Earlier this year, we kicked off the Art, Copy & Code project, a series of partnerships with innovative brand marketers and creatives, to explore how modern tools and storytelling techniques are re-imagining advertising. The first project was a Google+ enabled social app for sharing drives, created with Volkswagen, Deutsch LA and Grow. It explores how brands can build relationships with consumers beyond just traditional ad formats. For our next project, we’ve partnered with Burberry to re-imagine how brands can deliver beautiful, emotional experiences across different devices and screens, while reaching a key audience -- millennial consumers. The goal was to accomplish this through the lens of beauty products, while still delivering a luxury experience in a digital environment.

Today we’re unveiling Burberry Kisses; it lets you send a kiss (a digital imprint of your real kiss) with a personal message to a loved one anywhere in the world, from any device. You can read about how the experience works on our Google blog, or watch this video below.

Built using HTML5, the Kisses experience is delivered across display ads, web and mobile. Modern browser technologies, like WebGL, CSS3, 3D transforms and WebP, allowed us to build a rich experience without compromising performance or requiring custom plugins, or apps. These same open web technologies are allowing brands to deliver magical creative experiences at scale, in a true “build once, run everywhere” fashion.

The Kisses experience will be available via a lightbox ad, meaning Burberry can reach millennials on the web at scale via a standard 300x250 display ad footprint, but engage them with the full screen Kisses experience with the ad’s expanded state (which opens up after a two-second hover). This the first time we’re using HTML5, WebGL, and dynamic creative in a lightbox ad, showing the creative possibilities within a large canvas. The same experience is optimized for smartphones and tablets, and delivered via mobile rich media ads. It will also soon be featured on Burberry’s YouTube channel.

A kiss seemed like a natural focus for this project because it is one of the most iconic symbols of human interaction.  By creating a personal-yet-shareable experience that appeals to millennials, it builds a connection to the Burberry brand, without feeling like a traditional ad. Burberry will also install this digital experience in its flagship stores so consumers have the same interaction with their brand everywhere, further blurring the line between physical and digital worlds.

To add a personal touch to the interaction, we’ve used dynamic image processing, based on location, that adds unique details to everyone’s experience. For example, as you see your message journey to its destination across a 3D landscape, we added more realism by reflecting dynamic StreetView images into puddles on a city street; local landmarks identify important street names to further bring the experience to life. We're excited about the potential of technologies like this to help unlock of an age of beautiful, emotive digital advertising. This campaign is aimed at showing what that might look like. Today, brands have an amazing opportunity to connect with their audience in ways they will love, remember and share, on any device. We will continue to push the creative boundaries with more such partnerships. Until then, pucker up and send a kiss to someone you love, and share it, like this one I sent to my mom. 

Lastly, if you’re visiting the Cannes Lions festival next week, please join us for fireside chat on Friday, June 21 at 4:15pm local time, between Christopher Bailey, Chief Creative Officer of Burberry and Lorraine Twohill, Google’s VP of Global Marketing. For more on Art, Copy & Code, please visit our website. 

Aman Govil

Team Lead, Art, Copy & Code project

Last week, we heard leaders from top agencies talk about the need for their search teams to streamline workflows using fast, responsive tools that allow more time for strategy in a constantly evolving search landscape. But as digital marketing increasingly becomes multi-channel, multi-screen, and multi-faceted, marketers today have more opportunities to connect with their audiences across a variety of digital touchpoints, beyond search. 

In addition to fast tools, we heard that marketers also need integrated technologies to help make smarter decisions across the breadth of their digital marketing. Our next video, Search marketing is now smarter, explores how unified platforms can help surface deeper insights through a holistic view of online marketing activity -- within search and beyond -- and how DoubleClick fits in.

