on April 20 an explosion on the BP operated Deepwater Horizon oil rig killed eleven crew members, sparking not only a significant environmental incident, but – increasingly – a new case study on how interested parties can bring pressure to bear on governments and organisations.
like The Guardian vs. Trafigura last year, the ongoing BP Deepwater Horizon situation is fueling emergent possibilities and rules of engagement on how different groups and organisations engage and influence each other, of which the above is a great example…
it's a GoogleMap of Sydney and the surrounding area, with the current extent of the Deepwater Oil spill super-imposed on top. it makes real the extent of the spill, which – if it was here in Sydney – would stretch from Newcastle in the north to Wollongong in the south, and from far out to sea in the east to far beyond the blue mountains to the west. it's all courtesy of ifitwasmyhome.com the original page of which shows the extent of the spill in it's actual location.
it's interesting for three reasons. one, it's built and powered by (pretty much) RealTime data. we can see the situation as it is now, rather than retrospectively or projected. the site explains how the data is collected…
"The data used to create the spill image comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA releases a daily report detailing where the spill is going to be within the next 24 hours. They do this by collecting data from a number of sources, including satellite imagery and reports by trained observers who have made helicopter flights back and forth across the potentially affected areas. This data is entered into several leading computer models by NOAA oceanographers along with information about currents and winds in the gulf." source
the second point of interest is how the site is intrinsically social. of course all of the web is social now, but everything about the site is designed to make it adoptable and sharable, with functionality that encourages just that.
finally, it's such an elegant idea. too often we fail to grasp the reality of a situation because it's too remote, too incomprehensible, is too short on credibility, or because its difficult to relate to. this simple and elegant idea takes all of that square on, making the spill as relatable as it can be, in as credible a way as can be imagined. whilst all the time fueling personalised ugc to propel the issue into conversations from which it may have otherwise been absent.
the casebook on how governments, BP, the media and the public interacted and influenced each other throughout the Deepwater incident is yet to be written, but I suspect that when it is, ifitwasmyhome.com will have had a part to play.
the cover of Daemon Group's calling card; THINK 02 Issue 2
you meet a lot of people in this business, most of whom leave you with a warm feeling, a couple of action points that you promise to yourself you'll do, and a business card. no so the Daemon Group, the day after a meeting with whom, I received a magazine designed, written and produced by the agency.
it's a collection of thoughts and analysis of everything from design concepts to social issues, taking in behaviour and international reportage on the way… and it's a pretty great read.
the stats on social, just one of several articles on the changing communications landscape
the idea of a more personal calling card isn't necessarily new; moo have been providing the best of ways to personalise and add character to your 'keep in touch' collateral… nor is the idea of the company magazine…
but what stand's Daemon Group's effort apart is the sheer commitment to quality… the quality of the not only thinking, writing, and production, but also the quality of contact… the magazine was delivered fresh to my desk the morning after my meeting with Richard, the group's chief executive. the commitment to following up the meeting with me was matched only by the commitment to the collateral delivered.
the two big implications for brands and the planning of marketing communications are clear. one, invest in quality collateral… don't say you're passionate about what you do, have collateral that proves it. don't gesticulate on the quality of your thinking, have collateral that demonstrates it… buying media space that tells people how good / fast / impressive / [insert USP here] you are, is for a time now long gone by…
we live in the age of evidence.
claims, counter claims, and statements no longer cut it. in the age of evidence it's what you do that counts, what you produce that get's noticed. in the age of evidence reputations are built on what you craft and deliver to make your case to the world.
the second implication for brands is to have good, considered connections planning. the too-often used phrase that means, simply, to have a plan for how you create and manage connections with people. Daemon Group's magazine means nothing to me whilst it's sat on their Chief Executive's coffee table. how much of what a brand actually does remains locked up? hidden behind policy doors and content management gates. brands that love their collateral set it free, fueling connections with people…
because that's what the best communications planning, at it's core, is… what evidence can we create that proves the truth about what our brand is and represents; and how can we ensure that the right people encounter that evidence in relevant and meaningful ways?
I'm grateful that in a complicated world, which sometimes seems to move faster than I can keep up, a magazine landed on my desk to remind me how elegantly simple it all really is. the challenge isn't to keep up with a changing communications landscape; the challenge is to remember that you can.
oh, and there's an article on Mr Potato Head too – who doesn't love that…
Seth Westcott, who performed in RealTime ad placements for Visa
courtesy of WARC, via Andy, comes a great article on the RealTime activation. whilst there was a fair degree of coverage of the efforts at the time, new commentary seems to show the extent to which the companies involved have deemed the initiatives a success.
commenting on broadcasting a TV spot minutes after one of their athletes – snowboarder Seth Westcott – won his second gold medal, Michael Lynch, Visa's head of global sponsorships, said "Our research has proven out that [these ads] are one of the best connections between Visa and the Olympics we have … We know the opportunity in the moment when we're sharing with Seth his accomplishments is special, and it's worked extremely well for us."
Drew Brees, Dove Men+Care's Most Valuable Player
a similar approach was adopted by Unilever's Dove Men+Care, who's ad featuring New Orleans Saints' Drew Brees landed on US screens hours after his team won the Super Bowl. being named MVP didn't do any harm either; "It just ended up perfectly" observed Rob Master, director of media for Unilever's North American operations.
whilst underpinned by technology, and the willingness (and / or necessity) of media companies to accommodate such media buys, the above ad placements mark three interesting observations for those of us negotiating the future of media and communications.
one, that there's an interesting and clear direction of travel emerging, and it's called convergence into RealTime. so far so whatever – this we know and I've written some thoughts on that before. but the second observation – the infiltration of RealTime into the broadcast stream – shows just how far the trend is now pushing…
it's not unrealistic to assume that continued fragmentation of channels and viewing will only increase the opportunities to place more customised and relevant content in front of people in RealTime. and there's a fascinating insight into how this could be deployed in the below video, showing how Slate’s Seth Stevenson bought an ad in a low-rating spot. via Google.
it only takes a small leap to imagine how Google data could be combined with this technology to deploy a significant proportion of a schedule in RealTime, based on whatever factors a planner deems appropriate… run ads when only it's raining, or whenever a sports team wins, or when interest rate decreases are announced. to name but three – the possibilities become kind of endless…
but the final observation takes a lesson from Politics. when Harold Macmillan was asked what represented the greatest challenge for a statesman, he replied: "Events, my dear boy, events" …both the Visa and Dove examples above resonated above and beyond delivering pure awareness because, and only because, of events.
I can't help but suspect that the future of media implementation may have events very much at it's heart. from mass events like the Olympics or the Superbowl, to macro events like interest rate changes, thru to the micro events of re-targeting someone who visited a website. politics' greatest challenge may be media implementation's greatest
opportunity.
thanks to Lauren for the heads up that NBC is today launching 'fan it', a initiative that the company describes as a "win-win opportunity that broaden's [our] shows' visibility" … "What better way to spread the word about our shows than with the help of our loyal fans" asks Adam Stotsky, president of NBC entertainment marketing. quite right.
essentially viewers interact with shows and they're rewarded with fan points, and points mean prizes; be they exclusive early access to shows, merchandise, or discounts. you can even win 'big-ticket sweepstakes items', like props from the Office.
there's much to be lauded about NBC's effort. its rewarding fans of shows for being fans of shows, which generates that most potent and valuable of comms properties: word of mouth. but rather than having a WOM strategy that at best involves an occasional email and at worst involves crossing fingers and hoping for the best, NBC are investing in WOM that they can consistently stimulate, interact with, and measure.
but I wonder if it goes far enough, and fear that its doesn't… there's a danger that this is seen as the newest and shiniest way to promote programmes… a bit like this…
old school TV marketing trap, with Social as added-on component
but Social is a different and much more potent beast than conventional advertising… for one, its intrinsically part of the shows that stimulate it. there's no filtering or polishing, no Photoshopping up the best bits; what people generate based on what stimulates then is what gets created and deployed.
for another, there's less control over how much gets created and what the sentiment of it is… conversations and word of mouth can go both ways. NBC would never create an ad saying "this show isn't as good as we thought it was going to be, but stick with it cos its got a great team and some legs yet", but that could easily be the nature of a conversation around one of it's shows in the social space.
and finally – unlike advertising – when social media talks back you can hear it. the many whoops and sighs, cheers and jibes that echo around online conversations (and beyond) as a result of TV shows that we know and sometimes love are there for the social network and broadcast network to hear. what the broadcast network chooses to do with that social networked conversation, with that collateral, is up to them…
I'd suggest that for all these reasons, Social is better seen as a 'shell' which surrounds TV product. a shell which is intrinsically part of the TV product; reflecting, amplifying, and sometimes influencing the content that stimulates it.
new school TV marketing opportunity, with Social as shell which is amplified out
this is the real role of Social Media for TV. NBC have taken a glorious step with 'fan-it', but social is not a block on a schedule to be added on, rather its the prism thru which shows are advertised. and moreover, its the collateral that's there to be deployed online and – increasingly – on-air…
'fan-it' can be a broadcast network-out initiative or it can be social network-in conversation. the choice – and the challenge – may be NBC's, but 'fan-it' remains a brilliant next step – for both networks – towards a new TV media ecology.
a legacy of the past? Sydney Morning Herald's Ad from earlier this year (shot at Harbourside Open Air Cinema Feb 2010)
so I was fortunate enough this week to enjoy breakfast with the editor of an online news portal, and during our discussions it occurred to me that online news editors have more than a little in common with contemporary marketers.
the audience-centricity of online news editing was clear, from how stories are aggregated and published thru to the future platforms being considered and developed for content deployment. the predominance of this centricity in the reader was clear when the editor talked about 'owning the reader at every point in the day'…
all this is in stark contrast to the heritage of the print newspaper, the monopoly of whom lasted for so long that it institutionalised a product-centricity which is, in some part, I believe firmly responsible for the current challenges facing the print publishing industry. the newspaper industry 'didn't have to try for so long', was one observation made over the course of the discussion.
it occurred to me that marketers and media planners have three big things to learn from how news editors go about doing what they do…
the first is around content vs platform, and which is most important in gaining share of attention with people you want to reach. on one hand its crucial to create appropriate and stimulating content for an audience. this one from LG for example, which Oldham sent me this morning.
but platform is and will increasingly become the most important element. I was never going to see this ad on TV… I'm a light viewer at best, and now pretty much see every ad on YouTube or Facebook as and when they're recommended by friends. the fact is that if you're aim is to gain audience share of attention you have to be platform-centric… deploying content on those, rather than on the content's, terms.
the second learning is the old chestnut of doing not saying. news organisations are increasingly defined not by what they say (see the Sydney Morning Herald effort above) but by what they do. actions increasingly resonate louder then words, as any flick thru Contagious demonstrates. this doesn't negate the need for the broadcast model – it just makes you re-evaluate its role on a schedule.
but the final lesson – and perhaps the most important – is around audience migrations. you have an online space (Facebook page, YouTube Channel, Microsite (really?), website, etc) around which you want to aggregate an audience. so you produce content an use search to direct them where you want to go right? well yes, but…
…our editor was explaining that Facebook is increasingly more important than search in audience-flow to their site. and that this traffic is dwarfed by the volume that comes direct from email links and browser bookmarks.
the lesson? the most valuable way to aggregate an audience is to give it reason to stay connected. book-marking, liking, registering for more, linking are all more important – in volume terms – than clicking thru search. efforts to build long-term audiences that you encourage to keep coming back for more become significantly more valuable than one-off 'come see this' efforts. one more nail in the coffin then for the idea of 'the campaign'.
big thanks to Rob for organising the session, brilliant stuff…
and we're off… Tim Burrowes chairs MySpace's Next Chapter in Social Media
there was only one word of the day last week, when MySpace Australia hosted their Next Chapter in Social Media event in deepest darkest Alexandria. that word was Discovery. MySpace is about discovery, and being discovered. and about discovering stuff. "MySpace will be the best tool for Discovery" was the assertion of the social network's International Co-President Mike Jones, who in his keynote speech highlighted projects from the network that are "allowing people to get Discovered".
Jones made the point that 'social' is no longer a USP… every web property has or will soon have social elements as an integral part of their offering. being a network that is social isn't enough. hence 'Discovery', and MySpace's intended positioning as the internet's 'Discovery Engine'. they're nothing if not bold.
Jones discussed a range of MySpace innovations, from allowing realtime commenting on the site to integration with Twitter; and he talked about the site's new AdStream unit, which allows advertisers to "push ads into the stream", the "consumer-activated pop-up" for which delivers "incredible impact".
we have a problem here. well actually we have two.
firstly, the innovations aren't. innovative. my Twitter has been linked to my Facebook for as long as I can remember (which in realtime isn't I admit that long but long enough given the pace of change in social media network evolution). nor is commenting on content in real time revolutionary, to pretend that it is may do more damage than good. ditto MySpace Music's developing an algorithm to recommend music based on what you're listening to. we've been there and we've done that, nothing new is being brought to the table.
the second problem is of more concern because it gives visibility to the mentality behind the direction in which MySpace is going. Jones' comments – that "ads" can be "pushed" and deliver "impact" – is a broadcast mentality, a mentality that has no place as a core proposition within an online social network. while the rest of the comms community discuss engagement, content, utility and ways in which brands can make our lives more intuitive, MySpace find themselves talking about ads that deliver more impact.
there's a disconnect between the MySpace product and the role of brands here… the primary role of brands is not IMHO to fund MySpace. that comes as an important and necessary result of brands engaging with and providing utility for MySpace users. for MySpace themselves not to be leading this intellectual charge should, in the month that saw AOL give up on Bebo, be of concern.
there's a genuine sense that MySpace are playing catch-up. even the acknowledgment by Jones that "sometimes what you Discover on MySpace may not be on MySpace, and we're OK with that" sounds more like the waving of a white flag rather than a confident forging of partnerships to grow, activate and engage the MySpace user-base.
the danger is that 'Discovery' becomes nothing more than an interesting but unownable concept for which product simply doesn't follow through. Jones may assert that "Discovery is the one thing we really have to nail", but the one question that everyone at MySpace should be asking themselves… 'how do we bring utility to how people discover stuff on the internet?' doesn't seem to be being asked, at least in last week's public forum.
I Tweeted at the event #myspaceevent wondering what myspace would have done differently if they could replay the last five years over again?
