This week Best Buy outlets around the country began selling in-box versions of OnStar, General Motors' telematics product that until now, has only been available in GM vehicles. As in GM cars and trucks, the new product, OnStar FMV (For My Vehicle), comes as technology integrated into a rear-view mirror assembly. To support the retail rollout, the company launches a national campaign on Aug. 1 with a theme that OnStar is now in a box, explains Greg Ross, the VP of business extensions for GM, who was in New York on Monday at Best Buy's flagship in Union Square. He tells Marketing Daily that the new effort "explains that all of the features, the technology, the engineering are packaged in a way that lets you easily put it in your car." He adds that Best Buy will be central to the message. "It will show people coming into a Best Buy and picking up OnStar." The effort, on prime time, cable and network, comprises a range of ads, an Internet presence and social media on its Facebook page -- which, per Ross, has 280,000 fans. "We have been using that quite a lot to get the word out about this," he says. "For example, we have a promotion running right now giving away [an OnStar] mirror every day to Facebook fans." Ross adds that Best Buy held a private sale [Sunday night] to Best Buy Reward Zone members in several hundred stores around the country. "The challenge, strategically, is we know a lot about how to do OnStar services, but what we don't know how to do is retail. So a partner like Best Buy helps a lot in things we might not have even thought about, like how to present OnStar at retail, and even what the box itself should look like." Ross says the new ads really aren't so much about what OnStar is, since awareness of the brand is already very high, although the ads do touch on key services surrounding safety and security. "The heroes in it are the box -- but also live-advisor support and service providers, whether it's emergency responders, fire, or police, because we spent a lot of time building strong relationships with those communities," he says. The company has been seeding the market in various ways for several months to get the word out, starting at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, where it was nominated for Best In Show. And then on "Celebrity Apprentice," part of which was actually shot in the Union Square Best Buy, the final challenge had contestants trying to communicate that OnStar is available in a box. "We knew we wanted to get that across, so it couldn't have been more perfect," says Ross, adding that the show brought in a lot of online opt-ins and queries about when the product would be available. "We are sending emails responses today," says Ross. "The great thing for us with these campaigns is that we already have a set of hand raisers. But we also have relationships already with six million [General Motors] customers, and a lot of them don't have exclusively GM cars in their households. Now they don't have to wait until they are in market for a new car to put in their existing vehicles." Ross says the first sale of the OnStar FMV was to an owner of a 2003 Ford Explorer, a reflection of where the opportunity is for OnStar as a stand-alone brand. "There's 230 million cars on the road, and people are keeping their vehicles six, eight, ten years," he says.
Ratcheting its "Oh Yes We Did" brand transformation campaign up another notch, Domino's Pizza is now posting comments from customers on a 125-foot-wide electronic billboard in New York City's Times Square. The comments originate through a new customer feedback feature in Domino's Tracker, an area within the brand's site that allows customers to track the progress of their online orders. While comments will be vetted prior to posting in order to screen out offensive or inappropriate content, Domino's says it will post "many" consumers' comments, whether "good, bad or neutral." "Our customers deserve, and have come to expect, honesty from us ... and it really doesn't get more open and honest than this," said Domino's Pizza president/CEO Patrick Doyle, alluding to the billboard. "Our hope is that most of the feedback is positive, but our top priority is that people are seeing what is real." The billboard initiative -- active through Aug. 23 -- is clearly designed to drive more online orders, as well as bring the latest element of novelty to the brand's now-familiar strategy of supporting the reformulation of its pizzas with marketing/advertising stressing its ongoing efforts to use customer feedback to improve continuously. Consumers who order online and use the Tracker feedback function can have their photos, as well as comments, posted on the 4,630-square-foot Times Square billboard. Furthermore, Domino's will send those whose comments are featured a link to a video clip of their feedback as it ran on the billboard. The billboard is being supported by a television campaign featuring two real New York-area Domino's store managers -- who watch the feedback on in-store screens and confirm that the billboard further "raises the bar" for the brand's products and services. Since launching its reformulation/turnaround strategy in December 2009, Domino's marketing campaign, from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, has included TV ads that bluntly admit that consumers were not happy with its old pizzas; an ad showing a pizza mangled during delivery -- along with an apology and promise to do better from Doyle; and an ad promising that the brand will no longer use "fake" or touched-up photography of its food and asking consumers to submit their own photos of their pizzas via social media. Domino's will announce its Q2 2011 earnings results July 26. In Q1, the company saw domestic same-store sales decline 1.4%, but that was against a domestic same-store sales jump of 14.3% in Q1 2010. International same-store sales increased 8.3% in this year's first quarter, for the 69th consecutive quarter. Adjusted diluted earnings per share rose 20% versus the same quarter of 2010.
Media buyers and planners are embracing digital out-of-home video as a way to reach consumers who are increasingly on the go and less accessible via other, traditional media channels, according to a new study from eMarketer. That translates into large projected increases in ad spending for the burgeoning new medium over the next couple of years. The proportion of media planners who said they include digital out-of-home video in their marketing plans jumped from 65.3% in 2010 to 75.5% this year. That's on course to reach 86.3% in 2012, according to survey results from the Digital Place-based Advertising Association cited in the eMarketer study. Most DO spending is still coming from the broader outdoor category, with 54.2% of respondents saying they shifted money from traditional out-of-home, but DO is making inroads on TV: 43.8% of the respondents said they are shifting spending from TV budgets, compared to 22.9% who said they shifted money from online budgets. Some 19.8% of respondents said they didn't shift spending from another category for DO. For the outdoor medium as a whole, eMarketer is predicting that total advertising revenues will grow from $6.1 billion in 2010 to $6.4 billion this year, reaching $7.6 billion by 2015 -- and attributes much of this growth to the rapid expansion of DO. Separately, PQ Media projects that spending on DO advertising in the U.S. will increase 16.7% from $2.07 billion in 2010 to $2.42 billion this year. Putting the PQ Media and eMarketer figures together, DO spending could rise from 33.9% of all outdoor spending in 2010 to 37.8% this year.
Rumblefish released an application programming interface giving software developers a pipeline to integrate licensed music and soundtracks into mobile and Web applications through its FriendlyMusic portal found on the company's new Web site Tuesday. Brand advertisers looking to crowdsource ads from sites such as YouTube or Zooppa, a user-generated advertising community with more than 100,000 members who set music to videos, can feel more comfortable with licensed tunes. The API launched in private beta with a handful of companies in the second quarter of 2011. There are 400,000 available songs for film, TV, advertising, video games, and social media. The biggest challenge for brands integrating user-generated content into video or television ads remains licensing music, explains Rumblefish Founder and CEO Paul Anthony. The API allows brands, members of social sites, and ad agencies to license music directly through Rumblefish for $1.99 per song per video. While the music industry has put up a few roadblocks when it comes to licensing music, Rumblefish acquired the appropriate rights from the holders, Anthony explains. "It's a big deal to offer a song for a video at this low price and guarantee the license forever," he said. "It takes work to make it this easy." About 4 million songs licensed from Rumblefish's music catalog appear in user-generated videos, slide shows, presentations and games. New content partnerships have expanded the company's music catalog during the past year from 35,000 to more than 400,000 songs. Last year, the company inked a deal with YouTube to provide consumers with a tool to find and license the soundtracks for online videos. Now through the API, the music licensing company extends that service to other companies. One of those partners, Kaiser Permanente, has worked with Rumblefish for several years to give employees across the company access to a custom version of FriendlyMusic's platform to brand the company with licensed music. The first version launched in beta about three years ago. Dozens of KP employees tested the first and the second versions, but Scott Power, KP's senior brand strategist spearheading the infamous "Thrive" campaign, expects hundreds to tap into the third. KP's marketers and advertising departments, as well as event planners, have access to about 300 preapproved songs spanning numerous genres and six brand attributes. The latest version of the "Thrive" campaign focuses on music. "The brand sounds like confidence," Power said, pointing to some of the radio spots that now talk about how music makes people feel better. Power said the IT group has also begun to use the music for a variety of services such as on-hold music for the telephone system. The group estimates saving about $300,000 during the next five years by licensing music from Rumblefish. The next phase of the "Thrive" campaign will look at bringing doctors into the fray, many of whom play musical instruments. While it's not clear whether doctors will produce a musical CD, Power said one thing's for certain -- the campaign's theme continues to emphasize how KP and music heals the mind, the body and the soul.