 

As Jeremy Hull, Associate Director of Paid Search at iProspect notes: “Paid search doesn’t live in a vacuum. It interacts with every other channel that you work with, online and offline...understanding those interactions is going to allow you to optimize it, and see how it fits in with your overall marketing efforts.” With this in mind, we built DoubleClick Search to natively integrate with our display ad server, demand-side platform, and our rich media and analytics platforms -- all a part of DoubleClick Digital Marketing -- to help marketers drive deeper insights from one, unified view of their customer:

• Holistic view: DoubleClick’s proprietary conversion tracking pixel, Floodlight, lets marketers measure and report on deduplicated conversions across search and display for more accurate reporting.
• Powerful attribution: DFA attribution tools allow marketers to create and apply custom      attribution models to better understand how their marketing efforts are working together to drive conversions.
• Offline conversions: Because online advertising often fuels offline conversions, marketers can also connect the dots with the DoubleClick Search Conversions API, factoring in conversions that occurred offline (through in-store transactions and other offline activities) for transactions that started from interactions with online search ads.

Having a single view of the consumer allows marketers to better understand the interplay between channels, without the mashing up and reconciling of different data sources -- but beyond just having access to data, what seamless opportunities do marketers have to take action on those insights and drive results for their business? Join us next week in the final post of our series, where we’ll discuss how top agencies use platforms to improve performance from untapped cross-channel opportunities in our video: Search marketing is now better.

To learn more about DoubleClick Search, visit our YouTube channel and stay tuned to the DoubleClick Search blog.

What are some of the big questions about search that keep you up at night?

That’s what we asked search marketing leaders from top agencies in a series of interviews, to understand what excites them -- and challenges them -- about the state of search today.

We caught up with Eric Papczun, US President of Performics, Erica Barth, VP of Products and Partnerships at Resolution Media, Jeremy Hull, Associate Director of Paid Search at iProspect, and Sean McDonald, VP and Group Director at Digitas to learn about their perspectives on those “big questions” and how DoubleClick Search fits in. And overwhelmingly, we heard three key themes: the need for search marketers to streamline workflows and act faster, to make smarter decisions with all of their data in one place, and to drive performance for better results. We’re highlighting their perspectives on these themes of faster, smarter, and better with a series of videos -- starting today with Search Marketing is Now Faster.

This video explores how search marketers must keep pace in a digital marketing landscape that's moving faster than ever before, and highlights how the right tools can help search teams work more efficiently to maximize their marketing campaign results.

 
As Eric Papczun notes, “The ability to change a campaign -- modify a strategy, in the moment -- is what speed is all about.” At DoubleClick Search, we’re investing in features that give search teams a simple, intuitive way to manage their accounts at scale across engines. Many of our newest features, including bulk editing enhancements and new scheduling options help eliminate tactical or repetitive tasks across as many as 150 million keywords in a single day(1), while instant conversions offer up-to-the-minute feedback on campaign performance to let marketers quickly act on real-time feedback. 

Agile, responsive tools are just one piece of the puzzle. Marketers also need the right tools to help make smarter decisions within search, as well as across other online channels. Next week, we’ll hear from our thought leaders on how platforms are critical in enabling smarter decisions in digital, with our second video: Search Marketing is Now Smarter.

To learn more about DoubleClick Search, visit our Youtube channel and stay tuned to the DoubleClick Search blog.

1. Google internal data, 2013

Imagine: you’ve built a beautiful digital marketing campaign and it’s finally live. You get your reports back with a list of data points and while the numbers seem good, it’s pretty hard to understand them without any reference points. That’s the crutch: data doesn’t take on meaning when it’s just floating around in the ether; you need to build context around your data and anchor it to other relevant data points to better understand what your own numbers mean. 

Industry benchmarks -- reference points aggregated from ad campaigns across the industry -- give you these comparisons. And today, for the first time, we’re launching the Display Benchmarks Tool, an easy-to-use webpage that lets you pull benchmarks to help you make better decisions about your campaigns.  

Whether you're after comparisons by country, industry vertical, ad size or ad format, our tool offers up-to-date benchmarks across 10 key display metrics, such as interaction rate and time, expansion rate and video completions. Here’s a quick demo of how to pull the benchmarks. 

We've been playing around with the tool and identified some interesting trends around user engagement in our industry. Here's a bit of what we've seen:

Trend #1: User choice leads to more engagement: People want to choose how and when they consume content online. We’re starting to see new ad formats, such as the TrueView and Engagement formats, that let people choose whether to watch or skip an ad. Our benchmark data shows that people are increasingly choosing to interact with these ads. Video completion rates are the highest we’ve ever seen, with people completing 60% of the videos that they watch.  