Tim picked it up and put the question to Jones, who was honest and candid. MySpace couldn't keep pace with its own growth. resources were diverted to infrastructure and sales, rather than product; "for five years they [MySpace] were so busy keeping the site up that they had no visibility on what users were doing". Jones has his work cut out.
wise words from Dan Pankraz of DDB
next up at the event was Dan Pankraz, a Youth Planning Specialist at DDB who gave an overview on Generation C. the content was or should be very familiar to those of us who have been negotiating the future of media and communications for a while, but some solid observations were made:
for the 'connected collective', happiness = being part of the tribe
successful ideas aren't necessarily the biggest but the fastest moving
we need to create stuff for the swarm to pick up and run with
conversations never end
mobiles = social oxygen
82% of young people rely on peer approval for decision making
brand relevance is determined in the moment
online identities are different from our real ones; the online version being the 'wanname'
gen-C are pluralistic with sub-cultures, and avoid perceptions of one-dimensionality
one observation that caused some chatter on the day was a stat from FastCompany claiming that in 9 hours of media consumption, gen-C take in 13 hours of content. personally I thought that sounded conservative – multitasking alone potentially doubles the amount of media a content-hungry gen-C can devour, with their attention span decreasing accordingly of course.
Pankraz shared a plethora of examples of who's out there doing interesting stuff in this space… broadly aligned along three pillars; Collaboration, Purposeful Platforms and Play…
on Collaboration: "agencies talk too much about the tools and not enough about how brands can be more social and what content they have to share" … "the best brands allow people to morph ideas" … "do stuff with and for gen-C not at them" … gen-C are not a destination and can't be targeted, rather they are a partner in production.
Kypski's One Frame of Fame Project encourages all of us to be in their music video, which us updated every hour based on contributions from, well, anyone…
on Purposeful Platforms: Pankraz cited Coke's Expedition 206, for which three ambassadors take a journey to all 206 countries where Coca-Cola is sold, interestingly thats 14 more countries than are represented by the United nations…
on Play: "…a key marketing paradigm to engage audiences", Pankraz described Cabbie-oke, DDB's project for Telstra which see's Cabbie-oke cabs offering free cab rides every weekend; so all you have to do is belt out a tune for your free ride…
he described RedBull as "probably the most playful brand in the world" citing their 'secret halfpipe' project for Shaun White. they do what great brands – in Pankraz's view – should all do: experiment with and create popular culture…
in short, its not what you say, but what you do that counts. Dan blogs here.
SMO joke – Nicole Still gives the advertiser's perspective
the final speaker of the afternoon was the enigmatic J&J's Pacific Digital Director Nicole Still, who gave a candid walk through ten principles she works to at the company:
never, ever, censor… "deleting comments is not an option"
be ready for SMO (Social Media Outbreak); that thing that happens when someone replies or responds to what you've put out there. she encourages J&J marketers to just try [something new], admitting that "for companies like J&J, Social Media is like the dentist; it means well but it causes great anguish"
every brand has a right to be there [in the social space]
develop a parallel brand to deploy into the social media space – for example Neutrogena is building a OLS (one less stress) brand to deploy into the social space
prioritise and define the role of each social media channel
use a combination of paid, earned and free media (Still cited a recent campaign that split investment 75% paid, 20% earned and 5% owned, and suggested that for an investment of c.$1.3m she'd expect to generate c.$3m of total 'media')
harness alpha-influencers on third-party sites
practice on Facebook (who don't charge to have sites) – remember that "people don't take on individuals, they take on corporations" (ie always respond individually)
measure what matters: the number friends you have doesn't. 50% of the people who visit the J&J site 'fan' it. she has five key metrics: sales, reach & freq, awareness, cost effectiveness and engagement
sometimes, its about presence not participation. sometimes, just being there is enough
in the discussion after-wards, Still made some surprising comments about the client / agency relationship. "from J&J's standpoint, its the responsibility of the [digital] agency [to monitor the social space]" … "at a global [big brand] level, it shouldn't be brought in house" … and finally, "we take responsibility for training the agency". this last point in particular was interesting, Still admitted taking what is a reasonable and responsible position in ensuring her agencies are delivering what she and her company needs. ultimately "you have to give people ownership in the space to be incredible successes or colossal failures". refreshing indeed.
in the final panel discussion I asked about the elephant. the big grey one. there. in the room. there. behind you… "Australian marketing invests relatively less than equivalent digitally-enabled countries in online. PWC have stated that "traditional media 'owns' the market in Australia for a long time yet to come". so why is Australia lagging behind and what would the panel like to do to help it catch up?"
for Pankraz it was about better learning: Australian clients have had a bad education from agencyland – we need to better educate the market about digital.
Still challenged the question, citing The Best Job in the World as an example of great thinking coming out of Australia, a country which many companies want to be a testbed for innovation and marketing thinking.
only Rebekah Horne tackled my elephant, commenting that because there are no agreed metrics or online currency in Australia, traditional media is seen as less risky; less risky for agencies to recommend, and less risky for marketers to buy…
it was quite the appropriate comment from the Managing Director and Senior Vice President International of MySpace. Horne must know better than anyone the mountain MySpace now have to climb, but its perhaps no different from that which all of us negotiating the future of media and communications have to climb. MySpace may not have the answers to what the Next Chapter of Social Media looks like, but from here it looks like they're the ones who are creating a forum for the asking; and finding the answers is required learning for MySpace and the industry alike.
so I was plugging into RealTime, as you do, earlier on today and a few tweets popped up from people saying that they'd been chosen. I like being chosen for things; its one of those gloriously self-affirming things that makes you feel good and accepted and safe and therefore at peace and happy. its a human thing.
anyway… I clicked the bit.ly and found myself looking at the above mystery box. and a rather glorious mystery box it is too.
