Time was that DVRs were going to destroy TV's ad-supported model. But a new Nielsen report shows viewers watch a notable amount of commercials that they could zap, which is helping increase C3 ratings, the industry currency. The research shows that C3 ratings rise 16%, thanks to people watching commercials while using a DVR. That data is for 18- to-49-year-olds for ABC, CBS, CW, Fox and NBC combined. The commercial viewing average for the networks' live feeds -- during the April 29-May 26 period -- was a 1.78, which rose to a 2.06 for C3. C3 ratings take into account commercial viewing for a live broadcast, plus over the ensuing three days with DVRs. There is further evidence that commercials are being watched during delayed viewing: Nielsen found that in homes with DVRs, commercials viewed in time-shifted mode boost C3 ratings by 44%. That's also among 18- to-49-year-olds for ABC, CBS, CW, Fox and NBC combined. Nielsen found that overall, about 50% of broadcast program viewing with a DVR takes place on the same day it is recorded. That measure indicates some people are eager to watch shows live, but are content to wait a bit to avoid ads. DVRs are now in 38% of U.S. homes, and Nielsen says homes with DVRs consume more prime-time programming than those without the devices.
Information travels fast in the Facebook age, and even faster when mobile phones are connected to a 4G network -- at least according to T-Mobile. Leveraging its position as an official sponsor of the National Basketball Association, T-Mobile enlists commentator and former player Charles Barkley and the Miami Heat's Dwayne Wade for a series of commercials showcasing the video capabilities of T-Mobile's 4G network. "So much has changed about the fan experience in the 21st century and, everything being instantaneous, we really wanted to use that as being fuel for the campaign," says Steve Williams, a creative director at Publicis Seattle, the agency behind the campaign. "We wanted to give it to a place that T-mobile could own." In the first of the commercials (directed by Spike Lee), Wade locks himself in a hotel room suite. When he posts a video screaming, "Get me outta here!" to his Facebook account, a modern-day equivalent of telephone erupts, with fans assuming Wade means he wants out of Miami. Various fans and celebrities (including Barkley, consummate Knicks fan Lee and the Phoenix Suns' Steve Nash) try to woo Wade, who is finally released from captivity by a hotel housekeeper, who notes he's on the news. A second spot depicts commentary by Barkley remixed into a hip-hop song to become a viral sensation after passing through a series of hands that includes players and fans. The spot ends with Barkley groaning as he watches a group of nightclubbers dance to his commentary. The television commercials will debut during NBA programming on Christmas Day. The company has been an NBA Partner since 2005. Having introduced its advanced 4G network November, the NBA partnership was an ideal way to showcase the ways the network enhances a user's experience, says Melinda McCrocklin, manager of advertising and brand integration for T-Mobile. "The [NBA effort] demonstrates the power of what 4G can deliver to the handset and to the consumer," says Peter DeLuca, vice president of advertising for T-Mobile. "One of the key insights of NBA fans is they're highly social and they're looking for more than just scores."
On the backs of shows such as "Jersey Shore" and "Teen Mom," MTV said it will end 2010 with 16% higher ratings in its target 12-to-34 demo, marking its largest year-over-year jump since 1999. For the fourth quarter this year, ratings were up 24%, the network said. Not including sports programming such as "Monday Night Football," MTV said it had all 20 of the top cable broadcasts this year in the 18-to-34 demo. Its "2010 Video Music Awards" with a 10 rating and more than 11 million total viewers was No. 1. MTV General Manager Stephen Friedman stated: "We continue to rally the organization around a new brand filter that is clearly gaining traction with the millennial audience." "Jersey Shore," MTV's most-watched series ever, will be back in 2011 and two scripted series, "Skins" and '"Teen Wolf," will also debut. "Jersey Shore" saw a 119% increase in ratings from season one to season two among adults 18 to 34, from a 2.6 to a 5.7. The second season of "Teen Mom" saw a 57% jump. MTV's impressive growth continued in the digital space. According to comScore Media Metrix, the MTV Music Group sang to more than 57 million unique visitors numbers (November 2010). That's a walloping 200% in year-over-year growth.
A solid majority of U.S. homes now have an HD set, which is up from just 12% five years ago. The Leichtman Research Group reports that 61% of homes have at least one HD set, and about one-quarter have more than one. HD costs are coming down, with 60% of set owners saying they spent less than $1,000, up from 34% in 2008. Some 61% with annual household incomes over $75,000 have HDTV -- compared to 44% with annual household incomes of $30,000-$75,000, and 29% with annual household incomes under $30,000. Moreover, 38% of HDTV owners have more than one HDTV set. On the next frontier, 3D TV, Leichtman reports fewer than 1% of homes have one of the fledgling sets. But 80% of adults have heard they are out there, and 8% are "very interested" in buying one. Consumers who have seen a 3D TV show give it varying approval ratings, with 24% assigning it a rating between 8 and 10 (10 is excellent), but 32% only allotting between 1 and 3. The research comes from a survey of 1,308 U.S. homes by Leichtman tabbed "HDTV and 3D TV 2010." The firm has conducted an HDTV study for eight years running. Leichtman reports that 21% of U.S. homes bought a TV in the last year and 18% plan to buy one in the next year. Bruce Leichtman, president of the company, credits lower prices with expanding the number of HDTV sets. The mean purchase price among those who bought an HDTV set in the past year was about 22% lower than 2009.
Wal-Mart's "Help Home Feel Closer" ad beat out more than 85 other holiday-themed ads, according to Ace Metrix, which evaluates the creative effectiveness of TV ads. Victoria's Secret, which aired multiple TV ads this holiday season, garnered the highest campaign score, driven largely by high "attention" scores from men. The Wal-Mart spot, featuring Procter & Gamble's Operationfamilyconnect.com promotion, resonated across all demographic groups with its philanthropic message. It scored more than 100 points above the retail ad norm for "likeability" and "attention" and more than 90 points above the average for all ads in the Ace Metrix database of nearly 8,000 national ads. Wal-Mart's ad scored a 623 out of a possible 950 points, says Peter Daboll, CEO of Ace Metrix. It was effective partly because of what it did not do -- focus on sales and events, he adds. Consumers have learned to tune these promotional types of ads out. Messages about what companies are doing for them resonate much better, he says. "Consumers just don't respond to the 'buy it now, you idiot' sales messaging," Daboll tells Marketing Daily. Philanthropic ads for major brands continue to show strong advertising value, he says. "I think the trend of philanthropy will continue," Daboll says. "We have seen some great success of ads from companies such as Starbucks and Wal-Mart, where consumers are looking for more than the typical messages. To earn their business you need to be a good citizen, too." Despite Victoria's Secret's polarizing effect between men and women, the ads were consistently top-scoring, a hallmark of campaign success, Daboll says. Both Wal-Mart and Best Buy, which had the top two ads overall, did not fare as well on the campaign level because of the gap between their high-scoring and lower-scoring ads. Victoria's Secret and Overstock.com, on the other hand, had consistently high-scoring ads. The scores are based on viewer reaction to national TV ads. Respondents are randomly selected and representative of the U.S. TV viewing audience. The results are presented on a scale of 0-950, which represents scoring on creative attributes such as relevance, persuasion, watchability, information and attention. Ace Metrix's criteria, (did it persuade consumers to do something, increase their desire, change their opinion or provide useful information) is much different than "did the consumer like the ad" which is the criteria for the recently released NRF ad list. The NRF reported that Target did well, while their ads did quite poorly in the Ace Metrix rankings vs. both Wal-Mart and Kmart.
Newspapers surpassed broadcasters for the first time in the third quarter in total video minutes streamed and the number of video titles uploaded, according to the latest data from analytics firm TubeMogul and video-hosting service Brightcove. Newspaper sites had a total of 313 million minutes of video streamed compared to 290 million for broadcast sites. Meanwhile, the number of videos downloaded on newspaper sites surged 51% quarter-to-quarter (and 110% from a year ago) to 482,000, more than any other type of media company. "This is an interesting development, and suggests that newspapers are rapidly adopting and producing video content for what was once a print business," notes the TubeMogul/Brightcove report. It also noted that in contrast with longer-format content on broadcast sites, newspapers are producing many more, but fewer, titles on a rolling basis. That approach likely has more appeal for advertisers, allowing them to run more pre-roll spots more often. "Newspapers have a lot of battle scars from the digital crusades of the last decade, so they've become pretty tenacious when it comes to the Internet," observed Gordon Borrell, president of local media research firm Borrell Associates. A major part of that effort has been seizing on video in innovative ways to draw in online audiences. Because of concerns about cannibalizing TV viewership and ad revenue, broadcast companies have been more reluctant to embrace online video. Thanks in part to the influx of video ad dollars, newspapers for the first time in five years have actually gained share of local online advertising dollars, according to Borrell. "Not much, but enough for us to say that they appear to be turning the corner and evolving from 'newspaper' companies to 'media' companies," he said. Outfits like The New York Times and McClatchy Corp. will get about 25% of their revenue this quarter from digital compared to 5% to 7% for most broadcast companies. The TubeMogul/Brightcove study also showed Facebook's growing influence in online video viewing, surpassing Yahoo in referring traffic to online video content. Facebook now accounts for nearly 10% of all referred video streams, second only to Google, which accounts for more than half. But Google as a referrals source accounted for much higher engagement for newspapers at one minute, 57 seconds per session, compared to the category average of 1:27. "This suggests that viewers look to the search engine as a source for the most relevant breaking and timely content," stated the report. "Facebook was the most engaging referral source for entertainment categories, including broadcasters (1:57 ) and magazines (1:34). For brands, video referrals from Twitter provided the highest rate of engagement at 1:47. Twitter also accounted for the highest average engagement rate across all media categories, and specifically for broadcasters (1:57) and online media properties (1:40) as well as brands. Completion rates for video from brand marketers continued to climb in the third quarter, reaching 47%. That's up from 35% in the first quarter. Completion rates also rose for broadcasters (44%) and online-only media properties (45.9%). When it comes to devices, game consoles (such as the Wii and PlayStation) lead in average viewing time, at 2:45 per session, compared to 2:27 for online video and smartphones at about 2 minutes. This is not surprising, "considering that gaming consoles are currently the most common playback device connected to TVs and most closely replicate a comfortable lean-back experience," according to the study. Brightcove said it expects the disparity to grow as media companies make more content available to viewers through connected TV apps and game consoles.
American Suzuki's Kizashi sport sedan has gone some ways toward raising both awareness for the automaker, whose name many people still associate with two-wheeled transport, and sales. Next year, the company will put most of its marketing dollars behind the car with a campaign centering on a series of ads showing how the Kizashi fares against the competition. Except in this case, the competitive set is not other mid-sized cars but luxury sports sedans by Audi, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz. The campaign, comprising three 30-second TV spots and two 15-second ads, touts Kizashi for its handling, safety and performance -- with the takeaway that one doesn't need a premium badge and price point to get a premium experience. The ads -- each of which show the Kizashi in side-by side track tests versus either Audi's A4, Mercedes-Benz C-Class or Volvo's S40 -- also have a humorous twist, as they also pit Kizashi against a motorized sofa, a man completely encased in a bubble-wrap suit and a stretch limo. One of the spots has Kizashi beating the Audi A4 -- and the motorized sofa -- in braking, cornering and quietness tests. In another, the car is touted for having more airbags, better road-holding grip, superior braking performance and a higher safety rating than the Volvo S40. In that ad, the guy in the bubble wrap is safe until a few dogs take a liking to popping the bubbles. There will also be a new Web site for the "Kizashi Kicks" campaign -- Kizashikicks.com, set to go live this week. The site will have the ads as well as interactive animation, videos, tools for consumer input, and links to the Suzuki Auto site with dealer locator, build and pricing features. Steve Younan, director of marketing for the Brea, Calif.