Trend #2: Richer ads lead to more engagement: Longer interaction also stems from more beautiful and compelling ads, which advertisers are increasingly incorporating in their campaigns. Interactive video ads, such as this one from Cadillac, allow advertisers to layer information about their brands on top of their video commercials. Dual-channel ads, such as this Skyfall ad, let viewers turn their mobile phones and tablets into controllers that dictate what happens within the content on their desktop. These ads represent the new creative formats that are closing the gap between advertising and awesome content. And we’re seeing the results: since last summer, people are interacting with rich media ads ~50-60% more frequently and spending ~20% more time interacting. 

Trend #3: Optimize your campaigns for engagement: Advertisers used to rely solely on click-through rates and reach/frequency reports to measure their campaigns. Now, these new rich media formats provide a better set of metrics, which help advertisers understand what’s best for users and optimize their campaigns. For example, from the benchmarks tool we’ve learned that interaction rates correlate strongly with larger ad area - the bigger the ad, the more frequently people will interact with it. Similarly, we’ve learned that rich media expanding formats are better for getting people to interact frequently, while in-page formats are better for getting people to interact for longer amounts of time. These types of insights are instrumental in making improvements to an advertiser’s campaign.

These findings confirm what we've heard from our partners -- as ads become more engaging and relevant to users, their performance improves. If you’re still hungry for more data, don’t worry --  next Tuesday, we’ll be kicking off a “Data Insights Blog Series,” where we’ll deep-dive into one trend a week and explain how the insights apply to your campaigns. 

As you check out the tool for yourself, let us know if you find any nuggets you think we’ve missed. We just might feature your insight in one of our blog posts.

Posted by Becky Chappell, Product Marketing, DoubleClick

On June 11th, Google Shopping will complete the transition to a commercial model in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Brazil, Australia, Switzerland and the Czech Republic. When the transition is complete, free product listings will no longer appear on Google Shopping. We believe this new model, built on Product Listing Ads, will help retailers of all sizes connect the right products with customers around the world, increase clicks to their sites, and convert more shoppers into buyers.

Onward and upward
We've been pleased with the rapid adoption of Google Shopping by the global retail community. Over 1 billion products are now being promoted globally on Google Shopping, largely driven by a 300% year-on-year growth in participating sellers (including many aggregators and marketplaces). And we’ve seen 20% growth in traffic to retailers over the past year.

Global merchant success stories
We’ve heard from a variety of retailers around the world who have embraced Google Shopping and are seeing great results. Check out the highlights below:

France	eSearchVision helped Vertbaudet, a retailer specializing in children’s apparel and decor, launch a Product Listing Ads campaign that accounted for 7% of sales from their website in the Autumn-Winter 2012 season.
Japan	Enigmo runs a social shopping site offering domestic customers brand items from sellers outside of Japan. After they optimized their data on Google Shopping and created a Product Listing Ads campaign, Enigmo succeeded in increasing the number of new customer sign-ups.
Netherlands	TuinFlora.com is a family-owned business that exports flower bulbs, seeds and plants across Europe and the US. They promoted their products on Google Shopping for their top export markets and saw their conversion rates increase by 20%.
United Kingdom	Forward3D helped New Look, a leading fashion retailer for men, women and teens in the UK, experiment with Product Listing Ads to increase reach and improve engagement beyond standard text ads. They used Merchant Center labels to categorize the catalogue by price bracket, balancing CPAs and ROI more effectively. As a result, New Look saw a 24% increase in revenue week over week, 68% overall revenue growth and 40% improved ROI.  Equimedia helped WHSmith.co.uk, a retailer of books, stationery, and more, promote their products on Google Shopping. Product Listing Ads represent 6% of total PPC spend but generate 10% of the revenue, producing a total ROI that is 59% better than standard text ads.
Germany	Hurra.com helped bonprix, a leading fashion retailer, complement standard text ads with Product Listing Ads, achieving a 50% higher click-through-rate and 30% higher conversion rate at the same cost-per-click.

