broadcasting, content creating, regulating, social networking, viewing

Kate Modern’s no-so-modern Commercial Model

Bebo’s Kate Modern will end next month

on June 28th Bebo’s Kate Modern, the online drama broadcast by the social networking site, will ‘air’ for the last time. the strategy of creating bespoke content for the SN is a solid one; it not only attracts and locks in new users, but adds value through interactivity with content to existing users.

however EQAL, who make the show (and formerly Lonely Girl 15) have suggested that in future they’d like to see more than the 1.5m views the average episode received. doesn’t sound too bad to me… whilst a quick scan of the Viral Video Chart shows that the top 20 virals currently deliver anything between 30,000 and 3m views, a better comparison is with the ‘push’ model of broadcast television, in which an average digital channel would be happy to get 1.5m people to watch an episode.

but the more interesting observation is how Bebo applied such old-school thinking to the commercial model. A spokeswoman for Bebo (quoted here) said the show was profitable
because of the sponsorship deals it put together with the likes of Orange, Toyota and Cadbury Creme Egg. but this seems like a missed opportunity…

like any online site / brand, Bebo has to be clear about what it is. Yahoo’s current woes stem from the fact that they don’t know what they are. Google by comparison are quite clear. they’re an advertising company. Bebo would say that they are a social network, but it could be argued that by being seen to ‘create’ Kate Modern, they confuse this proposition. they should be the third force of Anderson’s Long Tail – connecting source and demand, rather than part of the first – democratisation of production.

but perhaps the biggest opportunity is being missed by brands, who are contenting themselves with being attached to someone else’s content rather than producing their own. its Orange, Toyota and Cadbury that should be making Kate Modern (or its strategic equivalent), and using Bebo as a distribution mechanism.

Bebo (or any social network) should be happy to filter content from elsewhere… and benefit commercially from the audiences it attracts as a result…

broadcasting, converging, praising, viewing

Build then advertise it, and they will come: how the iPlayer delivers and relies on BBC’s platform-neutral offering

news that the BBC’s iPlayer delivered 42 million downloads in the first quarter of 2008 confirms the success of the BBC’s online offering [source: MediaWeek]. it doesn’t come as a surprise. the player is simple to use and easy to navigate, and crucially the streaming option allows you to dip into programmes without the drawn-out drama of downloading and saving to your hard-drive.

it marks the most important of what is a range of moves to ensure platform neutrality of the BBC’s offering. hot on the heels of it’s Virgin Media and iPhone deals comes the news that BBC will be joining forces with Wii to deliver it’s content on Nintendo’s home entertainment system.

the strategy is as spot on as you can get as we approach digital switch off. Henry Jenkins in Convergence Culture introduced us to the notion that it’s not technology (and applications) that’s converging but rather content. we’re consuming converged content on our terms across a range of platforms to suit our needs. brands and other advertisers could learn a thing or two.

that said, you can sympathise with the criticisms of commercial broadcasters, especially those beyond page one of the EPG. the BBC – despite the fallout of it’s current restructuring, has investment to spare in developing the iPlayer – it’s remit to digitise the nation being a keystone of it’s license fee settlement. they are in an enviable position, being a broadcaster that knows what you have to do is one thing; having the investment to make it happen is quite another.

of course the other benefit of being a big broadcaster is being able to cross-promote your platforms. the iPlayer is as reliant on the eyeballs delivered by it’s more established parent as the parent is on the 15-34 reach delivered by its new offspring. and the BBC trumped it again here. their penguin trailer on April 1st was just class. enjoy.

broadcasting, content creating, internet, viewing

Balancing Individuality and Mass-Culture in the evolution of Content and it’s Consumers

Rocketboom describes itself as a three minute daily videoblog covering everything from top news stories to quirky internet culture. alongside peers like Diggnation and BoingBoing, it’s one of a breed of short sharp audiovisual pieces made for peanuts and distributed for free via the internet.

in the emerging AV ecology, these elements stand out principally due to the consistency of their presence… much internet AV content (the vast majority of YouTube‘s real estate for example) is what the Hollywood movie industry would call ‘nonrecurring phenomenon’ – the one off’s and unpredictable quirks that populate the long tail of internet content… everything from a crying Britney fan to the Star Wars kid. it’s unfiltered, it’s popularity determined by the wisdom of the crowd.