-based American Suzuki, tells Marketing Daily that the media plan is focused on the automaker's key markets versus a national network buy. "Our first market for the campaign is the Southern region; then we will roll into the Northeast and upper Midwest and then the Pacific Northwest through the end of March." He points out that the effort targets upscale vehicles because the automaker is targeting consumers who aspire to own a luxury performance sedan, not a mid-market car. The spots will air initially on programs like NBA Christmas Day, Academy Awards, the Grammys, NFL regular-season games, Tournament of Roses Parade, AFC Championship game, NCAA Tournament, "Survivor," "30 Rock" and "The Mentalist." Then in January -- when the ads roll into major East and Midwest markets like New York, Providence, Roanoke, and Chicago -- the spots will air on shows like the Academy Awards and its Red Carpet Special, the NFC Championship, NCAA Tournament, "Dancing with the Stars," "American Idol," "House," and "Desperate Housewives." "Kizashi was designed to appeal to buyers who want to own entry luxury vehicles in the future," says Younan. "It was designed to deliver quality and handling at a price within reach of all buyers more or less. That's the story we want to tell. And the campaign also has that breakthrough factor that makes it memorable -- that helps us break through the TV clutter." Rob Siltanen, creative director of Siltanen & Partners Advertising, tells Marketing Daily that those "breakthrough" humorous elements in the ads are intended to poke fun at the competitive test-drive theme. "There have been a lot of competitive ads out there so we wanted to do it in our own fashion. This car has very serious technology going for it, but we wanted also to add a wink and a smile, as part of the whole Kizashi Kicks theme." Siltanen says the bubble wrap guy in the Volvo comparison ad was a last-minute change, as Suzuki had planned to make the third spot a comparison with Acura's TSX. "Steve said 'we have all these claims against Volvo, so why not do one focused on safety and replace Acura with Volvo?' That was a couple of days before shooting, so we worked over the weekend and came up with bubble-wrap thing." Younan says the car is not just the halo for the brand, but the breadwinner, as it resides in the highest-volume segment of the car market. "We are running these TV spots at same time we will be running full-line ads that include Grand Vitara and SX4, our other key vehicles. Those ads will phase out." "Kizashi is the centerpiece of the brand, not just a halo," adds Siltanen. "So with limited ad dollars, we needed to focus in on that car." Seventy-five percent of Kizashi buyers have not bought Suzuki before, according to Younan, who adds that the median age of Kizashi buyers is mid-40's and that they are about 60% male.
Lee Flaster has taken on an expanded role at Telemundo in its ad sales business, where he will look to build revenues for the Spanish-language network, as well as sister operations. He moves to senior vice president, planning, strategy and business operations. He will dually report to COO Jacqueline Hernández and Ed Swindler, the executive vice president and COO of ad sales at NBC Universal, parent of the Spanish-language network. Flaster will look to craft sales opportunities for Telemundo, as well as its owned-and-operated stations, the mun2 network that targets younger bilingual Hispanics and Telemundo-branded online assets. Hernández stated that Flaster takes the role as "the Hispanic marketplace continues to be a significant part of the mainstream. It is key that our organization drive growth and innovation." At the Telemundo network, where he has held a vice president role for three years, Flaster handled strategic planning, pricing and inventory management, and he will continue to do so. Flaster has been with NBCU for 11 years, also working for MSNBC and the NBC network. He has a management consulting background, having worked with A.T. Kearney.
Sony Pictures Television on Tuesday debuted its online platform for Latin America, featuring a new tool for advertisers to integrate their products to an array of online video content. "Advertisers will now have the opportunity to connect their brand with rich engaging content," said Irving Plonskier, SVP and general manager of Sony Pictures Television ad sales for Latin America. The new online division will be led by Juan Carlos Sanchez, ad sales business development director at SPT Ad Sales Latin America. Like most media companies, SPT recognizes the growing prominence of Web content worldwide. Indeed, according to a recent Nielsen report, 70% of the world's consumers spent time watching online videos in March. To get in on the action, SPT is pursuing a strategy that hinges on original Web series, which seek to attract advertisers with the promise of presenting their products through video pre-rolls and post-rolls -- between five and thirty seconds. "We've noticed an increasing trend by Latin American consumers, even more than in Europe and the USA, in repeatedly going to the Internet in search of high-quality entertainment videos," added Plonskier. "This phenomenon has created a direct and sophisticated alternate point of contact between brands and consumers." The first miniseries that SPT will launch online is "Urban Wolf," with 15 four-minute episodes targeting males between 18 and 34 years of age. "Private" -- another of SPT's new miniseries, created by the producers of "Gossip Girl" -- has 20 webisodes which last between four and six minutes each, and targets females between 18 and 24 years of age. SPT's third digital production available to advertisers is the Video Game Awards, which profiles talent, musical interpretations, and international Web and TV debuts, and recognizes the best games and the creators that make them happen. Marketing partners include Ford, Telcel, and Sony Electronics.
