mid and long terms
   1. What do you expect
   2. Your forecast
8. Conclusions
9. Appendix

Nimi.

The CEO Game.