Marketing Pilgrim

Here at Marketing Pilgrim, we talk a lot about reputation and how it’s managed. Of course, we have our reasons .

When others talk about reputation, it peaks everyone’s interest especially when you are talking about the 150 largest companies in the US. Forbes reports on a study conducted by the Reputation Institute about just how these companies faired and for the Internet only crowd it’s good news. The three companies on that list from the Internet space are biggies: Amazon, Google and ebay. As you can see from the Top 10 below they “done us proud”.

Ebay finished 81st.

Macquarie Capital has just published their Ad Tracker report for 1Q 2011 and believe it or not, it’s AOL that came out on top.

Twice per quarter, the company analyzes display advertising sales on the homepages of YAHOO, AOL, YouTube, and MSN. Looking at the data from the first quarter of 2011, AOL won the award for the most improved player.

The company had the highest proportion of Oversized/Custom ad units (ex YouTube) at 26%, and it also had the highest percentage of purely brand-focused advertisers (which we view as a positive indicator of ad quality).

AOL’s new Project Devil program didn’t make the splash they’d hoped for, but Macquarie says we should see more of these large interactive ads in the second quarter.

You know how people are always saying, “I wish there was a way to view only ads without that pesky content getting in the way?”

Okay, no one says that, but you have to admit that advertising is sometimes the most interesting and creative thing on the page. Not here at Marketing Pilgrim, certainly, but other places. That’s why Apple has released the new iAd Gallery App.

With the iAd Gallery App, you can scroll through a list of engaging iAds and watch them do their stuff. Because everyone deserves credit, the agency responsible for the ad is listed when you tap, along with a short paragraph explaining the ad function.

They also offer a neato browse wheel so you can flip through ads like a wheel of fortune. It doesn’t do anything different than the side scrolling version, but it sure looks cooler.

Google has been revered for the opportunities it provides for businesses of all sizes and that kind of praise is well deserved. At the same time though it has been cursed at by the same businesses who have a question about something that Google offers but there has only been the classic Internet support system of e-mail and forums for ‘support’.

Well, either Google has suddenly heard the cries of the great unwashed (which is defined by those who don’t automatically just ‘get’ how everything with Google works) or there is something else brewing. Why do I say that? Because yesterday Google announced that it was providing phone support for ALL Adwords customers based in the US and Canada regardless of their size or relationship with the company.

Imagine the difficulties that Google must have compared to many other Internet companies. Along with the great success and truckloads of cash comes the reality that different laws in different lands are going to create many different headaches especially in the legal realm. Italy has been particularly rough on Google and now it has ruled against the search giant in a case that involves the content of search results from Google’s autocomplete function.

ZDNet UK reports

Google has lost a case in Italy over the defamatory nature of autocomplete suggestions, according to a lawyer for the complainant.
On Tuesday, lead counsel Carlo Piana wrote on his blog that the Court of Milan has upheld its earlier decision to order Google to filter out libellous search suggestions. These are the suggestions that pop up in Google’s search input bar, proposing what the user might be wanting to search for.

After many months of talk about a set of self-policing rules for digital marketers, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has finally launched their Ad Network & Exchange Quality Assurance Certification program.

The new IAB guidelines is a 35-page document that covers such topics as Acquiring Inventory, an Online Media Rating System, Data Disclosure and methods of handling customer complaints. Ad networks who agree to follow a published set of guidelines will receive what they refer to as “the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for digital marketing.”

For those of you born in the later half of the century, the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval was awarded to products that were tested and approved by the popular homemaking magazine. It started in the early 1900′s and was a highly recognized symbol of trust through the 40′s, 50′s and 60′s. If a product had that seal, then the consumer knew it was safe, reliable and a good buy.