New bells and whistles on Internet-connected televisions aren't going to waste, according to a new survey. Turns out they are being used regularly. Over 60% of Internet-connected TV households use TV apps at least once per week, according to Scottsdale, Ariz.-based In-Stat. New wave TVs allow consumers to connect with Netflix, YouTube, Facebook, and more. "As expected, Netflix and YouTube currently dominate the TV application space," says Keith Nissen, research director at In-Stat. "But as Netflix competitors become more numerous and as applications are optimized for the big screen, TV apps will become part of the mainstream TV viewing experience." Right now, In-Stat says 22% of U.S. TV households already own an HDTV with integrated TV apps. Connected TVs with integrated TV applications will grow by an average 36% over the next five years. Still, the survey says TV apps are not the primary reason for purchasing connected TVs -- and that consumer behavior of these new TV apps doesn't lead to more purchasing of other video content, especially when it comes to customers of Netflix. In-Stat says consumers now favor both traditional pay-TV and online video services, which have risen to 30% in 2010 from 18% previously. In regard to DVR use, the research suggests playback of DVR programming does not lead to increased use of free video-on-demand services from a TV programming service.
SAN DIEGO - Comic-Con hasn't become what it's become because of comic books, at least as far as the military-industrial-entertainment-media complex is concerned. It's grown to the size it has through the promotion of movies and television, some of which use comics as their source material, some of which have tangential relationships to comics or animation, and some of which have absolutely nothing to do with comics at all. I'm going to be sparing in my reporting on the movies and TV stuff. Other trade publications have done a decent job covering the celebrity-driven side of it, how Spielberg and Jackson appeared on stage together for Herger's "Tin Tin"; HBO's "Game of Thrones" had the most turnaways; HBO's "True Blood" had lines before sunrise (appropriately); Teen girl angst juggernaut "Twilight" had lines before Comic-Con opened. The biggest studios stepped back from the most dominant promotions, but mini-majors Lionsgate and Relativity quickly stepped up, etc., etc., etc. There's no need for more reporting about the buzz and hype and excitement of the best the mainstream escapist entertainment industry has to offer. But beneath the flash and celebrities, the actual dirty little secret of the comics industry is that the comics themselves are not doing so hot. Sales are down, have been falling consistently for the past couple years, and, after spending a good significant portion of my waking life at Comic-Con over the past four days, my conversations and interviews have convinced me that most people in the real comics business - the big publisher, the independent publishers, the distributors, and perhaps most significantly the comics shops -- are starting to freak, I think. Can you blame them? All print material is gravitating towards tablets and other portable communications devices. Marvel and DC both featured gleaming apps for a variety of platforms, and they are not alone. But designers of the user experience for the tablets are influencing the comics themselves. At one panel, a questioner asked a DC editor if the company was pressuring artists to confirm to certain dimensions after Marvel killed a two-page "Iron Man" splash, because it doesn't translate well to devices. Some comic fan was irate, asking about it. People will always rant, of course, but I get where he's coming from. Still, in the end, I don't think that it's going to much matter. The inexorable march of technological progress means the vast majority of actual comic titles themselves are probably doomed. One of my key Comic-Con 2011 takeaways of the comics business is that that the majority of comics, actual 32-page color comic books, are now loss leaders for the trade paperback compilations that come after. It's what most of their readers do, one panel said. It's what I do. It was also just about the only thing that the four panelists at Saturday's 'Is the Comic Book Doomed?" all agreed upon: The money in print is in trade publications. Comics themselves are basically now considered disposable entertainment products. Read them and throw them away, "It's what I do," Vijay AIyer, an executive with Cartoon Books, which publishes Jeff Smith's popular "Bone" series. No one disagreed. * * * Disposable? Won't that ultimately spell doom for the printed comic - it will be easier to put the stories online first and then compile them in TBP later, no? Panelist superhero writer Mark Waid, longtime DC/Marvel writer now writing "Irredeemable" for fledgling comics company BOOM! Studios, says it will. One of the big reasons, he says, is that the cost of producing a traditional four color comic on decent paper has roughly doubled in the past five years to about $1.10. The panel's retail comic shops representative Amanda Emmert says it's 70 cents. By print time, we'd not been able to determine for sure who is on the money; when we do we'll update. But you've got to print a certain number of comics in order to get the business's lone distributor (that's a whole 'nother story), Diamond Comics, to deliver your material. The panel said that number is about 2,000. So you're in roughly $6K straight out of the gate for production costs. Unless you're taking a crazy fling on a one-shot, the strategy is four-to-six issues before you try a compilation. If you're not DC or Marvel, you're still talking some real money. And even then. And that's the biggest fear, according to the panel, of the comics industry, and the great unknown. In the big entertainment conglomerate perspective, the comic book business is but a pawn on the corporate chessboard. If DC or Marvel's corporate parents, Warner Brothers and Walt Disney, see the margins thinning and the sale of physical comic books diminishing, at what point do they make the bottom line, Wall Street driven decision to just kill the comic books and move them online? Already, DC has moved to streamline its offering and relaunch all of its storied titles at No. 1. But that's another story (See below). * * * The Entertainment Business of Comic Books - DC's "New 52" Go Back To No. 1 As the comic book business confronts a continuing downward sales trend amid threats of technology to the printed page, one of the two primary comic book companies, DC, is overhauling its entire line, scuttling many decades of chronological issue numbering, killing some titles, and restarting all its iconographic characters - Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Swamp Thing -- back at issue No. 1. Movies and TV and games and celebrity and premieres of all of these aside, it was actually this "New 52" vision and strategy - there are 52 active DC titles launching at #1 -- is the biggest actual comic book entertainment business news pimped at Comic-Con. It's also a retrenchment for the company, which openly acknowledged a drop in sales at an early presentation. But in the true comic geek culture, this was big buzz - was this just a cynical stab by DC to jump start sales? No. 1 issues have always been relied upon to sell more copies, and the industry knows they then drop off dramatically with the next one, and the one after that even more, until obscurity. DC put a lot of effort into explaining what they're doing. They had at least two panels per day at Comic-Con for the "New 52," explaining the vision behind it, what parts of the DC Mythos still count and what have been discarded (there was one guy at a "New 52" Q&A session who was desperate to learn if the great Alan Moore Joker origin tale "The Killing Joke" is still part of the Batman mythos [it is]), with one sessions per day devoted to running down the titles that fall under each hero and genre categories. For example, Batman will have nine comic titles under his brand, the eponymous one, of course, and the one that started it all, Detective Comics. But then a bunch of other subsidiary Bat-brands, like the grown up Robin, Dick Grayson, who's now Nightwing, and then the real Robin (who I can't even recall anymore; one died, another went evil or something, then there was another one when Dick Grayson took over as Batman when the real Batman was dead, but Batman wasn't really dead he was actually traveling through time, and that was a hassle but it all turned out okay and when he finally got back he went corporate and started some kind of Batman, Inc. thing, with Batmen all around the world, which was actually kind of intriguing, but all that doesn't matter now because it's out the window - fuck it, we're heading back to #1.). Among the too many Bat-titles, it's worth giving a shoutout for the GLBT-friendly Batwoman, the first lesbian major comic superheroine to have her own title. Whoop! Superman's still straight, but as an indicator of how he's about half as popular as Batman, gets only four books. Another eponymous case, of course, but it's worth noting the other one the first ever relaunch from the original Action Comics, up until this moment the longest running of all DC titles, from the first appearance of Superman in Action #1, well past 900 issues, chugging triumphantly towards an historic one thousand issues. Now back to #1. Fuck it. To further mix it up, Action is going to be set five years before Superman, and the younger Supes is going to be wearing jeans. Other categories are The Dark and The Edge, with supernatural themes; Young Justice, with teen heroes, and something else I can't remember. There was a line for questions, mostly