Rocketboom and it’s peers are different. they’re consistent in both their presence but also their point of view on what and how they aggregate content, and as such become destinations in themselves. they’re building fan bases; aggregated audiences of subscribers …and it’s in doing so they are creating a new breed of media brand: a interim format between the long-form (TV) show and YouTube’s clip-culture.

it’s an interim format with dilemmas that in many ways mirror those of it’s principal audience of 16-24s. a recent report by the future foundation’s nVision describes the contradiction in how this group – on the one hand – consumes and relies on mass culture, but on the other craves individualism and self-expression…

"One of the reasons behind this predilection for
mass culture is that young people have less experience when it comes to
consumption choices; they often use mass market products as a short cut to
quick and easy decisions. They are also strongly driven by the desire to
fit in with their peers and choosing fashionable mass market products can be an
easy way of doing this.

Young consumers are also, conversely (and indeed perversely), keen to be seen
as individuals and consumption is a key way for them to express their
personality … In this context, while mainstream hits will continue to appeal to
young people, they might not always loom as impactfully they used to do.
Marketing becomes harder, must become more individually focussed as a result."
(source nVision report, March 2008)

the parallels between the Rocketboom format and it’s audiences are startling …a survey cited in a Guardian article by the recruitment company CareerBuilder
asked employers what
they thought the differences were between workers over and under 30
years old. the main finding was that younger employees
communicate through technology rather than in person. the same can be
said of Rocketboom; it’s a format that thrives on the back of the
technology to create and distribute cost-effectively…

both Rocketboom and it’s consumers define their individuality by seeking-out and adopting what’s different before anyone else… but both – ironically – rely on conformity to mass-cultural rules and the credibility – through shared understanding of meaning – that it brings. will one inevitably give way to the other?

it’s easy to forget how intertwined content and consumers are… a generation of digital natives are, by virtue of their media consumption, determining the very nature of the media they consume. and as this generation grows throughout the population, Rocketboom and it’s present and future peers will find themselves pulled into the mainstream along with them…

advertising, broadcasting, content creating, internet, planning, viewing

Two Distribution Models United by a Common Reliance on Creativity

back in Jan of last year I wrote a post outlining five thoughts on viral marketing – which essentially were: what’s the motivation to pass on, is it easy to view and pass on, does it have contemporary relevance and can it be measured? the last of these is now infinitely easier with the announcement of YouTube’s new analytics tool – YouTube Insight.

whilst it’s good to know where in the world people are watching my holiday video, it will no doubt prove more useful in giving ammunition to the arsenals of agencies like Cake, who are responsible for distributing the above piece for Pot Noodle. made by AKQA, it’s a spoof of Guinness’ Tipping Point. and Honda’s Cog for that matter. or actually the Orange ad with those colours …or, come to think of it, a whole tranche of ads that have pretty much been developed on a similar theme ever since Cog’s effort.

what this viral relies on is it’s ability to pop a shot at these more glossy peers. from it’s windy start, thru electric wheelchairs and wheely bins, to a blow up doll and eventually the Pot itself, the piece relies on the ability to remix what is now a very much established theme. it’s creative remix at it’s best. it also voices the suggestion by some of us in the industry who are thinking maybe enough of th Cog-cloning now thanks…

what separates this from Guinness’ original effort is, fundamentally, what a brand wants to get away with… brands are eagerly able to rush in wherever the BACC fear to tread. but it’s also a reflection of money. it’s the level of available investment that determines whether a client adopts Pot Noodle’s viral model or the more investment-intensive broadcast model.

at lower budgets virals frankly are the only option, but it’s not quite that simple… let’s say the above cost £40k to make and – thru free seeding and non-paid for promotion – generates 1 million views. assuming that distribution costs nil, thats a cpt on views of £40.

compare that to a standard TV campaign that will cost – say – £300k to make and generate for the sake of argument an overall cpt (prod and media) for a 16-34 audience of around £20; twice as cost efficient as a viral. but twice as cost effective?! very possibly not…

the viral model is not only pulled rather than pushed content, but benefits from being recommended rather than broadcast to an individual. and when you consider that the above Tipping Pot viral clip has – according to Cake – been on 400 websites, three
national newspapers and on the Sky News viral round up, it’s not surprising that it’s considered to be a success.

ultimately though, each of the above models – whatever the numbers – both fundamentally rely on creativity… on the ability to capture and engage an audience with an idea. doing that gives a brand the luxury of choice in it’s media model. it’s perhaps to all of our detriment that too many brands – through a lack of creativity with their communications – depend only on broadcast communications for their efforts. applying the test of the viral distribution model to more ads would be a sterner test than anything the BACC could throw at them.

thanks to lee@cakegroup.com for the link.

advertising, broadcasting, planning, viewing

Conventional blinkering; how Visa’s Mystery Box was closed too soon

back in January I posted on JJ Abrams idea of Mystery Boxes; that the intentional withholding of information is much more engaging than giving someone the whole story… that sometimes mystery is more important than
knowledge. I suggested that in comunications planning we’re too obsessed with giving consumers
information and resolution… instead we need to more often give them some questions, some
intrigue.