Best Buy has indicated that sales of 3D TVs aren't exactly moving at warp speed. Will Toshiba change things with its new model that could make viewing a 3D channel as simple as viewing any other network? While cost and consumer confusion appear to have hindered 3D TV sales so far, another factor seems to be those space-age glasses required to check out an ESPN 3D or other programming. Toshiba thinks it can eliminate that issue. This week, it is starting to sell 3D TVs in Japan that don't require the glasses; those sets could be at Best Buy sometime next year. This technology appears to be way ahead of schedule, as the Sonys and Samsungs are just getting their feet wet, spending a fortune marketing the sets with the special specs required. But for the Toshiba models -- various screen sizes are coming -- the chance of success looks promising. If the price is right and it's time to buy a new TV, why not do it? Meanwhile, as the manufacturers battle to win over customers making that first 3D TV purchase, some distributors of 3D programming are better positioned than others to capitalize over the long term. At least two -- AT&T U-verse and Time Warner Cable -- are smartly charging customers to get channels like ESPN 3D. These companies have apparently learned from the Internet. Start by giving something away for free, and it's hard to place the genie back in the bottle. But kick off with a toll booth, and it's a lot easier to go in the other direction and allow people to pass through gratis. Comcast and DirecTV (which also has its own 24/7 3D network) are offering 3D for free. This would seem to leave them with little wiggle room. Perhaps they're banking on free 3D to attract customers. But the 3D consumer base is likely to be passionate and probably upscale -- not likely to make a decision based on an extra $120 a year or so. Verizon FiOS will launch ESPN 3D next year, but has made no announcement on whether it will be free or have a cost attached. On the programming front, also coming next year is a 3D channel from Discovery, IMAX and Sony. Operators will probably use the same free or pay strategies for it they have respectively used for ESPN 3D. (Distributors offer 3D films for a price on demand.) Also intriguing to watch is how widespread 3D advertising gets. Philips is running a spot that creatively plugs a Norelco 3D razor, which also appears in traditional broadcasts, presumably helping the company save money on production costs, which is a major hurdle. But movie studios figure to be the most interested in advertising in this format. They can produce a spot in 3D that can run in a theater before a 3D flick -- and then repurpose that spot on a 3D channel. But all the talk focusing on 3D TV sets, programming and advertising, seems a bit inside baseball -- heavy among industry types, but light with the general public. Where's the buzz? Toshiba, by getting rid of the silly glasses hurdle, might unleash some.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, O. Actually, that is an O, not a zero. Get it? Yep, it's the countdown of the days leading up to the Jan. 1 launch of Oprah's new television network, the aptly named OWN, or Oprah Winfrey Network. Okay, so it's actually, 11 days, but I'm filling in for regular TV Watch columnist Wayne Friedman today, so this is my opportunity to weigh in on the Big 0. And while the launch of OWN may not be news to the kind of TV insiders who read TV Watch, the way the consumer and business press have been treating that countdown is. In fact, the story currently OWNs the "television" tab on Google News, which this morning had indexed 179 news stories tagged about the network's impending launch. That beats out other "big" TV industry news, as defined by Google's mysterious algorithm, including the second top TV news index of the day: the oh-so-racy video of Ryan Seacrest's girlfriend and "Burlesque" star Julianne Hough that has been leaked (make that virally released) on the Internet. Not much of a story? The next two top Google TV News indexes are a bit more serious, including Logitech's Internet/TV convergence play, and new news circulating around the launch of Google TV, including reports that it will be delayed. But back to Oprah. I don't cover TV as closely as I once did, but I find it remarkable that in this day and age, at a time when so much is going on -- from the smutty videos of TV celebrity girlfriends to the convergence of TV and the Internet -- that the launch of a new vertical network aimed at women would garner so much attention. (I mean, hasn't this been done before?) Yeah, I get it, Oprah is a personality cult who elicits attention magnitudes beyond the run-of-the-mill TV celebrity. I remember seeing that firsthand when she took her show national and Madison Avenue insiders flocked her booth at NATPE in the early '80s. Oprah can definitely draw a crowd. But the build-up to the Jan. 1 launch of OWN is something akin to a mega TV event like Johnny Carson's final episode of the "Tonight" show, or the series finale of "Cheers" or "Seinfeld." That attention value will surely help generate sampling for the new Comcast network, and look for the press -- especially snarky trade press reporters -- to watch the show's ratings with an eagle eye. And if things keep going the way they have been, it is bound to O-pen big. Just consider some of the larger-than-life, celebrity-infused hype about OWN that has circulated in the past 24-hours, including the fact that Oprah was rejected by bOno, who was offered his own show on OWN. Smart move on her part, because it was the sort of move that was bound to generate attention, no matter which way the U2 frontman/humanitarian hero/Louis Vuitton ad model decided to go. So let me take this opportunity to offer Bono a chance to fill in on TV Watch the next time Wayne takes a holiday.