Make the most of Google Shopping
Whether you’re just getting started with Product Listing Ads or are looking for more advanced optimization strategies, we’ve compiled our top recommendations to succeed with Google Shopping below. Read on for these quick tips and sign up for one of our upcoming Hangouts on Air in your country to learn how you can prepare for the global commercial transition.

If you’re new to Product Listing Ads

• Get started with Merchant Center, the place to upload your product data to Google 
• Once your products are in Merchant Center, create a Product Listing Ads campaign to promote your products on Google Shopping

If  you’re already using Product Listing Ads

• Use the All Products target to quickly promote your entire inventory
• Take advantage of automatic bidding for Product Listing Ads, which saves you time and resources by enabling Google to automatically adjust your CPC bids to optimize traffic
• Provide high quality data and follow our updated product feed specifications
• Promote products across devices by ensuring all of your Product Listing Ads campaigns are upgraded to enhanced campaigns

For agencies

• Join Google Engage to get the latest agency news, trainings and support from the Google Shopping team

Need additional assistance? We’re happy to help. Feel free to visit our Help Center or call one of our Shopping specialists in your country below:

• Australia - 1800 087 124
• Brazil - 0800 727 8947
• Czech Republic - 800 500 353
• France - 805 540 727
• Germany - 0800 5894933
• Italy - 800930819
• Japan - 0120-984-684
• Netherlands - 0800 2500026
• Spain - 900 814 539
• Switzerland - 0800 002539
• United Kingdom - 0800 169 0711

Posted by: Sameer Samat, Vice President of Product Management, Google Shopping

What’s the future of digital media and marketing? How are CMOs thinking about leveraging digital to reach and engage audiences? What marketing channels are proving most effective in building brands digitally - paid, owned or earned?

These are some of the questions executives from across the digital marketing ecosystem will address at thinkDoubleClick, Google’s annual discussion on the state of digital.

Register now to join the event livestream on June 4th, 9:00 AM - Noon Pacific. Registration enables you to participate in the conversation, and ask speakers and panelists your questions with #thinkDCLK.

thinkDoubleClick 2013 speakers include:

• Wendy Clark, Senior Vice President, The Coca-Cola Company
• Jim Lanzone, President, CBS Interactive
• Peter Horan, President & COO, Answers
• Meredith Kopit Levien, Group Publisher & Chief, Forbes
• Randall Rothenberg, CEO, IAB
• Lorraine Twohill, Chief Marketing Officer, Google
• Michael Learmonth, Chief Editor, AdAge

We look forward to seeing you on June 4th!

Missed last year’s event? It’s not too late to catch up with the videos below.

Posted by Scott Brown, Product Marketing Manager, DoubleClick

What is top of mind for mobile leaders in the agency community?  How are agencies helping their clients win with mobile?  In an effort to better understand the challenges that agencies face when it comes to mobile, and to strengthen our efforts to help them tackle and overcome these challenges, we decided to bring together a group of mobile evangelists from the agency world.  At a recent event in New York City, we asked a few of these mobile leaders what excites them - and what challenges them - about mobile today.  Today, we are excited to share these interviews with you on Think Insights, Google’s hub for marketing insights and inspiration for advertisers and agencies. 

One of the topics that we found to be top of mind for everyone is the challenge of mobile measurement in a multi-screen world.  "We need to get beyond the old metrics of the Internet, television and print, and define what the new metrics are for mobile engagement," shared Jeffery Hinz, Managing Partner & US Digital Director at MediaCom.  Zach Morrison, VP & Director of SEM at Elite SEM, outlines the so-called "holy grail" of understanding consumer behavior across multiple devices to see the full customer journey.  As Morrison says, "The first thing people do in the morning is wake up and grab their phones and the last thing they do at night is do something on their tablet - I think the next biggest thing is tying it all together."

We also spoke with our mobile champs about topics ranging from brand building strategies to showrooming to where they think mobile is headed next.  Be sure to check out the full interviews on Think Insights.  We hope you will find what these mobile thought leaders had to say as interesting and thought-provoking as we did.

Posted by: Samantha Podos Nowak, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads