mediaFORGE says they've got "widgets coming out of their ads."

Ahem. Presumably they are referring to the "social dimension" that's been added to banner ads by incorporating a widget as an engagement engine. As visitors roll over the ad, a flash-based widget appears that allows users to interact with content – whether it’s contests, shopping, browsing personalized specials, buying last-minute deals, viewing videos or pictures, or listening to music.

Source: mediaFORGE
Visuals: mediaForge.com

Increasingly, marketers are going beyond standard site metrics and examining user behaviors to measure the effect of online advertising on engagement and brand image and compare results to television and other platforms.

Below are some of the most commonly used terms used in analyzing online advertising effectiveness so that you can banter buzzwords with the best of them!

Clickstream
Clickstream data provides an indication of the upstream and downstream traffic to and from a website/industry. Clients can use this information to analyze the traffic generation strategies of their competitor's websites and understand where traffic moves to once it leaves a website or industry.

Upstream
The websites/industries visited immediately prior to visiting the profiled website/industry.

Downstream
The websites/industries visited immediately after visiting the profiled website/industry.

Session
A session is defined as a continuous series of URL requests, running applications. Logging off or 30 minutes of computer inactivity ends a session. (Differs slightly from a Visit which only considers URL requests.)

Visit
A visit is defined as a continuous series of URL requests. A gap of 30 minutes between URL requests would end a visit. (Differs slightly from a Session which also considers running applications.)

Active Internet Universe
Active Internet Universe describes people who are 2+ and used an Internet-enabled computer within the time period.

Sources: Nielsen/NetRatings, Hitwise

Burgeoning trends in mass customization and do-it-yourself, as well as user-generated content on blogs, YouTube, and social networks, reflect consumers’ growing interest in brands and products that reflect their unique personalities. Here are two examples of companies that leverage consumer interest in brands that enable self-expression.

Source for ScionSpeak: International Herald Tribune

Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want author: James H. Gilmore,B. Joseph, II Pine asin: 1591391458

Contrived. Disingenuous. Phony. Inauthentic. Do your customers use any of these words to describe what you sell or how you sell it? If so, welcome to the club. Inundated by fakes and sophisticated counterfeits, people increasingly see the world in terms of real or fake. They would rather buy something real from someone genuine, rather than something fake from some phony.

Starbucks has achieved significant growth. And because of their success, their brand is in danger of becoming a commodity brand in the category they created. 

The warning signs were there, as anyone with 20/20 hindsight can see, including a “watering down of the Starbucks experience” where speed and efficiency were emphasized over romance and theater, stores smelled like breakfast sandwiches instead of coffee, and a cookie cutter store design became ubiquitous.

Recently reinstalled CEO Howard Shultz expressed his concerns in a recent memo. “Over the past ten years, in order to achieve the growth, development, and scale necessary to go from less than 1,000 stores to 13,000 stores and beyond, we have had to make a series of decisions that, in retrospect, have lead [sic] to the watering down of the Starbucks experience, and, what some might call the commoditization of our brand.”

1. Put Some Muscle In Your Brand Positioning Strategy. Too many marketers deliver puny brand strategies that don’t demonstrate an understanding of the target, fail to differentiate the brand and define the competition too narrowly---which is too bad. A well-honed brand positioning statement defends the brand against commoditization and provides a roadmap for growth.
2. Authenticity Is The Ultimate Way To Avoid Commoditization blogs Buzz Canuck, quoting the book, "Authenticity: What Customers Really Want." Premium brands must deliver differentiated, well-conceived experiences that are authentic to core brand values to resist commoditization.
3. Ensure Employees Understand The Brand Experience. A well known hotel brand reportedly reminds employees they are “Ladies and Gentleman Serving Ladies and Gentleman.” Is there any doubt of the brand experience this company expects its employees to deliver? There’s no need for a long, involved treatise; one succinct phrase or sentence will get the job done.
4. Ensure Employees Deliver The Brand Experience. Show employees how their performance impacts customers and compares to competitors, say the authors of “Communicating Change: Winning Employee Support for New Business Goals.” Then explain how it impacts their work environment and job security---without beating them over the head.
5. Talk to customers and non-customers - frequently. See if they can express if and how you're different from the competition.
6. Use Your Messaging To Communicate Brand Differentiation. A landmark study by Copernicus/Market Facts released in 2001 warned that many brands were becoming less differentiated and more commoditized due to the following factors:

-A shift from brand building advertising to promotional programs
-A shift from informational-oriented advertising to entertainment oriented advertising.
-A shift from communications which communicate distinctive positioning strategy to communications which focus on brand essence or imagery.  

Avoiding the brand commoditization trap isn't easy. But you wouldn't want an easy job, would you?

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"Just as net worth represents the difference between financial assets and liabilities, Net Promoter quantifies the difference between customer assets and liabilities. With one question, we can sort customers into three categories:

Source: NetPromoter.com

Memetrics is a provider of testing and optimization solutions for digital marketers. Memetrics technology is available on demand for Web-based campaigns or through licensed software for enterprise-level multi-channel initiatives.

Kefta provides a content optimization solution helps companies build a profile automatically for each site visitor, and then translate that profile in real-time to a targeted and optimized online experience by delivering a specific, instead of generic message.

Mediasurface develops, markets and implements Web Content Management Software (CMS) that helps businesses take full advantage of the capabilities of the web by transforming the complex task of managing websites into straightforward activities.

Interwoven is a content management solutions provider that enables organizations to leverage content to drive business growth by improving the customer experience, increasing collaboration, and streamlining business processes in dynamic environments.