I was reminded of this thinking recently when I caught the above ad for Visa. it opens with a big fat mystery box; a panicked guy running naked thru a desert. how come he’s there? why’s he naked? where’s he running to? lots of questions… which in short mean you keep on watching the ad.

it’s a great ad, but it could have been a lot braver with it’s media… why did they have to give the whole thing away in 30 seconds? they could have top and tailed it – extending the mystery box across the ad break or even across a whole TV show. and if they’d been really brave, they could have teased the ad for a week without showing the resolution.

by resolving the mystery box so soon, Visa have missed out on sparking a multitude of conversations, roughly around the theme of "why’s man running naked thru the desert with nothing but a Visa card?"

a great ad which missed out on being a brilliant piece of
communication because it played to the conventions of a TV spot… conventions are there for a reason, but sometimes they’re there to be broken…

broadcasting, content creating, internet, user-generating, viewing

One In / One Out in Broadcasting UGC

it’s farewell to the blobs as the Beeb unveils a new look for BBC Three. the world has changed a fair bit in the five years since it was rebranded from BBC Choice, and the relaunch – at the heart of which is a philosophy that content will be available anytime, anyplace, anywhere – reflects this new world of 360 degree commissioning as well as UGC vs corporate-generated content.

one of the most intriguing elements is the BBC’s ambition to establish content partnerships in "the places
where our audiences spend time" with the aim of making the channels online presence
"the hub of a vibrant network of conversations across the web" (quoting Smon Nelson as reported by Digital Spy via Broadcast magazine, click here for more). what these places are remains to be seen but Mediation suspects that the likes of Facebook and YouTube may be getting a call soon.

UGC remains for many in TV a topic of the day, and as such the channel will also be calling on viewers to send in clips of themselves introducing
programmes and talking about the channel. get to those webcams!

the announcement comes hot on the heels of the news that MTV is to drop it’s user-generated content channel MTV Flux. no reason seems to have been given but no doubt ratings played a part. there’s an interesting perspective for comms planning and advertising here – namely the importance of channel context…

there are strong embedded expectations of what content you’ll be consuming (and how you’ll be consuming it) when you’re engaged with a particular channel… despite convergence (of content not necessarily hardware remember), watching TV remains fundamentally different from interacting online. not matching these expectations may have been the death knell for Flux as a stand-alone TV channel… the fact that the Flux and it’s community of contributors will live on – integrated into the other channels in the MTV portfolio as well as online – signals that UGC and CGC can sit alongside, but it’s a marriage that has to be carefully managed, a lesson that BBC Three may soon come to learn.

broadcasting, viewing

Smart Commissioning pays off for ITV

ITV won a 21% share last night for both of its new Thursday evening offerings Moving Wallpaper and Echo Beach.

much has been written already – both good and bad – about the duo of commissions, with negative comment generally focusing on the quality of the scripts across both.

but I’m not so sure thats such a bad thing… bad TV has a long and illustrious history – some of us just about remember Carol Burnett battling in a raisin power struggle in Fresno… and Sunset Beach’s was doing real time playout a decade before anyone had heard of Jack Bauer. bad TV can be good if it’s knowing, and Echo Beach and it’s partner are both very knowing…

but the real triumph is a very smart bit of commissioning from ITV… there aren’t many precedents of programmes that have been imagined in such a way, with spin-offs or sequels generally being an extension of a successful (or ailing) existing entity. it’s a brave concept that could have been killed-off so many times in development, so kudos to ITV (and Kudos for that matter) for pulling it off.

it’s a shame that an advertiser wasn’t able to capitalise on the opportunity to reflect and play with two different sides of a brand personality. the opportunity to do so remains open…

broadcasting, converging, internet, IPA|ED:three, planning, social networking, user-generating, viewing

Darth Vader and The Evolving Ecology of TV

I was shown the above – somewhat delightful – clip at a conference last week. a subsequent forwarding on to a colleague reignited a question I gave pause for thought to a year ago when I asked what is TV? the answer I came to then is the same answer that I stand by now… that TV is the act of consuming aggregated audiovisual content.