cautiously optimistic but hero-centric. We asked one of the few business questions, suggested by Comics Examiner's Brian Steinberg: What's the burn rate on these titles? How many of them are still standing in a year and how do you define success? DC Co-Publisher Dan Delio said they had a number but they weren't going to tell me. The other Co-Publisher, Jim Lee said 82.75%. If he's serious, I'm not optimistic for them. I think the move to tablets exclusively may be sooner than anybody thinks or thinks they want, especially now that the two dominant companies are both being run by huge entertainment conglomerates, Warner Brother for DC and Walt Disney for Marvel. * * * Other comics stuff worth knowing from Comic-Con: · 2011 Eisner Award Winners - The Oscars of the comic book world -- named after creator of the Graphic Novel and The Spirit, Will Eisner - were announced. According to the Eisner Awards, the best comic book currently being published is the very darkly humorous supernatural detective title "Chew," by John Layman and Rob Guillory, story and art respectively. It's about an FDA Agent who solves crimes through the psychic impressions he gets by eating things. Including people. · For true comics geeks, the real film event for Comic-Con was the world premiere of "Batman: Year One," a very faithful animated film version of Frank Miller's gritty graphic novel retelling of Bruce Wayne's first year in Gotham City. The story focuses as much on young Lt. James Gordon, and the dual (and dueling) lead protagonists set the story apart; it also lured a star-turn from Emmy winner Bryan Cranston as the tough but honest cop. · The film's producer Bruce Timm announcement at the panel afterward that 2012 would see a two-part adaptation of Miller's paradigm-shifting, "The Dark Knight Returns," which ignited the mainstream re-emergence of Batman in 1986. · Arguably the comic book's greatest-ever narrative genius and multiple Eisner winner Alan Moore ("Watchmen," "From Hell," "Miracleman," and a library's wall worth of other terrific material) released the long-delayed latest entry in his now centuries-spanning "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," series, the lone sporadic title that remains from his ambitious but lamented line of America's Best Comics, now published through fringe indie Top Shelf. Tom Siebert is vice president-communications of Digitaria, and a frequently contributor to MediaPost.
SAN DIEGO - You hear a lot about the 150,000-plus fan-boys and - girls who jam the massive San Diego Convention Center every year during Comic-Con. Most of them carry at least one digital communication device, and as they move through the hundreds of panels and presentations devoted to movies, television series, licensed characters of all kinds, video games, comic books and Web-based content, they furiously pump almost everything they take in right back out via Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or other social networking platforms. The result is something like a series of spectacular mushroom clouds of digitized information perpetually rising from the convention center, all of it directly targeting the most likely consumers for the entertainment product on powerful display throughout the Con. Meanwhile, those same nerds and geeks are sought after on the surrounding streets of San Diego, as well. Media companies have expanded their Con promotional campaigns well beyond the confines of the convention center and into the adjacent and historic Gaslamp District. Costumed actors and hot models fill the sidewalks, handing out fliers and free promotional merchandise. Buses and panel trucks adorned with giant-sized images from movie and television series ad campaigns move about, tying up traffic at every turn. (This year's best: The "Walking Dead" truck, complete with bloodied arms sticking out from under the rear door.) The sides of buildings become outsized movie posters. (The giant "Cowboys & Aliens" poster art that stretched across much of one side of the towering San Diego Hilton Hotel was certainly hard to miss, but the image itself was too dark to make much of an impact, unlike the brightly colored campaign last year for "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" that covered one side of the same building and was impossible to ignore.) They're all competing for attention as planes trailing big banners fly overhead. (This year "Captain America" owned the skies.) Call it the best of the old and new. As far as I can tell, the digitally empowered fans make Con an unparalleled example of instant viral marketing, all of it specifically directed toward people who are most likely to accept it and embrace its many messages. Meanwhile, all that physical activity on the streets makes for countless unique impressions that stay with consumers. Ask any Con attendee and they will tell you: The