I've written about Mystery Boxes before, I love them and there aren't enough of them in what we do… they're what JJ Abrams describes as "infinite possibility, hope and potential" … he says that he finds himself "drawn to infinite possibility and that sense of potential, and I realise that mystery is the catalyst for the imagination … what are stories but mystery boxes?"
and this must be a good mystery box, because when the site asks me to connect with Facebook I do so without hesitation. actually I do that a lot more now, I'm finding that I'm starting to click Connect at the drop of a hat… Zuckerberg and his 'end of privacy' could be nearer to winning the battle for the internet 'aggregator of aggregators' than I realise…
anyway… clicking on Connect starts a video which ends up with me looking at myself. and my friends. on lots of screens. in a video that until a few seconds ago didn't exist.
now this isn't new… applications have been doing this for a couple of years now. but there are a few noteworthy things about it… one, its beautifully done; the most elegant and clean of experiences. two it can be spread like lightening both before and after the experience; with Twitter bringing up front then Facebook the rear of the journey. finally its gloriously tangible… the fact that (if I lived in the States) I'd be expecting an envelope to arrive on my door adds a very RealWorld element to what would otherwise have been a cool online experience.
its a shame it has to stop there really… I can't help but think that
it would be a brilliant way to start an ARG …only when the envelope
arrives does the game begin. and the game could play out on Facebook
because you're already plugged in. oh its all good…
many readers (well, both) may very well have seen the above intriguing video from FITC, to promote their upcoming design and technology festival in New York. its a trailer and its deliberately and wonderfully provocative, and it certainly seems to have started a degree of debate. watch it now if you haven't already. now. go on. watch it.
now consider what you're thinking. are you angry or excited? depressed or thrilled? it would certainly seem that people are one or the other. the awesome JV Willshire, who blogs at Feeding the Puppy put a post together that celebrated the thinking behind the piece:
"A point well made, I think. And yet there will still be large parts of the industry that rail against things like this. They don't understand why people in the industry would wilfully go around denouncing the existing models, as it will just hasten their demise. Why would you destroy the world in which you work?"
a good question. one that John rightly and eloquently goes on to answer:
"Every time someone questions 'the old way of doing things' (like the 'power of TV ads', or the notion of brand awareness, the established rules of campaigns or the objectives set in a brief), they're not doing it for kicks. It's not rebellion, cynicism, or mindless annihilation. It's only by burning away the old, redundant thinking that we can find something new, refreshed and powerful."
there's a counter post to this, a point that's equally well, if somewhat forcefully, made. this is the ad contrarian, who blogs here:
"There is growing movement among self-hating ad people to declare failure and join the army of digital dimwits. They have started to believe the "advertising is dead" nonsense. They have accepted the fiction that there is a new breed of humans who don't believe anything that isn't on the web. They no longer believe that advertising is about persuasion, and think their job is to create "conversations.
Excuse me, I just threw up in my mouth.
… As far as I'm concerned these people are gutless weasels. They're too tired and weak to defend the practice of advertising. They're too effete to be heard above the volume of cackling web-monkeys."
the contrarian goes on to describe the video at the top of this post as a "piece of ignorant bullshit produced by some "design and technology" hustlers in Canada and lovingly embraced by advertising's suicidal Twitterati". like I said, the argument is forcefully made.
what do I think?
well I'm as ready as the next "suicidal Twitterati" to denounce the broadcast interruption (or persuasion) model. it's fragmenting, less efficient (reach does not equal effectiveness) and ignores the multitude of new opportunities the ad contrarian so quickly dismisses.
but I'm also as ready as the next optimist to celebrate the awesomeness of the broadcast interruption model. it's capable of generating mass audiovisual reach in a way that's unparalleled by any other channel or medium and will be for a while yet to come.
which side am I on? I'm on both of course; my blog is called Mediation for a reason.
there are no easy answers to the questions our community is asking itself. our world is no longer black and white and arguments couldn't and shouldn't be made as such. to do so diminishes us in a way that technology, behavioural change or new challenges never could.
the observations of Indra Nooyi of Pepsico, as reported on WARC, from earlier this week are pertinent:
"You've got to reach the consumer through multiple methods. Through digital. Through viral networks. You've got to reach them through newspapers. Through TV … You've got to deploy every possible media that you can lay your hands on … The new brand-building model has to encompass an extremely rich mix of items we have to deploy to talk to the consumer"
her point is clear. no one is in the business of abandoning TV. but neither are we in the business of defending it against all comers and beyond all reason. the broadcast model, the bastion of the 20th Century's marketing communications, will be with us – and used magnificently by us – for a good while to come; but it is no longer the only tool we have. in failing to see, understand and utilise the compromise of this… in failing to Mediate, we are only failing ourselves.
“the broadcast model isn’t broken… yet. how prepared are agencies for when it breaks?” was the question I wanted to put to the Q&A panel at last week’s iMedia Agency Summit in Sydney. whilst I didn’t get the chance to ask the panel, I did get the opportunity to ask it to Rohan Lund of Yahoo!7, but more of that later.
yes, this week saw the AdTech Summit series hit Sydney, part of which was the iMedia festival which I attended along with around one hundred of my Sydney media counterparts. all in all it was a day of more questions than answers, but that was to be expected I, well, expect. that said, some genuine morsels emerged, which (after a bit of an absence from the blogosphere) I thought I’d share… here then, is what happened at iMedia, at AdTech, at Sydney…
Unilever brands that have utilised the social media space
first up, delivering the keynote welcome, was Unilever’s Babs Rangaiah (@babs26) who described how he and others are pioneering in the Social Media space at the company. its necessary stuff in his opinion, pointing out that only 18% of TV campaigns generate positive ROI, and that 24 of the top 25 biggest newspapers are undergoing circulation decline.
his three observations were that Unilever is (1) living the [social media] space, (2) re-framing their thinking re Social media and Applications [ie NOT pre-rolls – thats the broadcast solution applied to the online paradigm], he cited BBH’s Axe Wake Up Service app from Japan (above), and (3) rewriting its media manifesto along these lines, as would be written by customers:
be part of the world – Rangaiah pointed out the gap between time spent online and advertising spend online
penetrate our culture – the move from interruption to engagement; is what we create useful, entertaining or interesting? he cited the example of the Dove for Men campaign, which after scooping up a SuperBowl spot proceeded to land its American Football-playing star a seat on Oprah’s couch
give us a voice and a role – Best Job In The World anyone?
be authentic – anyone unclear on this one just Google Dell Hell…
listen to us
create more value – “you want us to pay? … [then] we want you to pay attention”
don’t be so corporate
keep it simple – good one this, if you can’t explain an idea to a non-marketing friend or partner in ten seconds then its probably to complex to ever get traction
telling friends – WoM is the most powerful form on advertising [Alleluia Babs, Alleluia]
do good
he ended on a topic that would be the subject of some debate for the rest of the day… how the rapid evolution on metrics in the online space has created its own rewards but also problems. from clicks and impressions to unique users to engagement or stickiness and now ROI … measuring success has never been so possible nor so complex.
next up was the lovely Megan Brownlow, Entertainment and Media Editor for PWC’s Outlook, which complies stats on ‘where the money is’ in the entertainment and media spaces… this is facts given meaning not opinions back up with stats, so worth paying attention to, especially a key observation re consumer spending vs advertiser spending…
PWC’s five year view looks a lot like this
PWC revenue predictions as presented at iMedia Summit last week in Sydney
put simply, people are predicted to spend proportionately more on entertainment and media (content) than advertisers will spend on media. good news if your media business model is predicated on creating and distributing stuff that people will want and pay for. bad news if your media business model is taking commission on advertising spend. a problem further compounded by the well documented explosion in inventory, which any economist will tell you will lead to lower yields for media publishers and agencies.
Brownlow described the ‘structural change’ of this versus other recessions. the recovery will be shallower than any previous one, “a crawl rather than a jump out”, but not for everyone. between 2003 and 2009 search revenues have increased from 31% of ad revenues to 50.4% – 90% of which, no one needs reminding, goes to one company.
the big growth is in consumer pay models, where growth is predicted to be 5.5% CAGR (’09-’13). hence media owners and publishers seeking hybrid business models (another hot topic of the day) to monetise content. Brownlow noted research suggesting that, for example, in newspapers people will pay, but only for verticals – a proportion (Finance 97%, Sport 77%) of the hard copy price as long as that same content is not available for free elsewhere. in this context Murdoch’s rallying cry to the newspaper industry to declare war on Google makes immaculate sense. her final observation was that even if hybrid pay models work, lost revenues won’t be replaced. the annihilation of the old model of newspaper publishing is still an inevitability.
Brownlow’s final observation however was a cold shower for any Australians readying themselves for seats of honour in the digital revolution after-show party. compared to the rest of the world, the country is significantly lagging in online adoption, with revenues in the online space in the region of 25%, compared with 31% globally and up to 50% in countries such as south east Asia. “traditional media ‘owns’ the market in Australia for a long time yet to come”. the reasons, infrastructure (and therefore effectively ISP cost) and attitude… the former understandable given the countries geography, the latter frustrating to say the least in a country with such an entrepreneurial culture (my observation not Brownlow’s).
three ‘game-changers’ to end with: (1) the NBM or National Broadcast Network, a government initiative to hardwire the nation by 2017, but which Goldman Sachs predicts will be only 50% complete by then, (2) mobile, yes 2010 IS mobile’s year and (3) interactive games, with a 7.5% growth forecast, 2.2bn market and two structural changes to boost the sector in the form of mobile and online gaming. play on.
next up the enigmatic Ed Smith of NDM who started with a topic that was to become one of the themes of the day… that of volume versus value in the online space. he made two observations – one, that (average) click rates were down from 32% to 16%; and two, that 8% of people accounted for 80% of clicks. so just how valuable is a click? how many brands and businesses are so overly obsessed with generating clicks that they’re “going out of business as cost effectively as possible”? …he questioned what the point of [100%] paid-for search was when you’re not investing in product or marketing initiatives that ‘build the brand’?
this was a phrase that kept on cropping up, bit of a fat phrase (and not in a good street way)… ultimately by ‘build the brand’ I suspect the speakers were referring to brand associations. and raising the (valid) question of how long the broadcast interruption model can create and sustain brand associations (ie what ‘brands’ effectively are) if we’re all collectively ignoring / avoiding more, clicking less, and paying for content direct.
