Fueled by new technologies and rapid device adoption, total U.S. spending on mobile media is expected to grow 30% this year to $55 billion, according to a new forecast presented Thursday at MediaPost’s Mobile Insider Summit. That estimate from market research firm PQ Media combines mobile revenue generated both from providing content and access and marketing and advertising. The former includes spending on mobile data services and content delivered exclusively to mobile devices. The latter spans everything from banner ads, in-game ads and mobile search to mobile coupons, e-mail marketing and 2D codes. To date, mobile access and content is the larger market, estimated at $39 billion in 2011 compared to $3.4 billion for mobile advertising and marketing. Of that $3.4 billion, advertising -- display ads, search, and video ads, for example -- amounts to $1.8 billion, slightly more than the $1.6 billion devoted to mobile marketing formats like coupons, apps, and sponsored Tweets. Starting from a smaller base, mobile marketing and advertising has grown about twice as rapidly as content and access spending: 53.7% to 27.8% from 2010 to 2011. That pattern will continue this year, with marketing/advertising spiking 49.5% versus 28.3% on the content/access side, according to the PQ Media study, which also covered social media spending. The firm estimated total U.S. mobile and social revenue at $45.4 billion in 2011 -- up 30.2%, with combined spending in the two areas expected to account for 10% of all communications revenue ($1.4 trillion) by 2016. Mobile media alone is projected to reach the $100 billion mark by 2015. In his presentation, PQ Media CEO Patrick Quinn noted that mobile media is the fastest media to hit $1 billion -- it has taken five years, compared to 16 for the Internet. Looking more closely at mobile ad spending in 2011, the study showed that streaming video, search and in-game ads made up the bulk (68%) of spending. Dollars going to in-game advertising have ramped up especially fast, more than doubling last year. On the marketing side, SMS-based contests accounted for nearly half (48%) of spending, with marketing apps the next-biggest format, at 17%. Location-based services, mobile coupons, apps and click-to-call marketing are among the fastest- growing areas. Quinn noted that smartphone penetration, now about 35% to 40% in the U.S., will be a key factor driving growth in the next five years. During that time, the 60%/40% split between business and consumer smartphone users will be reversed as the devices spread to a broader audience. Rising adoption of tablets, the buildout of 4G networks, and increasing time spent with all mobile devices will also be among the main growth drivers in the coming years. Even so, familiar obstacles remain in mobile growth. Those include saturation in the feature phone market, high access fees slowing smartphone growth and device and network fragmentation that continue to make it more difficult to buy mobile advertising and marketing. “The biggest challenge here is that there are 100 competing advertising and marketing platforms, including 17 just in mobile,” said Quinn. That overwhelming array of options leaves “a lot of marketers confused and flustered.” He added that tech-centric media and ad executives on both coasts forget that most American consumers don’t have homes filled with the latest gadgets, suggesting that expectations for mainstream adoption should be tempered.
KEY LARGO, FL – One of the greatest challenges confronting the ad industry over the past several decades has been media fragmentation, but most agencies and advertisers typically think of it in terms of how it affects consumers – and their ability to reach them. On Thursday, during MediaPost’s Mobile Insider Summit here a highly regarded researcher and analyst presented data indicating it has had a profound impact on the number of media options advertisers and agencies must also now choose from. “In the 1970s, there were eight choices,” Patrick Quinn, founder and CEO of PQ Media, said during a presentation of a new study on mobile and social media at the summit. He was referring to the number of media platforms that advertisers and agencies had to research, plan, buy and analyze the effects of when mounting a campaign to reach consumers with advertising. “Today there are more than 100, and 17 from mobile alone,” he added. Quinn said that fragmentation of options, and the problems it has caused in manpower, workflow, thinking and comparing media options, is the No. challenge cited by PQ Media’s panel of industry leaders that it surveys periodically. Among other things, he noted, many of those platforms have entirely different ways of thinking about and estimating how consumers are exposed to their medium. To illustrate how vexing, and sometimes emotional, the problem can be, Quinn said he had “just left an angry guy” at New York’s LaGuardia Airport who unleashed his frustration about media fragmentation on him, before departing to come to the summit here. “Which are right for you,” Quinn asked Summit attendees of the 100-plus media options they must now consider. Among other things, the fragmentation and inconsistency among those platforms is creating challenging issues such as “incompatibility” in their measurement systems and metrics, coverage issues, and user experience and ad effectiveness issues. Even within a given platform that marketers and agencies may think of as a single medium -- say mobile, as an example -- Quinn noted that there are now “44 different revenue streams” for the various sub-components – carriers, networks, publishers, exchanges, app developers, etc. – that make up the mobile media industry today.
As a pioneer in the mobile media space, ESPN has long seen the value of reaching fans on-the-go with sports scores, video highlights and specialized apps to feed their passion. But rather than view mobile as the oft-described “third screen,” the sports media powerhouse refers to it as the “first screen,” according to Michael Bayle, VP and general manager of ESPN Mobile. In a keynote talk Thursday at MediaPost’s Mobile Insider Summit, Bayle explained that instead of determining how to shoehorn its programming from traditional media to mobile platforms, the process is now reversed, with mobile becoming the starting point. “What’s taking preference now is to try to get as ubiquitous as possible. Program and design from the mobile standpoint first, then extrapolate what could be applied for the PC, television and print experience,” he said. Driving that heightened emphasis on mobile is that it represents ESPN’s fastest-growing audience. Bayle pointed out that its mobile audience across its mobile properties has surpassed 20 million, with users spending 45% more time with ESPN mobile content in 2011 than the prior year. ESPN Mobile now ranks as the company’s fourth-largest network and it has 150,000 people plugged into its mobile offerings at any given time. “Particularly from an international standpoint, [mobile] is the primary way we reach an audience,” said Bayle, adding that ESPN Mobile has grown into a full-service content and commerce provider. But more isn’t always necessarily better. One of Bayle’s initiatives since joining ESPN last fall has been to reduce its focus to a handful of apps from the scores of titles released in recent years. That means the strongest focus on apps would be dedicated to Sports Center, collegiate sports, sports fantasy leagues, ESPN the Magazine and international sports like soccer and cricket. He noted that apps overall still account for the vast majority of the company’s mobile usage, although the embrace of HTML5 programming should swing the balance back in favor of the mobile Web in the coming years. ESPN’s mobile strategy is seen in terms of “bridges,” connecting people to its broader digital offerings, TV and mobile commerce. Mobile is the gateway to other screens and media formats. It also embraces social properties, like Twitter and Facebook, to distribute content more widely and allow fans to connect around live sporting events and hometown teams. When it comes to TV, part of the goal is to capitalize on two-screen viewing and the gradual shift toward interactive television. As an example, Bayle pointed to a new partnership the network unveiled today with Shazam that allows Winter X Games viewers on ESPN to use the Shazam smartphone app to access video highlights, photos and even music from the event. Conversely, ESPN also wants to leverage mobile to encourage television viewing through news updates and alerts about live events that might prompt people to reach for the remote. In the same vein, ESPN increasingly wants to infuse mobile content with transactional opportunities. Through a deal with StubHub, it allows fans to buy event tickets as they’re browsing upcoming schedules or information about their teams. It’s all about encouraging an impulse buy while people have mobile phones in hand, says Bayle. He sees m-commerce, in fact, as potentially the biggest draw for marketers. Bayle says it's "the catalyst that finally breaks through the 'why do I invest in mobile,' which many agencies are scratching their heads about." Given its focus on cross-platform programming, ESPN also takes an integrated approach on the ad side. Sponsorships are typically sold across digital, print, television, mobile. For an advertiser that can't afford a TV buy, Bayle says, mobile may be a way to reach ESPN’s male-skewing audience at lower cost.
Los Angeles-based digital agency Fuel Industries has realigned its 12-year focus on branded entertainment and general marketing to target the youth market through interactive campaigns such as gaming. To accomplish the goal, senior executive Andrew Wing and creative guru Mike Burns have been named co-CEOs. Burns said the company will build campaigns that engage today's youth, who want to consume content through game play on sites like McDonald's Europe HappyStudio.com. Fuel has been working with McDonald's since 2007. A year ago, the company won a bid to build a virtual world marketing platform in Europe. It's available in 40 countries and has been translated in almost as many languages. Integrated into the virtual worlds are characters from movies such as "Tin Tin," "Puss In Boots" and "Ice Age 4," along with content from popular toys like Hot Wheels. Clients also include Google, Electronic Arts and Microsoft. As part of its entertainment division, Fuel launched its own property in October on the Sony PlayStation Network called Sideway New York, an action platform game for PS3 and PCs. Fuel has been developing similar properties for global brands since 1999. Wing joined Burns at Fuel in 2011 as chairman of the executive committee after stints as president and CEO of Cantor Entertainment, a division of Cantor Fitzgerald, and president and CEO of Nielsen Entertainment. The combined leadership has overseen the evolution of Fuel’s business model and the elevation of Fuel’s Youth Engagement brand. Michael Plotkin, former CTO at Electronics Arts, who holds a Ph.D. in computer science, has been named CTO at Fuel. Chief Strategy Officer Jeff Roach, who guides strategic planning and youth consumer insights, served in similar roles at youth marketing agencies Youthography and Glitteration.
