• by Seana Mulcahy , October 8, 2007

Remember when Internet advertising in the early days was called new media? It's funny, every now and then I still hear the term used in that way. Like the industry, the term has morphed into the new "new." What could fall under it? Streaming audio and video, video uploads and downloads, RSS feed, social media, downloadable music, blogs... the list goes on.

Think about your lifestyle or your kids' lifestyles. When was the last time you bought a music CD? How about the last time you downloaded a song? Probably more recently, right? Have you watched a movie or movies online? Maybe you saw one while traveling. I bet your kids have. Ever been sent a link to a funny video clip and landed on You Tube? In the offline world, how do you consume television? Do you watch shows live? Perhaps you have a digital video recorder (DVR)?

All this new media has put us in control of almost all media. We can most likely get what we want when we want it. Who's starting to get this more than anyone? Hollywood, my dear readers. The movie public tends to be young, hip, open to new ideas and not afraid of new technologies. In fact, they've been gobbling up just about everything they can get their hands on online.

So how can Hollywood and the rest of us take advantage of new media as it relates to a method of getting our message out? Can we build brand awareness? Create buzz? Spawn positive word of mouth? This writer says, hell, yeah.

Much of this makes up the new wow factor online. How cool is it just to search on a movie and bam, get multiple links to trailers or areas to download it? What's even better is that we can see other user's reviews and comments about it. Why waste the time and money, paying $10 to actually see a movie before we know it is good?

EMarketer just released The Digital Movie Marketing report. It analyzes how film content delivery and promotion are adapting to the rapidly evolving world of digital video recorders DVRs and downloads on demand.

According to the report, Hollywood will place more emphasis on these new media channels, spending an average of 9% of film marketing budgets online in 2011, up from 3.7% in 2006. While I don't have full access to the report, it is said to answer the following key questions:
-What percentage of Hollywood studios' marketing budgets will be allocated to online media?
-What tactics are the studios using to market films online?
-How will new technologies such as digital downloading, DVRs and high-definition DVDs play into the delivery and marketing of filmed entertainment content?
-How do consumers use the Web to acquire information about films?
-How will product placements leverage the Internet?

So what are the top video download sites? According to a Nielsen//NetRatings report from August, it's no surprise the top three are YouTube, with a unique audience of 54,453,000, MySpace with 16,759,000, and Google Video with 14, 450,000, followed by AOL Video, MSN Video and Yahoo Video.

So I'll close with the following question: How will old and new media not only coexist, but capture a user's attention?

Post your thought and opinions to the Spin blog, as I'm sure we are barely scratching the surface of the issue.