Smith went on to give the publishers’ perspective wrt post-broadcast print… describing some of the emerging platforms he played with at a recent tech conference. I was going to ask him “how he was intending to meet the challenge of defending margins when the cost of producing content is no longer matched by advertising revenues?” … but we know the answer to this, it’s the much talked about hybrid model… of combining (lower) ad revenues with direct payment from people for the content. the ‘iPad $ a day’ model. Smith’s retort to those who question the sustainability of the hybrid model: “People who say ‘people won’t pay for content’ don’t know what’s possible”. to that point, he showed us this:
he observed that the NYT’s iPad application launched with three advertisers each paying US$200k for the privilege and challenged the audience with the question “are your digital media choices making your brand bigger or smaller?”
the end of the morning saw Fairfax Digital’s CEO Jack Matthews take up some of the themes opened by Smith… “consumer demand for media, in all it’s forms, has never been greater”, “a new era of online advertising”, “direct response get’s too big a share of the media mix”, “the future of media companies and agencies is to add value” … there’s a clear direction of travel from publishers here; away from trading debates based on the value of a click, towards trading debates predicated on the value of the audience the publisher is providing…
Matthews outlined three change catalysts in the space: (1) three screens (2) building brands on desktops and (3) agency / campaign integration
he made a delightful observation on the three screen model: “if the desktop user is a browser, then a mobile user is a hunter”. I have a lot of time for that, it really focuses how you think about adding value to people in the mobile space. he reiterated the belief that “people are willing to pay for content on mobile devices”, and pointed out the projected rise of video advertising on the desktop – 48% CAGR in ad revenues to 2014. he also made it quite clear to the audience that Fairfax Digital is in the business of and focusing on “building engaged audiences more than reach”.
he ended with a call for integration, observing that “we have no aligned metric for measuring ‘brand building’ [that phrase again] online”, and that there’s not enough integration within agencies on aligning on and offline media. he acknowledged that his organisation had to be more prepared to work with other organisations too… an acknowledgment that he described as a “fundamental shift” in Fairfax’s position.
after post-lunch sessions by Michael Hendricks, Head of Decision Management, CitibankAsia Pacific (“we’re about acquiring the right customers, not the most”, “our most valuable customers use all of our channels most of the time”) and Corporate Anthropologist (who knew?) Michael Henderson, it was back to the media agenda with Rohan Lund of Yahoo!7…
58% of Yahoo!7’s audience media ‘mesh’ at least several times a week: 95% on email, 63% on social networks, 54% to get more info on a show and 40% to follow-up on an ad they’ve seen… time spent online watching video is now 13%, and very much social.
Lund challenged the session – in a context of content, content content – to question what our business models were? access isn’t enough. “we [Yahoo!7] make it easier for users to access content that matters to them most”, adding that “our businesses are data businesses … our core business is targeting”.
he outlined Yahoo!7’s recently launched catch up service, thru which every primetime show is available. he described how the ambition is to get the browser closer to a TV environment, and talked thru the challenges of making TV shows available for different IPTV-ready TV models. interestingly, for non-partner TVs they’ve introduced open-source development. and he was quite clear that he saw no reason why online video CPMs will never be lower than for TV; in effect a premium for targeting.
back to the question I asked at the start of the post, I put to Lund that “the broadcast model isn’t broken… yet. how prepared are agencies
for when it breaks?” … he believed that agencies are becoming more integrated, and understanding better the balance between on and offline. but acknowledged the elephant in the room; that “no one ever got fired for buying TV”, and that people are still “hiding behind TV as a safe solution”…
good to have it out and said, and credit to Lund for doing so… but I think its less about TV being seen as the safe solution, and more the reach and delivery of the broadcast model that’s seen as the safe solution. the absurdness of this just gets truer every day. if the iMedia summit made one thing clear its that the figures are now starting to track the theory. viewing fragmenting, click rates decreasing, ad avoidance up… and the solution? a continued clinging to the sinking ship that is broadcast interruption. it’s like the Titanic’s going down and the industry is scrabbling to get on board…
this was followed by (for me) one the highlights of the day as Sean Finnegan, President and Chief Digital Officer at Starcom MediaVest Group took us thru his vision for his media agency’s digital offering.