A federal judge has rejected a request by presidential candidate Ron Paul to immediately unmask the creator of a video clip that Paul says defamed him. In a ruling issued this week, U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James in the Northern District of California ruled that the politico hadn't met all of the procedural hoops for obtaining the information on an expedited basis. The ruling was without prejudice, which means that Paul's campaign can amend its papers and try again. The dispute dates to Jan. 4, when a Twitter and YouTube user with the screen name NHLiberty4Paul uploaded a video that attacked former Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman as a “Manchurian candidate.” The clip, titled “Jon Huntsman's values,” intersperses poses questions like “Weak on China? Wonder Why?” and “What's he hiding?” with video footage of the ex-U.S. Ambassador to China candidate speaking Chinese. Paul promptly disavowed the video. Two weeks ago, his campaign filed a federal lawsuit alleging that whoever uploaded the clip infringed Paul's trademark and engaged in false advertising. The complaint also alleges that the clip defamed Paul by portraying him as “unscrupulous, xenophobic and underhanded.” Paul's campaign also sought an expedited court order unmasking NHLiberty4Paul. James rejected that request because the campaign didn't provide enough information to show “good cause” to issue such an order on a speedy basis. James said that the campaign could try again, but must spell out why its entitled to the expedited order. Among other factors, the campaign must specify why it believes its legal claims will hold up. It's not yet clear whether Paul's floundering campaign will refile the request. Should the campaign do so, the case could test the limits of people's right to engage in anonymous speech online. In general, judges are protective of people's right to speak anonymously about political matters, and to create political parodies. But if this clip contains statements that are “outright misleading,” the uploader might not be able to remain anonymous, says Internet legal expert Venkat Balasubramani. “It depends on the context and whether the campaign is able to argue that the accounts (and statements) were misleading, and whether the posters can make some sort of parody argument,” Balasubramani says in an email to Online Media Daily.
Although largely over the ‘V’ word, marketers still love to see their work spread organically online. Which brands are best at getting people to share their messages? Well, despite consumer clamoring for the iPhone 5, Apple’s introduction of the 4S was the most-watched video spot during the fourth quarter of 2011. Overall, the campaign was streamed more than 35.8 million times -- becoming the brand’s most-viewed ad of all time after only three weeks, according to new research from social video analytics firm Visible Measures. Apple’s campaign was heavily driven by audiences, with more than 450 copies and derivatives that generated over 50% of the views for the entire campaign. After Apple, Google remains the second-most-watched brand for the third quarter in a row. Up more than 10 million views during the quarter, the search giant has launched ten new campaigns since October. Google’s Chrome campaign "The Web Is What You Make Of It" continues to drive viewership for the brand, but the newly launched campaigns "Chromebook," showcasing the new Web-only laptop, and "Zeitgeist," the spot highlighting the events of 2011, also helped garner views. With more than 10 active campaigns and over 21.4 million views, Lenovo was the third-most-watched brand of the quarter. Promoting a global contest among students to have their scientific experiments performed at the International Space Station, YouTube and Lenovo’s co-branded effort "Spacelab: What Will You Do?" was also a hit with over 18.8 million views. Overall, consumers watched online video ads over 745 million times during the fourth quarter -- more than a 25% increase since the third quarter, and more than a 35% increase year-over-year. Yet unlike TV networks, marketers can’t draw a clear line between viewership and success. Illustrating this point, failed Republican primary candidate Rick Perry had the most-shared campaign video of the quarter. Released a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses -- and containing his controversial views on religion and gays in the military -- Perry’s "Strong" spot was watched over 15.8 million times. In another example of notoriety, Megaupload’s "Megaupload Song" attracted more than 14.3 million views in less than a month, thanks to a star-studded cast and a healthy dose of controversy. The music video features celebrities like Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, and Will.i.am declaring their love for the Internet storage brand. As Visible Measures reminds us, the controversy exploded in early January when Megaupload was shut down when the Department of Justice indicted a number of its executives, calling it “among the largest criminal copyright cases ever brought by the United States.” Also of note, apparel and accessories topped all verticals during the quarter with more than 83.7 million views -- yet down slightly quarter-over-quarter.
