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Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim - Internet Marketing Blog & Consultant

Internet marketing consultant and expert Andy Beal, and contributing experts, keep their finger on the pulse of the interactive marketing industry and gets the scoops and interviews to keep you informed.

Advergames: Fun Is Not EnoughToday

File this in the “science confirms common sense” folder — although this may be a surprise to many ad agencies.

University of Missouri researchers found that advergames that have a thematic connection to the brand work better to create a relationship with the consumer.

In the study, participants played two advergames, both with either high or low thematic connection to the brand. … For example, the travel company Orbitz designed a game, “Find Your Hotel,” that has a theme related to the company’s travel services. Another Orbitz game, “Paper Football,” does not have a thematic connection to the company’s services.

Kevin Wise, assistant professor of strategic communication in the MU School of Journalism, conducted the study. He found that whether the game had a direct connection to the brand attributes had no influence on whether it was fun to play. But the fun of play was only transferred to the brand when that connection was inherent to the game.

Agency folk love to talk about “interaction with the brand” as the key benefit of advergames. This study shows the importance of designing that interaction carefully. Plastering the brand on the interface may not be enough.

Pilgrim’s Partners: Is a blogger attacking your company without you knowing? Monitor your online reputation with Andy Beal’s Trackur–

Trackur Netbook Winner is….Yesterday

…Rick Galan, who’s following suggestion was selected at random…

"Build website popularity tools into the interface - allow tracking URLs with these tools as well as search terms."

Rick was one of a few smart entrants who realized that the contest allowed multiple entries–so long as they were up to par–and so increased his chances of winning the Acer Aspire One.

Thanks to all who took the time to provide feedback about Trackur. Your suggestions will be carefully considered as we make updates.

Thanks also to SuggestionBox for hosting the contest!

eBay Execs Start Social Network for Life StoriesYesterday

Tokoni, is social network started last year by former Skype President Alex Kazim and former eBay execs including Mary Lou Song and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. It’s also backed by eBay. The site has been picking up content, building up to a formal launch this week.

The social network gathers people’s stories. Tokoni is a Tongan word for “help,” and the founders hope that reading other people’s life will help enhance your life. There are 19 categories and you can add a photo or video to your story. You can comment on stories, link to them, and even reward people for their stories.

The site has added new features (from Tokoni):

• Collections – like a personal “play list”, members can create a collection of their favorite Tokoni stories, grouping “life episode” stories together (e.g., wedding stories, pet stories or travel stories). This would be great for families to tell stories about a beloved relative or to share memories about people in your family.

• Bubble Browser – a visual search tool that enables community members to view the multiple ways in which stories, users and categories are interconnected within the Tokoni Universe. Each time a user “connects” a story, a new link is created in the story web. Users can serendipitously explore new topics and stories by following where each link leads

• Fan Pages – to follow story postings of favorite communi

Linky Goodness, October 6Yesterday

Linky linky goodness, readers, dear
Linky links will come to you all year
If I had one wish, then it would be
A post full of good links to you from me.

Oh, look, my wish came true!

• Do text ads still work online? Oh yeah. In fact, simple text ads are still the most clicked ad type online. Far less popular? Banner and video ads.
• More commercials are coming to online television. I love Ad Age’s opening here: Want more ads with your free web video? Not to worry; they’re coming.
• While the blue background still sets them apart, Google appears to be running unmarked search ads. :\
• More Google ad news: Google image search ads are displaying for some users.
• And one last Google advertising story: as the DOJ and Congress continue to stare long and hard at Google and Yahoo, they’ve delayed the launch of their search ad deal, which was supposed to happen in the middle of this month.

Hakia Redesigns: Is It Enough?Yesterday

Hot on Ask’s heels, the semantic search engine Hakia launches a redesign today, too. Aside from the new SERP layout, Hakia is testing the use of peer-reviewed “credible sites” and a personal start page.

As a tab on the redesigned SERP, Hakia offers an option to refine your results to sites that have been peer-reviewed to meet strict noncommerciality and credibility standards. The results from credible sites, however, are limited to only queries in the areas of health and the environment—and even then, not all of them:

However, for queries where they do have results, it’s definitely nice to know the information is coming from a site you someone can trust, even if the first two snippets here are terrible: