Nissan has a new campaign for the Leaf electric car called "Gas Powered Everything" centering on a spot that contemplates a steam-punk (except gasoline instead of steam) world where innovation has begun and ended with the internal combustion engine. The creative forwards the idea that there is nothing inevitable or perpetual about the internal combustion. The effort, via AOR Chiat, makes that point by imagining a world where just about everything requires a gasoline-powered engine to operate. The ad begins with a couple waking up in the morning to their alarm clock, which is powered by a gasoline engine with a tiny Mack truck-style stack spewing a little plume of smoke over their bed. They head into the kitchen where the man pulls a lawn-mower style lanyard to start the coffeemaker while his wife blow dries her hair with a gasoline-powered hair drier. Cut to the street where a woman prepares to jog by starting the tiny smoke-spewing gasoline engine on her arm that powers her MP3 player. On the street, the guy passes the jogger, who has to waft the smoke away from her face with her hand as she jogs. The guy, meanwhile, takes out his cell phone, which is also powered by a little gasoline engine. Things get more absurd. At the office, the guy twists the ignition key on his desktop computer, and depresses the gas pedal on the floor to get the computer running. Meanwhile, a technician checks the oil level on the copy machine and a guy goes to a little gasoline pump next to the water cooler to fill up the gas tank on his laptop computer. The money scene is at the dentist's office, where our guy waits his turn. Once in the chair he opens wide and the dentist hefts a drill that looks like it's powered by a chainsaw motor. Finally, at the end, we see the guy filling his car. Voiceover: "What if everything ran on gas? Then again, what if it didn't?" He looks across the street at another guy removing the electric charging cord from his Nissan Leaf. The ads drive traffic to GasPoweredEverything.com. The effort includes four 15-second teasers and a 60-second ad. Says VP marketing Jon Brancheau: "This campaign was conceived to challenge the notion that cars can only run on gas. By using humor and asking the simple question, 'what if everything ran on gas,' we're able to rationally make the case that electric cars' time has arrived."
The upfront deal-making has begun. Fox closed a significant amount of business, with CPM rates up in the 11% range, sources said. Fox declined comment. Fox has been cutting deals where networks agree to accept some makegoods in the form of online inventory, such as on Hulu. One estimate had 10% of a ratings under-delivery coming online. Some buyers may have initially balked because the value of online impressions is still taking shape -- and after all, they are buying TV. As expected, Fox is using the anticipated success of the coming "X Factor" this fall to bring in more money. Under one scenario, an agency might want to place a $1 million buy and pay a 5% CPM increase. But Fox would want a 15% jump. Then the parties would negotiate and settle in at 10%. Yet the buyer would agree to spend an additional $1 million on the Simon Cowell-led "The X Factor" alone. Fox is the top-rated network in the key 18-to-49 demo, so its 11% CPM increase range should help the market take shape, with NBC and ABC coming in with increases at a lesser rate, maybe in the high single digits. CBS with its stable lineup could rival Fox -- and will likely be able to land the double-digit CPM growth that company CEO Leslie Moonves has requested. However, rates will probably not hit the level Moonves has suggested with a strong scatter market. The broadcast market could be wrapped by the middle of next week, with cable cranking up swiftly thereafter and deals closing the following week.
Two networks -- Fox and ABC -- were interested in moving the upfront market late this week, according to media-buying executives. Many media agencies still don't have budgets from clients yet -- thinking that most of the upfront market will move after the Memorial Day holiday. The major networks have been putting in long nights over the last several days to firm up their pricing. Media buyers say Fox is initially asking 14% increases on the cost-per-thousand viewers. That comes with the understanding of Fox's goal: to get at least 11% to 12% closing price increases. ESPN is also actively pursuing deals for NFL and college football. But in reference to earlier reports, media buyers say many of these deals -- especially the NFL -- were for the continuation of multi-year agreements that marketers have with the networks. ABC and Fox reps did not comment. The current price expectation, according to one media agency, is that each of the major networks will probably get one or two percentage-point increases over the gains of a year ago. Last year, according to buyers, ABC and Fox grabbed 7% to 8% price hikes, NBC a 6% gain, and CBS a 9% improvement. CBS has been public about its push -- a 12% to 15% price growth on the CPMs. Considering the current sky-high scatter market -- which has seen 30% to 40% price hikes -- some feel that CBS and other networks misjudged the strength of last year's upfront market and could have grabbed bigger prices for network shows. According to another media-buying executive, Fox may have been estimating an improvement in the number of 18-49 rating points -- rare for almost any broadcast network these days -- all due to "The X Factor" coming online this fall. The highly touted "American Idol"-like show could give a serious ratings boost for the network in the fall -- a place where Fox has had some ratings trouble over the past few seasons. Overall, a variety of estimates are that the entire prime-time network upfront revenue for the broadcast networks could rise around 5% to 10%: $9.2 billion to $9.3 billion. Cable could climb more -- some 15% to 17%, perhaps equaling the broadcast upfront prime-time revenue haul.
"The Oprah Winfrey Show" ended her syndicated show with her biggest ratings in almost two decades -- something movie companies in particular anticipated in buying lots of TV commercials. Heading into the big summer film season, movie companies rode the popular syndicated talk show to strong results, including Disney's "Cars 2," Dreamworks' "Kung Fu Panda 2," Warner Bros.'s "Crazy Stupid Love," Universal's "Bridesmaids," Paramount's "Super 8", Sony Entertainment's "Zookeeper" and 20th Century Fox's "Mr. Popper's Penguins." "The Oprah Winfrey Show" pulled in its best viewership in 17 years -- and about double its current regular-season average. Rough estimates are that Nielsen will reveal that the 25-year-old show pulled in around 18 million viewers for its last episode -- a figure that soars over the show's current seasonal average this year, around 7.4 million viewers. The "Oprah" finale was actually three shows -- the first two with celebrities in the United Center, and the last with Winfrey alone with her usual studio audience saying goodbye. On a Nielsen household rating, the last show pulled in a 13.3 rating, following up on a 10.7 number on Tuesday and a 10.2 rating on Monday. Her regular-season household ratings averaged about a 5.5. While many advertisers crowded in for Oprah's last show, Chet Fenster, managing partner and director of content creation for Group M's MEC Entertainment, was struck by the number of movie advertisers that appeared. He says virtually all films being marketed were female-skewing and/or family movies looking for major attention from Winfrey's appearance. "It was the Super Bowl for women," he says. For years, Oprah's program was where movie stars would appear to tout their films --- and where the show enjoyed some of its highest ratings and revenue gains. Fenster says movie marketers will now have to find another home. "I'm guessing someone like 'Ellen' will probably pick up the slack," he said. He says "Oprah" was a bigger marketing tool for film marketers than early-morning or late-night TV shows, where movies might only get a short five- or six-minute segment. By contrast, "Oprah" could devote nearly a full hour of content for a film's cast or a major movie star. "Oprah" was not the only show to close the TV season with a big bang. Later that Wednesday night, TV's biggest-rated show, Fox's "American Idol" -- which also pulled in many summer film commercials -- took in a big 29.3 million viewers and a high 9.2 rating/25 share among adult 18-49 viewers. This was good news for Fox, as the 10-year-old show was up versus last season's finale: a 12% gain in adults 18-49 and a 21% improvement. A year ago, the "Idol" finale grabbed an 8.2 adults 18-49 rating and 24.2 million average viewers.
Heinz's top North American executive said that a live commercial on the "Ellen" show last month for Ore-Ida produced record results. The integration backing the sweet potato fries line included a troupe of dancing fries and Ellen DeGeneres showing off the product. The brand posted its best week ever in terms of sales when the show aired, followed by a 22% lift the week after the stunt, according to Scott O'Hara. The integration, which lasted well over a minute, included Ellen giving audience members both fries and Flip cameras in order to make their own videos about the fries. "One thing I know about sweet potato fries is you can't just have one," DeGeneres said. Throughout an address to investors Thursday, O'Hara continued to speak about the need to use social media to build an array of brands -- Heinz generates $4.7 billion in sales in North America -- noting that Facebook seems almost a requirement for any campaign. The company, which has the huge ketchup brand as well as Classico pasta sauces, is increasing prices to keep up with rising commodity costs. Also in the U.S., Heinz is looking to do more business with the growing Hispanic population. "The purchasing power of this group of consumers is growing dramatically -- about six times greater in the past 20 years," O'Hara said. In Canada, notably Toronto and Vancouver, there are opportunities to attract more Asian customers, he said.
With the National Television Upfront presentations for the 2011/2012 season completed, it's a good time to ask what TV audience ratings really mean for advertisers today. The advertising world is moving bit by bit toward its one-time holy grail of commercial ratings - currently in the form of C3 ratings defined as "the average of a live rating for a (national) commercial minute and up to three days of DVR playback viewing" (check out a great reference site launched this month (May 2011) by the Coalition For Innovative Media Measurement - the CIMM Lexicon. Be sure to use the "find" window at the top for definitions of specific terms.) The big problem facing advertisers in 2011 is that the quality of DVR playback measurement for commercials is still incredibly unclear. I learned a new term today: "Trick Play" or "Trick Mode" - a term (according to CIMM's Lexicon) used to describe "the use of DVR time-shifted viewing or On-Demand with a TV Remote Control device. Features include fast forward, rewind and pause." CIMM goes on to note that measurement of this is extremely weak: "DVR metrics need to be decided. According to Kantar these data are not currently available in the U.S. but are available in the U.K. Rentrak says that it depends on the operator and the device. Some operators have trick mode data available in various forms (some more detailed than others)." As up to $10 billion are committed to U.S. upfront TV deals in the coming months, this very confusion underlines how irrelevant TV program ratings have become for advertisers. This uncertainty puts advertiser dollars in great jeopardy as far as achieving media communication goals. Even C3 ratings only confirm that a TV program is attracting a certain size audience. In no way can that programming performance be projected to consumer attention to advertising. Program ratings were always just a surrogate for the number of potential impressions an ad could garner within the program, helping set pricing for advertisers in a world of imperfect measurement. This surrogate was developed in a time before audiences had powerful ad-avoidance technologies in their hands, or when set-top boxes could provide click-stream analysis of consumer viewing behavior, or even before commercial loads had hit the levels they are at today. Without a better understanding of DVR usage, advertisers will pay more and more to run spots - especially on successful, high rated programs with the highest commercial loads - all while significant numbers of consumers are increasingly avoiding ads. Can you imagine advertisers opting in to such a business model if it hadn't already been running this way for years? There has always been ad avoidance such as channel switching, leaving the room, multi-tasking and most frequently using social media & web surfing on other media devices during ad breaks. Buying into C3 or any other program ratings only confuses and further decreases the eroding value of a linear TV ad buy for advertisers everywhere. The ad-supported media industry doesn't need a better mousetrap. It needs a better way to allow consumers to willingly enable advertising to pay for their premium TV content, thereby justifying the financial contributions paid out by the advertisers themselves. Kudos and thanks to CIMM for providing such an important language guide and translation tool for this discussion. The very future of ad-supported television is at stake.
In terms of regularly scheduled daily broadcast programming, Oprah Winfrey's prolonged swan song this week was the biggest event in daytime television since the wedding of Luke and Laura on "General Hospital" way back in 1981. Sadly, given the forces currently at work to marginalize this once robust and highly profitable day-part, it is the last such event we are ever likely to see. Indeed, it seems to me that Oprah's grand farewell brings to a close not only the end of her reign as the Queen of Daytime, but a 30 year period of extraordinary vitality in daytime broadcast programming that began six years before the debut of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" with the explosive early '80s popularity of "GH." No soap opera since has enjoyed the power and impact of "GH" at that time. Similarly, no future talk show will ever be as popular and influential as "Oprah." The media world is simply too fragmented to allow for such singular dominance. What a remarkable 30 years it was. Inspired by the success of "GH," virtually every soap opera at one time or another reinvented itself in an effort to remain contemporary and relevant. Meanwhile, while so many soaps transformed and transcended themselves, daytime talk and news went through similarly significant shifts, though not always for the better. Dozens of daytime talkers came and went, most of them determined to build on the legendary Phil Donahue's foundation of fearless taboo-busting and demonstrative topicality, but without being as thoughtful as he was about it. As a result, the regrettable if phenomenally successful genre of trash talk took hold and flooded the day-part. Oprah came along in 1986 and wasn't above dipping her toe in that river of swill, but declared in 1994 on the night she won her fifth Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host that she would never again go there and would use the power of her platform for something better. (I was in the press room at New York City's Marriott Marquis when Oprah made her career-refining statement. She wasn't kidding around. It was an electric moment.) There were many other daytime high points during those three decades. The morning news shows, once stagey and studio-bound, were reimagined in such a way as to tap into the energy of significant New York locales, including Rockefeller Center ("The Today Show") and Times Square ("Good Morning America"). Paired at first with Kathie Lee Gifford and later with Kelly Ripa, Regis Philbin became a master of feel-good celebrity interviewing. Rosie O'Donnell did the same, for a while anyway, until she lost focus and used her hit talk show to vent about politics and other matters, killing it in the process. Ellen DeGeneres would later winningly join the feel-good genre. Throughout, daytime became so vital and exciting that even the legendary newswoman Barbara Walters wanted in, delivering the frequently controversial, always combustible and ever-evolving female talk program "The View" in 1997. But none of them enjoyed the power and influence of "The Oprah Winfrey Show." Since the '90s, I have ardently defended and championed broadcast daytime programming as TV worth watching, live or recorded. I have often said that if I had to choose between daytime and prime time as the only broadcast television I could watch, I would go with the former. When all of its components were at their best, the daily mix of soap operas, news programs and stimulating talk series was intoxicating. But those days are over. Due to a toxic blend of financial concerns, bad management and creative bankruptcy, most of the soaps have met unceremonious ends. The losses of CBS' "Guiding Light" and "As the World Turns" signaled that no show was safe, even those with unique historical significance. In September, ABC will kill "All My Children" and, in January, "One Life to Live." (When "AMC" ends, yet another icon, Susan Lucci, will depart daytime broadcast television.) Also in the fall, Regis Philbin will exit "Live with Regis and Kelly," leaving Kelly Ripa and a new co-host to be named to carry on. I think the collective departures of Oprah Winfrey and Regis Philbin, along with "All My Children" and "One Life to Live," may be a loss that will prove more damaging to ABC than it realizes. ("Oprah" and "Live" are syndicated but appear primarily on ABC stations.) Further, I think the negative impact of losing those high-profile people and widely known programs one right after the other will expand to hurt all of broadcast. Call it a reverse halo effect. Don't be surprised if, as far as daytime is concerned, the 2011-12 season proves to be a great one for basic cable.
"Who did that?" my wife wonders when she see the TV channel change even as the remote control sits abandoned on the coffee table. I am being puckish and have been fiddling with the various mobile app extensions of the set-top boxes we have here in the family test lab: Google TV, Apple TV, Harmony Universal Remote and a Comcast Xfinity app that ties into the cable box. Add to these units the game machines, and we now resort to a small wicker basket to contain the remote controls. "This is grossly unfair," she protests. "You are the only one who even knows how to turn the TV on anymore." Hee, hee. In modern American families, Dads have to leverage power wherever they can find it. Pop culture has spent the last three decades reminding us what dunderheads fathers are. The remote control is the last pathetic shard left of paternal dominance. And in my new family, believe me, it is a small vestigial sliver of control. "You can load the Xfinity app on your iPhone and control the box, too," I say by way of conciliation. I expect this is an empty gesture on my part towards power-sharing. She won't do it. She'll never do it. "Really?" She arches an eyebrow and hunts for her phone. Drat, she did it. Just as quickly I realize my error. Doh! -- to quote another brain-dead husband. I just armed her in what could be the opening salvoes in the next generation of living room wars: dueling remotes. When I got her the iPhone 4 for Christmas ("Look, honey, we can do Face Time together") I didn't see that curve coming. This could be serious, so I deflect and distract. "You should try the HBO Go app first. It has the entire 'Game of Thrones' series we were missing before the wedding." HBO Go apps on both iPhone and iPad are pretty remarkable in that they give you access to the deep catalog of HBO series and some movies in an on-demand format. I can drill into the full series of "Deadwood," or all six and a half seasons of "The Sopranos" now without having to queue up the discs in Netflix and wait for delivery. We are so beyond appointment television in our house that I am now watching more TV series from PBS and HBO on their respective apps than I am on live TV. TV Everywhere is real, but now the serious wars begin. As a longtime Comcast customer, I am habituated to hating the brand, but I have to admit that Xfinity's apps are about to pose a genuine challenge to Netflix. The app that serves as a cable box remote control also houses "Play Now" series and films that number 60,000, according to the company. The app even recognizes which premium channels I am and am not subscribed to and allows access to their respective on-demand catalogs. If they can give me app access to content on my DVR, then Xfinity is starting to lock down my loyalty and reverse a decade of resentment over its overpricing. In my head I am starting to add up the premium media subs I am carrying now (Xfinity HD, HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime), plus I am renting one-offs from Apple TV. The range of apps that access all of this content is now as confusing and vast as the basket of remotes. Consolidation has to happen sometime. I am not convinced that haggling over content exclusives will be the deciding factor for these warring providers, either. Integration of all the pieces and to some degree smooth functionality will help me decide with whom to consolidate. Netflix still excels in its selection but also its queuing, recommendation and film resume features. But what is most striking to me as I play across these apps and experiment with different use cases is how powerful mobile has become so quickly in the living room wars. My HBO subscription is worthwhile to me only insofar as it gives me access to the current series on-demand on my iPad anytime. Mobile is now a deciding factor in retaining some TV services. This is a very different game and dynamic, much as the prospect of multiple app-based remotes controlling the same devices in my living room could spell marital trouble. "Xfinity wants the password on our account. What is it?" my wife asks as she loads up the app. "Did I show you the wedding pictures my niece just sent?" I counter. "They really capture the beading of your dress." OK, OK. I am not proud of myself, either. But the stakes are pretty high here. <
CIMM is taking a pro-active role in advancing new media nomenclature and processes with both its Lexicon(terms and definitions associated with Set-Top Box data measurement) and recently released Asset Identification Primer (glossary of asset terms). These documents form the basis of the Word-A-Week column which offers a common language for Set-Top Box nomenclature that can expedite the roll-out of the data for its many industry applications. Continuing with last week's column on Watermarks (Set-Top-Box Lexicon: Watermarking) we now focus on other forms of content identification - Fingerprinting and Signatures. According to the CIMM Asset Identification Primer, Fingerprinting differs from a watermark in that fingerprinting does not add any new information to the content. It merely uses the asset's current features and characterisitcs to create a prototype identification that can then be compared to other content fingerprints on file in a reference database to see if there is a match. Here are the terms associated with content identification in its many forms: FingerprintingSee also: Signature CIMM DEFINITION : The technique in which the software identifies, extracts and then compresses characteristic components of a video, enabling that video to be uniquely identified by its resultant "fingerprint". SignatureSee also:Fingerprinting, Watermark CIMM DEFINITION : Another term for fingerprinting IdentifierSee also: Fingerprinting, Signature, Watermark. CIMM DEFINITION : A more generic term for in-coding of unique information. A unique expression in a written format either by a code, by numbers or by a combination of both to distinguish variations from one to another among a class of substances, items or objects. Please refer to the CIMM Lexicon online at http://www.cimm-us.org/lexicon.htm for additional information on these and other terms.
Traditional television -- broadcast and cable -- is a growth business, an area where media companies can add existing programming and channels. Univision, for example, wants to start three new cable networks, one for sports, one for telenovelas, and one for news/information. For many existing media companies, launching even one new network would be a massive undertaking -- especially in this TV environment. It has been a while since any media company made such a big shelf-space announcement about new traditionally distributed TV channels. ESPN and Discovery Communications were perhaps the last big groups to announce a slew of new cable channels. But for Univision, with its Spanish-language niche, the move seems to make sense. One estimate says that some 60% of all U.S. citizens will be of Latin American descent some decades from now. For a long time, TV's big business hurdle was pulling in more advertisers. Right now 16% of the U.S. population is Latin-American, but only 4% of advertising dollars goes into Latin-American-targeted media. That's an ongoing gap that Univision and its main competitor Telemundo have looked to close for some time. Traditional cable system analog spectrum has been at capacity for years, but the cable digital spectrum could possibly squeeze in some niche networks, which is where Univision would like to head. Univision grew almost 10% in prime-time ratings this year, and, at times, was the fourth place network, just ahead of NBC. Univision group is composed of two broadcast networks, Univision and TeleFutura; a popular cable channel, Galavision; and TV and radio stations. Now, it wants more. Eso está claro.