In the day’s second keynote at MediaPost’s mobile summit, Marc Jenkins, vice president, digital media, NASCAR, revved up the audience with insights into how the sport is integrating mobile into its programming and marketing. While rights fees are revenue drivers for NASCAR and other sports broadcasters, it doesn't look at digital as cannibalizing revenue, since it helps drive engagement through things like fantasy sports leagues. Digital is also becoming intertwined with broadcast rights. In terms of mobile specifically, it provides the opportunity to reach fans wherever they are, but also serves as a complement to TV broadcasts. Jenkins says tablets are well-suited to personalized viewing, and he is a proponent of the TV Everywhere concept. The challenge is translating the visceral experience at the track to the fan at home. Jenkins said NASCAR is trying to push for deeper engagement at home by supplying lots of race-related data via mobile devices to enhance viewing. To that end, it created a RaceBuddy digital tool -- developed with Turner -- that offers both data and shows different camera angles on the action. Translating all that to a mobile screen can be challenging, Jenkins says. The NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile app shows leaderboards, live audio from in-car audio, and recaps. The use of mobile outpaces the PC three to one during event hours, Jenkins said. But NASCAR is still trying to determine where people are using mobile to follow races.
Lifestyle publishers build sponsored online city-guides all the time. Playing with the formula, Thrillist has partnered with its fairer equivalent DailyCandy to launch a Kahlua- sponsored dining directory. Neither publisher, however, is taking credit for the idea. Rather, Vizeum -- on behalf of Pernod Ricard’s Kahlua brand -- approached Thrillist and DailyCandy separately, according to Jody Rones, director of advertising at Thrillist. “They were looking to build a campaign focused around brunch that reached both men and women, but that spoke to each directly,” said Rones. The result was “Brunch With Us” -- a microsite edited by both publishers to provide male and female visitors with fitting food recommendations. Scheduled to run through the summer, the mobile-friendly site features a tool for users to filter eateries by unique preferences, including “hangover cure,” “good for groups,” “alfresco” and “great for out-of- towners.” “For our guys, we knew that with football season drawing to a close, weekends tend to be sort of vacant. So we came up with the idea for a site that would provide brunch and post-brunch activity recommendations,” Rones explained. “Out of that, 'Brunch With Us' was born.” Site visitors also receive suggested post-brunch itineraries, featuring a list of editor-approved hangout spots and shops. To promote it, both Thrillist and DailyCandy have created campaigns on their respective Web properties. “It was a one-off partnership around this specific campaign," Rones said. "But based on the success of this program, we’re open to exploring other opportunities.” How will Rones measure success? “We’re going to be looking at site traffic and overall engagement,” he said. “I also believe if this saves one couple from an argument on where to go to brunch, this program was a success.” In mid-2008, Comcast acquired DailyCandy for $125 million. Following Comcast’s merger with NBC Universal last year, DailyCandy became part of NBCU's Entertainment & Digital Networks and Integrated Media division. Thrillist remains an independent company, with some of the same investors as DailyCandy, including former AOL COO Bob Pittman.
Marketers that are trying to connect with millennials ages 18 to 34 to promote products and services related to love and Valentine's Day might want to consider tapping social influencers who produce user-generated content (UGC). This generation trusts people rather than brands, and values the opinions of like-minded strangers as much as people they know, according to a new study scheduled for release Monday titled "Talking to Strangers." Strangers appear to have the most influence when it comes to making a purchase. About 51% of millennials are more likely influenced by UGC produced and posted by strangers, compared with recommendations from friends, family and colleagues, but only 34% of boomers agree. In fact, 84% of millennials report that UGC from strangers has some influence on what they buy. That's because 65% of millennials believe UGC offers a more honest and genuine view online, and 86% believe the content represents a good indicator of the quality of a brand, service or products. Millennials question the motives of companies that collect customer opinions. The study finds 71% of millennials say companies care about customer opinions simply because they impact how other consumers will view the brand, rather than truly caring what their customers think. Seventy-three percent of millennials believe other consumers care more about their opinions than companies do; that's why they continue to share their opinions online. They view companies that include customer feedback on their Web sites as honest, at 66%, and credible, at 53%. Millennials won't complete top purchases without UGC -- big-ticket items like major electronics, 44%, and cars, 40%, as well as hotel stays, 39%, insurance policies, 30%, and travel to specific destinations, 32%. The millennial generation relies heavily on input from social media. About 80% use Facebook; 49%, YouTube; 18%, Twitter; and 25%, Google+. This suggests they are more likely to share both positive and negative experiences with brands via social channels -- 42% and 32%, respectively -- than by emailing their friends or calling the company. The "Talking to Strangers" Survey, released by Bazaarvoice in partnership with The Center for Generational Kinetics and Kelton Research, aggregated findings from 1,013 participants ages 18 and over by Kelton Research between Aug. 25 and Sept. 5, 2011.
