Citing unnamed sources, a couple of trade publications Friday reported that ABC has already struck upfront advertising deals with at least one major media shop for the 2005-06 television season. The online editions of Advertising Age and Mediaweek both reported that OMD has finalized deals with ABC that also include inventory for the network's coverage of the 2006 Super Bowl. OMD is the largest buyer of Super Bowl advertising time. Both trade publications said ABC declined to comment on the deals. Advertising Age said OMD executives were unavailable for comment. Mediaweek said OMD declined to comment, but said the agency paid a 6 percent prime-time CPM increase for its 2005-06 upfront deal on ABC. If true, the early activity sends another in a series of mixed signals ruminated around the 2005-06 upfront advertising marketplace--a market media buyers have been posturing would be relatively flat and drawn-out. A number of other analysts, including top Wall Street equities researchers, had also been predicting relatively minor upfront volume and price gains for the broadcast networks, although ABC has been seen as the best-positioned of the major broadcasters. It also would suggest that the broadcast upfront may once again lead the cable marketplace. Cable preceded the broadcast during the 2004-05 upfront marketplace last year, and picked up roughly half a billion dollars worth of upfront market share. Top cable industry executives had been predicting the same for 2005-06, citing a long-term and fundamental shift in upfront market dynamics. There has been speculation that a number of early cable deals have already been struck, and sources told MediaDailyNews that some upfront deals had been struck between agencies and several cable networks including Discovery Networks, Lifetime Television, and the Turner Entertainment networks several weeks ago--raising questions as to whether there was more demand and bigger upfront ad budgets than media buyers had been positioning. Mediaweek also speculated that other agencies--including WPP's MindShare and Publicis' Starcom MediaVest and ZenithOptimedia groups--were in "serious negotiations" with ABC. If so, the big question is whether the early activity reflects ABC's advantageous market position, or whether upfront market demand is stronger than buyers and advertisers have been letting on to. In other words, is ABC going to lead an upfront drive, or is the network simply priced so far below the rest of the marketplace that buyers are seeking to lock up good deals and lay in a base so they can wait out a longer, more protracted upfront? The deal may also send a mixed signal to the cable marketplace, which has been trotting out powerful research--such as a new wave of "Millennium" studies from Turner Broadcasting Sales--in the hopes that cable would lead the upfront. While he would not comment on a deal with ABC, OMD's top media buying executive, Ray Warren, told Mediaweek: "If one of the broadcast networks comes out and starts doing business, that could mean the cable networks may not write as much as they probably think they are going to write this year." In the end, says one upfront sales vet, both the broadcast and cable markets will move when equilibrium is struck on both sides of the negotiating table. "When sellers and buyers see the marketplace in a similar way the deal gets done," says Dan Hodges, managing director of Greenwich Consulting Partners. "Timing is key, because in a moving marketplace during stable economic times, those first in usually get both price and quality."
Digital video recorders may be increasing the anxiety level on Madison Avenue, but new research released Sunday suggests that DVRs, in fact, may not be for everybody. The research--presented by Ed Gordon, director of local and affiliate research at ESPN, during the opening session of the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau's local sales management conference in Chicago--found that nearly 57 percent of households that participated in a test ultimately returned their DVRs because they did not want them. The study, which was conducted between February and August 2004 by Horowitz Associates for ESPN, was designed to reveal what the impact of DVRs would be when given to "non-early adopters." The study was intended to determine how DVRs influence viewing behavior and exposure to advertising among the later adopters who were given DVRs as part of the test. As it turns out, many didn't even want the devices. Of the 157 households that participated in the test, 90 returned their DVRs for a variety or reasons including: complaints about the installation process, the cost of DVRs, or the fact that the digital set-top devices clashed with or didn't fit into their home furnishings. Among those who opted to keep their DVRs, Gordon said there was an indication that they continued to view TV commercials, even during fast-forward mode. Gordon said ESPN has gone into the field with a more robust study of 1,000 cable and satellite TV DVR households in an attempt to "quantify motivation" for DVR use and ad avoidance, and to measure the use of so-called "trick" features such as replay, slow-motion, and fast-forward by type of DVR. ESPN DVR Study Sample Recruited For Test Returned DVR Cable DVR 117 67 TiVo 40 23 Total 157 90 Source: ESPN
It's hard to turn down anything for free--and Comcast's users clearly have responded, viewing three times more of its Free Video-on-Demand programming than just a year ago. Comcast has been aggressively promoting its slate of Free VOD offerings. Last September's launch of NFL OnDemand, which began its first week with 600,000 views, grew to roughly 2.9 views in its first month, and ended the season with 8.6 million views. Last month, the number one cable operator unveiled its FVOD for kids with 50 hours of programming a month for 25 different childrens' series. So far, the kids' targeted FVOD has attracted more than 4.3 million users. "Overall, we've had over 100 million programs viewed OnDemand in March 2005, which is three times higher than March 2004," a Comcast spokeswoman said. "People browse through OnDemand much as they would through a library. They will find things that they might not typically watch in a linear format and give it a shot in OnDemand. For example, Noggin debuted their holiday movie in 2004, called 'Franklin.' They debuted it on Comcast OnDemand two weeks before it would be available on the Noggin linear channel. They used it as a way to drive viewer interest." Also in the last month, Comcast signed a deal with Rentrak, which is providing monthly measurement of its OnDemand offerings. Comcast's and Rentrak's agreement also looks at four standardized metrics: the number of VOD-enabled set-top boxes in a Designated Market Area; total views by program per month; the number of unique set-top boxes viewing a program by month; and the total minutes viewed by program per month. "Our OnDemand business is on track to reach more than one billion views in 2005, and so accurate and timely measurement is the next step in the evolution of VOD," said Page Thompson, vice president and general manager of Comcast's OnDemand services unit. The OnDemand services are available to roughly 85 percent of the company's customers. A recent Forrester Research study noted that the lack of free content appears to be suppressing demand for VOD television services. VOD is now available to nearly 19 million homes--or about 75 percent of the U.S. digital cable universe, Forrester's Josh Bernoff noted in his report on the various ad models for VOD. While movie buys and usage of subscription content such as HBO On-Demand are increasing, the model is languishing to some degree, largely because of the reluctance of cable operators to pay for quality programming. Comcast, the nation's number one MSO, refuses to pay directly for FVOD content. For the most part, other operators feel the same way, Bernoff said. But Comcast executives insist that they are having no trouble attracting content, let alone advertisers to support it and viewers to watch it. "In the TV markets that are in Comcast's Eastern Division [New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Hartford-New Haven, Springfield-Holyoke, and Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York], free VOD usage is through the roof," said Ted Hodgins, senior director, new product marketing, Comcast-Eastern Division. "We are substantially breaking usage records every month. Free VOD orders surpass SVOD orders like HBO, Showtime, etc., on a regular basis--and have since about November 2004 in Philly and even earlier in New England--August 2004. Our order mix is about 60 percent to 67 percent free OnDemand each month, depending on the market."
Online video ads that roll immediately before the video content are better branding vehicles than other types of online video ads, but "transitional" formats--where ads stream between page views--are more likely to drive purchases, according to new research by rich media company Viewpoint and Dynamic Logic, scheduled to be released today. For the study, dubbed "All Things Video," Viewpoint streamed 40 million 30-second online video impressions for four separate campaigns, across a variety of sites including About.com, CBS News, CBS SportsLine, America Online, ESPN, iVillage, and Weather.com. The ads, streamed over a period of eight weeks, included "pre-roll," in which ads stream before content; "in-page" formats, in which ads stream next to static text; and "transitional" formats, where ads stream between page views. Dynamic Logic then surveyed about 3,800 online viewers who were exposed to the ads. Overall, pre-roll, which in many ways is the most similar to television ads, was the most effective at increasing brand awareness. "For people who respond to advertising, full-screen is the most effective, because there's no competition on the page," said Allie Savarino, vice president of Viewpoint. But transitional video was found to be 20 percent more successful than both of the other two formats when it came to having an impact on intent to make a purchase. Video ads that ran embedded within banners were the least effective of the three formats. "If you stick something in a banner, it's still a banner," said Savarino. "It's a great reminder message, but not something that advertisers should really talk about investing a high portion of their budget in, if it's at a premium." Viewers also reported relatively less irritation with online ads than television ads. Twenty-six percent of respondents said they found the online ads annoying--far lower than the proportion of consumers who reported annoyance with television ads.
Carat Interactive today is expected to announce two new top managers: Greg Pomaro, who will become group media director in the San Francisco office; and Gordon Abel, who will be filling the newly created position of director of marketing. Pomaro comes to Carat from Grey San Francisco, managing the online media programs for Oracle, Sun, and Teleflora. As director of marketing for Carat, Pomaro will oversee their media operations and media planning, and will manage new and existing technology initiatives. Pomaro said he plans to make only minor changes in the agency's media planning and practices. "Obviously, they've had a rock-solid practice for a long time, so I don't really anticipate any major changes," he said. "There will always be small things, and it's an evolutionary industry--I expect there will be some things that will change, but they won't be major, sweeping renovations." Another of Pomaro's responsibilities will be growing the agency by signing on new clients. "I'll absolutely be involved in new business initiatives. The first priority is always to service existing clients, but I'll be part of the team that's tasked with overseeing the growth of the overall agency," he said. Abel comes to Carat from Euro RSCG Worldwide, where he managed accounts for Barclay's Global Investors, Wells Fargo Online, and Yahoo! Premium Services. He is also a member of the board of the Bay Area Interactive Group. He will be responsible for managing Carat's brand positioning, and he will work with the company's senior executives to plan Carat's marketing and communications, including public relations, events, and corporate communications.
That cosmic crash you heard last Monday was the sound of a million egos collapsing when a new Pew/BuzzMetrics study failed to find inordinate agenda influence by bloggers in the 2004 presidential campaign. But research weenies that they are, the Pew folks gave bloggers reason to step back from the ledge by disclaiming: "This is exploratory research... I don't think we did anything but scratch the surface." Nevertheless, the Pew study ought to stop (at least for a while) all the breast-beating about how important blogs have become. It's not like we didn't already know this. Try dropping the name of a big-league blogger on anybody not in the online industry, and you'll get back looks blanker than a Newsweek PR crisis management playbook. In fact, eMarketer Inc. said recently that there is evidence that most U.S. Internet users don't know what a blog is. And that only 4 percent of major U.S. corporations have blogs available to the public for purposes such as corporate marketing, communications, or advertising. This didn't sit well with PR-guy-turned-blog-advocate Steve Rubel, who wrote that all eMarketer did was "regurgitate a lot of existing numbers that are already out there." Steve's future income aside, Ezra Palmer, the research firm's editorial director, said: "The latest Pew data and other anecdotal evidence suggest that blog readership has crested, at least temporarily." It could just be that folks are too filled up with news and opinions they get from elsewhere--that blogs are just one too many dishes on the info-smorgasbord. Isn't that why we read newspapers and watch TV news, so that somebody with some professional judgment can search through all the chaff and find the grains of wheat? With all the press screw-ups with which we are all now too familiar, I still tend to trust the AP over some guy who sits around all day banging out his thoughts--presumably for posterity (or bragging rights). As much fun as it is to hit the press while they are down (and they seem to be down a lot in recent years), it is an extraordinarily hard job that I think is generally done well by mostly honorable people. You learn a lot about what really is news and what isn't when you have been doing it for decades, as have most reputable news organizations. I think we would be poorly served as a nation were the primary news-gatherers to fall on such hard times that we had to count on bloggers for accuracy and fairness. We tend to undervalue the job that news organizations do, especially when they pull a Janet Cooke or Jayson Blair. But god help us if the Fourth Estate was not there to keep the other three (Kings, Lords, and Commons) in check, and keep us informed. When bloggers start schlepping down to check the police blotter at 3 a.m. just to make sure the victim's name is spelled correctly, then they can pull up a chair to the adult table.