I pointed out at the time that this definition implied that, should you run with it, YouTube is television. and I believe it is. in Dec 06 I wrote:

"the aggregation of TV requires content and distribution. technology
has allowed citizens to produce the former, and the internet has
allowed them to do the latter. we are all – should we wish to be –
content aggregators. we are all budding broadcasters. and a
generation is learning to watch TV aggregated by commercial entities as
well as fellow citizens."
mediation post Weds 6th December 06

an obvious question then in all of this is – who is to do the aggregation? …commercial broadcasters or – via PVR on TV / subscriptions on YouTube / wall posts on Facebook – viewers themselves? in negotiating the future of media and communications – the aim of this blog – we have to accept the inevitable conclusion that it is of course both.

in the evolving ecology of TV (in both the broad and narrowcasting sense) the question in not who aggregates, but who – at a given moment in time – we want to aggregate for us. its a question of context… Saturday evening on the sofa is very different to 30mins web surfing on a Friday lunchtime. as a viewer, my individual needs vary massively over the course of a day or week.

commercial broadcasters and internet unilateralists continue to be at war over the issue of who aggregates. the battle is pointless. in the year since I wrote my original ‘what is TV’ post, commercial TV has been under what seems to be continuous fire, not from futurologists predicting their demise, but from a media who have witnessed compromise after compromise of viewer trust.

if broadcast TV thinks it needs to win a perceived war against the internet by cutting corners and taking shortcuts in order to be as popular as possible, then it is fundamentally flawed on two fronts. one; there is no war – both commercial and viewer-aggregated TV are here to stay, and two; the role of commercial broadcasters in this new ecology is not compete with YouTube by being as popular as possible, but to inspire it by being as original as possible…

the role of broadcast TV is to be the source of original, intriguing, inventive, surprising and high-quality content. content that demands to sit alongside it’s online counterparts. as Stephen Poliakoff comments in today’s MediaGuardian, "if you commission it, the viewers do turn up."

…just as millions turned up to see Darth Vader in cinemas in Empire Strikes back in 1980 (and on TV and DVD ever since) …and just as millions have turned up to see the clip at the top of this post. together they’re a great example of this new relationship: content originally produced commercially by Fox and Lucasarts as high-quality content, remixed by DoomBlake for fun, as parody, as art.

both are entertaining, and both have their place in the new TV ecology. it’s notable that DoomBlake’s recreative remix is entertaining because of the original context as defined by Lucas’s commercial creative vision. these content siblings need each other – one as source material, and the other as a way to stay contemporary in a changing world.

broadcasting, converging, user-generating

What is TV?

a colleague last night took part in a panel at the Branded Content Marketing Association’s annual networking party. the question to be addressed is a straightforward one.

what is TV?

it’s a simple question with a less than straightforward answer; TV is about aggregation of content. it is the act of aggregating content that I think turns what would otherwise be a collection of stuff into TV.

the recent turmoil in the UK TV industry has largely come about because of two fundamental shifts in aggregation …which used to be a monopoly; first with the BBC and ITV, and then with Channel4 and five, there existed a limited group of aggregators that determined what content was commissioned and bought, and aggregated into TV. this monopoly of aggregation remained unbroken and profitable until a few years ago, at which point the monopoly was broken on two fronts.

first, the monopoly was broken by the evolution from a few into many more commercial aggregators. the rise of digital television started as far back as the early days of BSB in the early nineties, but the pace of this evolution increased with increased consumer adoption of digital satellite and latterly Freeview. there are now over 400 commercial aggregators broadcasting in the UK, some of them directly from brands (for example the Audi Channel). that’s a lot of fragmentation, a lot of content spread very thinly (hence the necessary rise of the strong niche channel brand) and a lot of impacts being fought over.

but it’s the second break of the monopoly that has caused most discussion of late; and far from being an evolution within the industry its a people’s revolution. the aggregation of TV requires content and distribution. technology has allowed citizens to produce the former, and the internet has allowed them to do the latter. we are all – should we wish to be – content aggregators. we are all budding broadcasters. and a generation is learning to watch TV aggregated by commercial entities as well as fellow citizens.

what is TV?

TV is the act of consuming aggregated audio-visual content

this is important. because if we run with this definition – and I do – it means that watching YouTube is television. it means the monopoly is broken forever. it means that there are hundreds of thousands of aggregators. it means every one of us can start broadcasting right now. and I find that a very exciting prospect indeed.

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MEDIATION

negotiating the future of media and communications

Category Archives: broadcasting