In its updated mobile ad forecast released Wednesday, eMarketer ranked Millennial Media third behind only Google and Apple, with a 17.7% share of ad dollars last year. Aiming to gain more ground on its rivals, the mobile ad network has rolled out a new service allowing brands to retarget people who previously downloaded their apps. Millennial will serve mobile display ads in other apps or on the mobile Web. They are designed to drive users back to specific parts of an app. For example, an airline with a branded app could run an ad sending people to the place where they book a flight or a special “deals” page that showed all the current last-minute offers. It might also highlight the app’s section with information on various destinations. The Millennial announcement promises this deep-linking process will boost usage, but the company did not provide any data showing results from retargeting. It did say the program would provide advertisers with the ability to track in-app transactions -- assuming people click on the ads to get reacquainted with an app. Jamie Fellows, SVP of product at Millennial, said just launching an app, even for a well-known brand, isn’t enough. “Brands need to make sure the experience is good; they need to make sure users are finding the app, and perhaps most importantly, they need to take steps to drive sustained consumer usage," he said. Mobile app analytics and ad firm Flurry introduced a similar tool for developers last October called AppCircle Re-Engagement. The idea is to lure back users by reminding them of what they’re missing -- even when they are in other apps. At the time, Flurry said more than two-thirds of newly acquired app users disappear within two months. As it prepares for its planned IPO, Millennial can use new revenue streams. In its IPO filing to raise up to $75 million, the company reported $69.1 million in sales for the first nine months of 2011, but is not yet profitable.
I kind of miss the old days, when a TV network launched a new program and people either watched it or not. If you weren't in your seat with a bowl of homemade popcorn at the appointed hour, you were SOL until the summer reruns, or until one of your neighbors or co-workers caught you up on what you’d missed last night. Since there was generally only one screen in the house (and no videotaping devices) and shows competing for different audiences (say, you and your wife) ran at the same hour, marriages could end over who got dibs on watching "their" show. Now watching TV is kind of like enlisting in the Army, with lots of obligations the recruiter "failed" to mention in advance. You have to check in and get stickers, interrupt viewing to tweet your reactions to what just happened, join a Facebook group that "likes" the show, figure out if you’d rather record the show and take a chance that one of your moron friends will spill the beans about some crucial plot twist -- and further, decide if you'd rather access the show via subscription VOD services and/or numerous other digital platforms like Netflix or Amazon and get to watch it on a device not hanging on your bedroom wall. To make matters worse, instead of just settling for "I Love Lucy" or "The Honeymooners" or "Gunsmoke" like the rest of the nation, you have five or six hundred programming options coming at you from every direction. I need a DVR that can tape more than two shows at a time and also lets me watch a regular broadcast on another station. In fact, on some nights I could tape four or five shows at the same hour. But then if I am away for a week or so, the backlogged library of recorded shows can take six months to watch. I get the same guilty feeling deleting an unwatched show as I do tossing a magazine I subscribe to but whose cover I’ve never cracked. And there is related content online -- like three new webisodes focused on character back stories, as well as six new behind-the-scenes segments -- that I never seem to get to. Time-shifting (and multiple showings of the same episode on subsequent nights) should make life easier, I suppose, but it really just enhances the notion of having "no excuse" for missing something (hence my taping of the nightly news -- "Good evening to YOU, Brian!" –- which I generally get to around 9 or 10 p.m.). The whole thing makes me feel overwhelmed, like I am on some sort of gerbil flywheel. If I have not gotten to "Downton Abbey" by Wednesday or so, my friends who have been dying to talk about it since Sunday think I am a laggard who prefers Internet porn to English period pieces. Not that they are mutually exclusive. And then there is the stunned disbelief when I fail to become a fan of some show that everyone is watching, i.e., "American Idol." Frankly, I am not sure who Simon Cowell is (or was). But I must say it seemed a simpler time when everyone you ran into the next day could talk about what a dork Ed Sullivan was, or how funny Carson was. No social media, no check-ins, no multitasking -- just the communal experience of a nation watching TV together. Which, by the way, was free.