Advertising meets technology: quotes worth noting

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

"Anyone who says TV is dead, hold the phone: There’s your TV"
David Murphy, president of Saatchi.

"It’s like reading three books, going to 26 lunches and clicking on 564 sites…"
Jim Crate, cited in ad for Ad Tech conference in san Francisco, April 26-28

"It is bordering on derogation of duty for a marketer today to commit to a campaign that isn’t integrated, particularly in terms of the way it marries offline components with the use of Web tools such as search and even online retail"   Jonah Bloom, Advertising Age, April 23, 2006

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Crouching media tiger, leaping ad content

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Cory Treffiletti, writing for Media Posts’s Online Spin takes up that famous argument being wrestled with in the agency world. To consolidate or not. Check out the article here.

The gist of this is that agencies, if they are to compete in an environment of ‘multi-tasking and media fluidity’ need to be seen as seamless multi-taskers not silos. To do this, they need to organize their business units around client’s needs –if they are to put their money where their mouth is and become ‘partners’ not vendors.

"Outdoor is going digital. Broadcast is going digital. Even print and radio are finding ways to go digital. The methodologies and processes which have been built in the Interactive business are primed to be integrated, at least in part, into the rest of the business. By continuing to run separately from the "traditional" business, agencies become territorial and they create infighting over where dollars need to be spent."

But agencies, that are often scapegoats for the present not-seeing-the-wood-for-the-screens impasse, are not the only ones culpable. Starcom’s John Muszynski called on the TV industry to stop painting themselves and everyone else into a corner, with the Upfronts. In case they hadn’t noticed, he pointed out something that is patently obvious now –that "content has leaped from TV to encompass all screens." It’s demand and supply, folks. Content will flow where the demand is, and in real-time. The Upfronts are vestiges of the 20th century media-buying tactics, when the Big 3 networks were talking about different kinds of screens!

In a somewhat related story, Yahoo announced a way to record TV programs on screens other than TV. Talk about fluid media and leaping content!

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WOM and citizen marketing: companies are getting it

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John Cass’s comments on GlaxoSmithkline’s use of word of mouth, is worth reading. It’s at Backbone Media.

Steve Rubel’s commenting on American Express engaging in citizen marketing, brings up something that underlines this trend: opening up, warts and all. Transparency in marketing and PR is talked about a lot. Putting it into practice, getting out there and opening a few windows is hard.

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Our very own channel: what will TV networks do?

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User generated media sounds sexy and all that, but people forget that groups of users are more interesting than individuals –hence aggreggators, and social networks. So UGM is definitely going to have to contend with business generated media (for want of a better term) where groups of people may pool content. 

This Forbes story about Michael Eisner’s ‘peer-casting network,’ Veoh, suggests that it is trying not to be another YouTube, but a mix of content from individuals and businesses. If more businesses get it and get in, then we would probably see a Starbucks channel, or an Aveda channel with a twist –some of the content will be produced by  customers themselves. Don’t believe me? They do exist already in parody form. Check these Starbucks parodies on Grouper, a video blogging site.

If we are to be optimistic as this USA Today piece is, that marketers are beginning to understand the value of streaming video, the old TV networks may have to morph into broadband companies that just happen to have TV networks. What will the TV networks do? Partnering with marketers would be a start.

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Branding has left the building

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Brand building has moved out of home office, and is now online. This is where real consumer dialogs are taking place. As a marketing communications manager I have to recognize and listen to the voices ‘out there’ which are more compelling and interesting. If we tap into the C-to-C channels, we’ll find much more going on there than anything in our B-to-B or B-to-C world.

The online world is getting a lot of attention, but how convinced are the layers? Steve Rubel’s observation today that even TV execs don’t seem to really get it, parallel’s an article in Ad Age I saw in February, that says Madison Avenue "needs to figure out emerging media –fast– or lose billions of dollars to someone who will."

The story featured Verizon Wireless marketing VP lashing out at the old way of buying media. Hugely reminiscent of Jim Stengel’s stern warning to the ad community in 2003. Which makes me wonder, how many warnings does it take to to recognize that branding, distribution, and audience interaction is not what it used to be even two years ago?

As Kenneth Musante puts it, everyone, including the TV folks, are in the collective big-toe-in-the water stage of the game. And while they are doing this, the YouTubes of this world are crashing the marketing and television party, aren’t they?

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Needed: digital currency for online content

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A plan by Disney to offer free TV content online is a glimpse the where advertising could get innovative. As I had been speculating, ad-supported content is coming to streaming and downloadble media, but it should not mimic the way advertising works in television. Faced with ad-killing DVR other time-shifting technologies, the only way to counter it is with technology, but not technology that punishes viewers, or technology that primarily interrupts content.

For the moment, according to Disney’s plan, interruption is not being addressed at all. Disney says "viewers will be able to pause and move between ‘chapters’ in an episode but will not be able to skip ads that are technically embedded."

Technically hardwiring ads is what TV did, and see how crippled that model is. Content sites should embed something we can never have enough of: choices. When a program break comes up, viewers should have the choice of earning credits for viewing the ad, or bypassing the ad but providing some feedback (taking a poll, commenting on the program etc). Then they could have a further incentive thrown in, to go back to the ad and watch it if they wished, to top up their credits even more. These credits could be then used to buy other content available online and not on regular TV. Or maybe previous episodes a viewer may have missed.

I’m talking of advertising being turned on its head, making it a currency, not an annoying bathroom break. Some third party vendor is surely going to come up with this currency system for many other online program interactions. A currency that could be banked and used like air miles. The point is, viewers and consumers (not marketers nor the media) are the final arbiters of the world’s most desired currency: attention.

Many agencies still dont realize that this is the area where creativity is in short supply. If they don’t get in and get creative, someone like iTunes or Google will.

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The new media universe map from Marcom Interactive

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

There is this neat map of the new media universe, from Marcom Interactive. They call it the ‘modern mediasphere.’ You can see it here.

It sure looks interconnected (given the shapes assigned to each medium and technology) but something is odd. In the schematic they lay out, mobile phones and camera phones etc lie on the periphery (how odd is this?) and with some overlap, blogs, wikis and podcasts etc are pushed to the center of this universe. ‘Streaming news’ is close to TV, and not radio –both of which are not in the vicinity of mobile phones.

The neat thing, though, is the ability to turn each of the 3 sections on and off.

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Social media and social networks: will marketers show some respect?

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

You know interest in social networks is peaking, when companies like eBay get back into the game. eBay has just announced an investment in MeetUp. Steve Rubel observes that the marketing side of social networks will have to respect the fact that consumers will not want to be marketed to.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Such a rare ingredient in much of today’s campaigns. Yes, if advertising is to hitch a ride on social hubs such as YouTube, Myspace, LinkedIn, UpMyStreet etc companies must first find ways to respect what’s going on in that arena, and not simply use it as another convenient handle on which to hang their brand.

They need to consider the WHAT before thinking of the HOW. Which also applies to social media such a sblogs, podcasts.

Shel Holtz puts it better: they should first have something to say before picking up the next cool tool that comes along. Podcasting may seem like old news in internet time, but there’s a lot of ground to cover, still. Mike Manuel (hosting a Meetup event called Third Thursday) wants to do what most communicators need to, at this point –share insights and implement projects around social media that would benefit clients.

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Podcasts and commute time

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I have a long commute, so podcasts have come to my rescue, big time. I have been mulling over the possibility of being able to download content on the move. I would like to add that to Kevin Dugan’s hope that by next year, our vehicles could have dard drives with USB ports.

The car stereo would probably adapt to include an simple port for the MP3 player, and a button to fire up and update my preselected feeds from iTunes. Oh, oh. Just for grins I googled the word "icruize" and guess what? There’s an iPod interface called iCruze for $69.95 at this Monster Cable site. The iTunes fix will surely follow.

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Newspapers and blogs…the line blurs fast

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The news yesterday that newspapers have inked a deal to syndicate blogs, is not a huge surprise. We’ve seen the rise of journalists blogging, and the blurring of the lines between columns and posts recently. USC Annenberg’s research finds that 79% of Americans have gone online, while a Pew Research Center study also finds that 67% of adults have gone over to newspaper web sites for read local or national news. But recognizing this shift isn’t easy. Kudos to the newspapers that have embraced, rather than denied the new distribution and consumption choices made by their readers.

The syndication service from Pluck, has Gannett, The San Francisco Chronicle, Austin American Statesman (which incidentally went with Pluck in September last year), Washington Post, and the San Anonio Express in a new relationship. Expect to see more creative alliances in the near future.

Jay Rosen wrote about this last month, on the benefits of loyalty and engagement that blogs bring to newspapers.

Simon Dumenco (in Advertising Age, January 16, 2006) observed quite rightly that this artificial separation between journalism and blogging must go away. The title ‘blogger’ he argues is as silly as calling someone who uses Microsoft Word, a ‘worder.’  Here’s this:

"A lot of the tendency to draw lines internally, I think, has to do with the fact that most old-school publishing organizations with online components invested heavily in the ’90s in then-state-of-the-art, but now-cumbersome online publishing systems, which are functionally very different from more nimble blogging software solutions. But over the next few years those legacy systems will be phased out and everyone publishing online will be using some form of what’s now commonly thought of as blogging software."

It didn’t take years for this to see the light of day.

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