In the last ad:tech New York, ‘widget marketing’ has been nominated as the next big thing in the coming year. According to Wikipedia, Widget is being termed as something similar to a plugin or an extension on the internet browser in your personal space.

 

Previously, people spend their time on certain websites, now with widgets; they are able to bring the content of the website to wherever they go: Facebook, blog, desktop, mobile phones.

 

Mac users in particular should be very familiar with a widget app called Konfabulator – which pulls weather, stock quotes, headlines, etc. from across the Web and places them on the desktop – as it come freely with every Mac computer.

 

Companies such as YouTube, Slide, Wikipedia, and Google are catching up with this phrase and launching widgets so that consumers can use their products at the comfort of their personal space. One familiar application which uses widgets would be Facebook where you add applications of companies to send a video, a photo or a flower to your friend.

 

Marketers should also be very excited with this upcoming marketing tool because by using widgets, they are firstly able to do direct marketing to consumers and cross sell their products since consumers are the one who chose their company and installed their widgets. Secondly, when consumers put the company’s widgets on their personal space, they provide free publicity of the company and products. Lastly and most importantly, installation of these widgets is trackable and measurable, which is the crux of every marketing campaign.

Essentially, widgets are extremely effective and low cost in driving quality traffic, as well as creating brand exposure. However, one thing to note is that the method of promoting these widgets and also the content of the widget greatly influence how impactful these widgets are on ROMI.

One very successful case study of widget marketing is the Levi’s limited edition 23/501 jeans and shoes viral campaign.

To increase the sharing of the widget, Levis filled the widget with unreleased hip hop tracks by popular artists. They then used banner ads to drive traffic to a website which contained the widget together with Wildfire, the creator’s widget distribution network, to increase the web presence of Levis’ widget.

 

The result: The23/501 Collection sold out in less than 50 seconds and more than 10,000 people uploaded the widget on to their personal space. Each widget delivered an average of 10 product views and interactions per impression were 20.8% which was far much higher than the 3% average which rich media banner ads deliver.

Obtaining up-to-date information instantly with every automatic refresh is definitely a luring point to download widgets of your favorite websites. If you find it troublesome to pull out the calculator from your accessories, open the internet browser to Google, I am sure you will be rushing to download the widgets on your desktop.