Tech Stars: Why “Type-In” May Be the Future of Online Marketing and PR

Tech Stars is a weekly column profiling potential white hot stars in technology.

Companies and agencies want eyeballs. Media want to make a buck. On the left hand side of this equation, advertising, marketing, branding and PR are increasingly added together as one. To many, the X factor to the right of the equal sign — the ROI for online communications investment — remains as elusive as a proof to Fermat’s last theorem. Most answers are wrong. I’ve just seen one that may be right.

Let’s start with Wrong: a new media site on cloud computing, which shall remain nameless to protect the undeserving guilty. Looks to be 50% staff written, timely and objective. So far so good. Then I click on “Blogs,” looking for opinion from editors or industry “thought leaders” (ack, I detest the term, but never mind that for the moment). What I find: Contributed content is exclusively authored by the publication’s platinum and gold sponsors, in that order. For real. Readers probably don’t mind some pay-for-play, but this is pure editorial abdication, allowing any story to run, however blatantly self-promotional or poorly conceived and written, as long as a check hits the publisher’s in-box. This site is DOA.

And now, Right — although its own authors may themselves still be unaware of the full potential of their brainchild.

NYC’s Solve Media has come up with an innocuous form of advertising called the Type-In ad. Basically, the Type-In is nothing more than a brand-directed form of the venerable CAPTCHA — you know, that mechanism requiring you to enter hieroglyphics on web sites to prove you’re human. Rather than random code, however, the Type-In ad is a wee box containing an advertiser’s name and a one- or two-word brand slogan. Viewers are asked to type in the slogan in order to proceed with whatever content they’re looking at — a promotion, discount offer, etc. The process takes an average of 7 seconds, versus 14 seconds for CAPTCHA.

The so-what: Type-Ins increase consumer brand awareness by 146%, according to a study conducted by AnalyticsDNA.  For ad/marketing departments accustomed to yawner single-digit lift numbers from most Internet advertising, the kind of stats generated by Type-Ins are truly beany-boggling. Most interesting of all: Consumers don’t mind Type-Ins in the least and are happy to key in a brand name in what looks like a CAPTCHA space in order to get to the content they want. Check out AnalyticsDNA founder Young-Bean Song’s perspective in Eric Savitz’s space on Forbes.

How long will it take online media, agencies and clients to see the spillover value of Type-Ins in editorial content and begin deploying Type-Ins in news stories, features and commentary, both in-house and contributed? This subtle ad-generation business model — propelled by readers themselves — might have a great deal more potential than other attempts to gin up revenue online.

As a reader of The New York Times, for example, or say, any number of tech and telecom trades that have gone from free to paid subscriptions, what would you rather do: Pay $hundreds per year for a subscription to every online rag you love — or read it absolutely free, provided you clicked through a Type-In to access a story? I think the answer’s pretty obvious: Put the onus on the advertiser, who by the way, will be thrilled at the boost your use of the Type-In gives their brand recognition.

In the tech trade arena, Type-Ins could end those interest-killing “Sponsored Content” banners. Publishers, you can still make ‘em pay, but without such “kiss of death” lead-ins. Editors, presumably, will be allowed to resume the practice of editing guest submissions — even for paid content.

For all the above reasons, Solve Media is this week’s Tech Star. To online media and advertisers, the Type-In may be love at first sight, or in seven seconds, whichever comes first.

Jim Crawford is the president and founder of Crawford PR and the author of Black Box Blog, where he offers hard-earned perspective on public relations for the tech and telecom industries.

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