his logic is crystal: clients are struggling to deliver accountability in rapidly changing markets where its harder to connect with consumers. agencies therefore need restructure and resource to provide a range of new offerings: RealTime consumer insight, actionable insights, and content – all created by what Finnegan describes as ‘liquid talent’. how…
business intelligence and hub formations
data exchanges (in the US buying of non-identify-able consumer data is now mainstream)
standardised findings with consumers and the industry (common and consistent measurement)
instant content delivery, real time text and video (eg EA’s Tiger Woods video)
strategic alliances, frenemies have never been more important…
he observed that “efficient pricing is no longer a value add”, and that “marketers and agencies that focus only on price are leaving value on the table”. we’ve gone “from a linear to a networked comms infrastructure [which] creates a transfer of power to the consumer”. he noted that we “need to start understanding the passions and behaviours of individuals [across media platforms]”, and observed that this would have inherent problems for publishers.
he also outlined his thoughts on the media agency offering… “because of our proximity to consumers we have to be more adept at design and messaging”, but also gave a stark warning to media isolationists: “you need to be confident enough to partner with competitors that are better than you to deliver the best solutions for your clients … the more we give away, the more we grow”.
his view on the future of the Starcom’s digital offering is clear: a move away from media people as aggregators towards media people as analysis of data, interpreting, modeling and projecting for clients and brands. his people will be more account managerial and who are less in the business of “killing bad news” and more in the business of “selling the best ideas”.
so what to make of it all?
great day and some interesting comment and debate, but you can’t help but leave with the impression that there’s far more questions than answers. but perhaps that’s well and good, it’s an easy cliche to say that there’s never been a more interesting time to work in media… but its true never the less. for more than three years this blog has set itself the task of negotiating the future of media and communications; a task is no less interesting, gripping and exciting than it was when in November 2006 I wrote my first post on TV (versus) online:
“the internet is television. but it’s television on viewers’ rather than broadcaster’s terms. the issue isn’t the demise of TV, but the decline of the broadcast model and of the broadcaster as commissioning editor and content aggregator.”
its vaguely how terrifying how little has changed. the debate, the argument and the negotiation continues, and we’re all the better for forums like iMedia in which to talk, and for that matter drink, it out…
or else… pic source battle lines are currently being drawn on Australian soil over proposed changes to the Do Not Call Register, a list to which people sign to prevent telemarketers calling them with cold calls. the changes would add small businesses to the list, effectively barring any business – whether they're using third party telemarketers or not – from cold calling people to drum up business.
as you can imagine, some interested parties are challenging the move. B&T reports that the Australian Association of National Advertisers last month urged the Government to reconsider its plans. and this week sees the publication of research commissioned by News Ltd's online business directory TrueLocal.com.au, showing that the proposed broadening of privacy legislation will negatively impact some half a million businesses across Australia. TrueLocal chief exec John Allan is concerned…
“We oppose it as we believe it is anti-competitive for Australia’s new and emerging businesses, as they will be unable to contact an estimated 30% of prospective customers to establish a new relationship … It will therefore favour big businesses and larger incumbents who have existing relationships and disadvantage smaller companies working hard to attract new business … Additionally, the majority of small businesses have said they simply do not have the resources to easily check their contact information against the Government’s Do Not Call list and the legislation would increase the operating cost for nearly 50% of small businesses.”
there's a few things going on here. but putting short term protectionism aside, the fight highlights – if nothing else – the implications for businesses and brands as we evolve into a new comms paradigm. the simple fact is that if Maureen who runs a flower shop in Surry Hills (who may or may not exist but I like to think that she might) picks up the phone book and starts calling some of the people in the vicinity she could be fined. fined for calling someone up. because Maureen hadn't kept a list of contacts nor had that list cleaned again the Do Not Call register. I have some sympathy with Maureen, but not half as much sympathy as I do for Bob, and Charlotte, and Mike and Su and Dave and Pete and Geoff and hundreds of thousands of people like them who get calls they neither want or need from brands and businesses who feel they have the right to call them and sell them something.
if one thing is true it is this: that the box in the living room thru which we used to view the world is now the box of a search engine. brands used to broadcast to everyone and hoped and expected that enough people responded. now the deer have guns, and those same people at whom brands used to broadcast, can now access what they want – and only what they want – on their terms. and in many ways that's what the brewing storm between Australian advertisers and the proposed government privacy legislation is all about. telemarketing was born out of a broadcast age, and as that age wains so too will the lazy, inefficient and unwarranted presence of brands that start one-way conversations that the vast majority of people will never want to have.
contrary to what Mark Zuckerberg would have us believe, privacy is not dead, in many ways its more alive and more important than ever. its just that privacy is no longer assumed, it has to be ensured – by both people and by brands. just as people have to be aware of the levels of personal data and information they put out there, so too must brands and businesses now be aware of who wants to be cold called and who doesn't (it would seem by the way that 30% of Australians don't). and like it or not that's just a cost of being in business now.
small businesses have more than a little hope to cling to however… in fact its probably John Allan's very same "new and emerging businesses" that, far from being at a disadvantage to the big players and their telemarketing machines, will hold the advantage. these little fish, these challengers, these service and people orientated businesses and brands will thrive in a post-broadcast age because they'll be forced to have something interesting to talk about so that people cold call them. they will have to create noise. and that too will be the cost but also the significant reward of being in business in an age where people, not businesses, start more valuable and fruitful conversations than were ever had at the end of a telemarketer's cold call.
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