In an earlier article, I talked about why the nomenclature for GoogleTV and AppleTV is ill-conceived, and why Google and Apple are doing the marketing of these products a disservice. At the same time, the opportunity to bring Internet and digital media to the largest screen in the home is immense (as I wrote in a recent report I co-authored for the Yankee Group). The nomenclature, the product development and marketing approaches demonstrate that neither company has qualified this opportunity sufficiently. For the most part, GoogleTV is a bit of a joke in the industry given its lackluster success and Google's mishandling of its launch at CES 2011. Similarly, Steve Jobs has admitted that, till recently, AppleTV was a hobby, and I believe he is being sincere in saying so. Actually, I think both GoogleTV and Apple TV are still hobbies (read science projects) for these companies, and it is not entirely surprising. The market for these products is not realized yet. What market does exist is marginally attractive in the larger scheme of things and is already full of scrappy price competitive players like Roku, NetGear, and others. Today, perhaps the most appealing Internet video experience is from NetFlix, who reportedly accounts for 20% of Internet bandwidth consumption during peak hours and 61% of all full length movie streams. In large part, this experience is successful because it started as an extension of an existing online service, a not insignificant amount of content is available on Netflix, and it is ridiculously inexpensive, both in the equipment required and the subscription service. (There is an interesting analysis to be done on to what extent this last part is sustainable and what the implications are for network service providers, and therefore consumers, when adoption grows further. Will consumers expect ever better streaming quality and more rapid content refresh and what does that mean for Netflix?) In any event, Internet video today is, by definition, a disruptive video experience -- i.e., lower quality and choice at a lower price -- compared to what is available on pay TV programming. For those that want to argue about the infinite content choices that come with the Internet, let's just say that with Netflix and Hulu as the fastest growing streaming sites it seems pretty clear what's going on with consumer demand. For now, consumers don't know what they're missing because they haven't seen it before. Today, by connecting the biggest screen in the house to the Internet consumers are getting the typical television-like experience for most part. Changing that is the big opportunity for either or both Google and Apple, redefining the category similar to what Apple did for music. I would like to think that if the opportunity was ripe for the picking for Google and Apple they would have more well-conceived offerings. Today, there are a lot of low hanging fruit and there are lots of companies having a fine time picking at it. It will not be much longer before the shakeout and consolidation happens, just as, about a decade ago, the home networking market surged in numbers of vendors and quickly settled within a matter of two or three years. That's Moore's law at work among other things. That is when the real opportunity will emerge for big plays more suited to the Googles and Apples of the world. Sure, a few different things could happen including some existing players getting well ahead of the pack and changing the game. For example, NetFlix could conceivably set the mold for the next generation of a media company and television experience. In that case, "Netflix TV" might become the one to beat. Or it may not. Another set of interesting developments are the permutations around what I call "tethered experiences," particularly with the iPAD. Such solutions may well preempt quantum leap solutions like Google TV is intended to be, benefiting incumbent PayTV operators the most if they are quick enough to capitalize on the opportunity. Solutions from companies like IntoNow, which Yahoo recently acquired, and other things going on with auto content recognition (using watermarking and fingerprinting solutions to synchronize IP data with broadcast programming) may well create a more seamless and desirable adoption path for the mass market where traditional television programming is augmented with tethered wireless devices. In the scheme of things, the Smart TV and Internet TV phenomenon seems a safe harbor to a lot of companies (and even industries) who are getting upended by the forces of change. These include television set and Blu-ray manufacturers, and even NetFlix with its traditional physical-media business. It is not surprising to see the surge of products and services getting launched, not a few of which are ill conceived. Neither Google nor Apple need this safe harbor as a matter of survival, nor is the market ready for them. If anything, the market for portable and mobile devices and applications of both these companies far exceeds the near term prospects for either Google TV or Apple TV. I'll discuss this further in an upcoming article. It would, however, be ironic if their respective tablet and mobile device formats end up as the next definitive evolution of television viewing despite their own TV initiatives, wouldn't it?