sights, sounds and memories of a Con weekend don't readily fade away. Of course, they don't automatically translate to back-end success, either. In recent years there have been many movies and television shows that received mammoth promotion at Con only to bomb at the box-office (think "Scott Pilgrim") or tank in the ratings. ("FlashForward," "V," "No Ordinary Family" and "The Event" come to mind.) One sure-fire promotional strategy that continues to expand from Con-to-Con is the conversion of area bars, restaurants and other small businesses into four-day showplaces tied to entertainment product. Syfy continues to set the gold standard for this with its annual transformation of the centrally-located Hard Rock Café into the fictional Café Diem from its long-running series "Eureka." Inside and out, every square foot of the restaurant is utilized in a way that promotes at least one Syfy show. The laminated, custom-made menu, in which every Hard Rock food item is re-named as something having to do with a Syfy show, is a work of marketing art in itself. This year, Syfy for one afternoon took over a second restaurant - Soleil @k in the ground floor of the Marriott Gaslamp - and staged a contest in which three make-up artists imaginatively competed for a single spot on the second season of the network's reality hit "Face Off." The event was taped and will be posted online so that viewers can vote for their favorite. Also new in the neighborhood was a gallery that had been transformed by TBS into The Museum of Conan Art (also known as CocoMoca). It was filled with art that had been sent to Conan O'Brien by fans of his late night show. A line had already formed half-way down the block when I passed by the museum at 10 a.m. Sunday morning. O'Brien himself had a major presence at Con this year, making a surprise appearance during a panel for Cartoon Network's animated "Green Lantern" series (during which he introduced a trailer for an animated spoof titled "The Flaming C") and showing up at industry parties at night. As is increasingly evident, one need not be directly involved with a genre project to cause excitement at Con. It's enough simply to have proven geek cred.
Moving toward a world of complete TV messaging targeting, Comcast and NBC Universal have adopted dynamic ad insertion for the company's video-on-demand programming. Dynamic ad insertion allows for advertisements to be easily changed at any time. Comcast says it has begun rolling this out in several markets, with plans to expand to the majority of Comcast markets in the coming year. Chrysler and Kraft are the premiere advertisers. Media executives believe dynamic ad insertion will move the needle when it comes to complete TV commercial addressability -- which can target specific homes and viewers according to their needs. Canoe Ventures, of which Comcast Corp. is a partner with other big cable operators, is pursuing TV advertising addressability. Comcast says programming on USA Network, E!, Syfy, Bravo Media and Oxygen Media that airs On Demand on Comcast Cable systems will be part of the rollout. Commercials running prior to and after a show (pre-roll and post-roll ads) will be subject to dynamic ad insertion. Later in the year, this will include mid-roll commercials -- those that run in the show. "On Demand programming is a key way to reach today's consumers and an important part of an advertiser's marketing mix," stated Ed Swindler, executive vice president, NBCUniversal advertising sales. "This capability helps make the service more advertiser-friendly, giving clients greater flexibility to ensure their ads remain timely and relevant." Commercials are usually inserted manually into On Demand programming and remain in place throughout a show's full window of availability. This dynamic ad insertion technology comes from Black Arrow's Advanced Advertising System, allowing ads to be changed or revised when necessary. Comcast will make this available to other programming networks on its systems, working with Canoe Ventures. It says it will move a broader footprint covering more cable operators by early 2012. Comcast's local advertising sales group, Comcast Spotlight, has also started to bring digital ad insertion to local advertising clients.
In recognition of the growing size and influence of the U.S. Hispanic population, the newspaper industry this morning will introduce a new national network that will offer marketers a one-stop buy for reaching consumers in Spanish-language daily and weekly newspapers. The new service, the NNN Hispanic Network, is a new division of the newspaper industry's Newspaper National Network, and is the first set up to explicitly target and package newspapers buys for a multicultural segment of the U.S. population. "We serve all multicultural markets, but this is different because we haven't put this level of resources against a specific multicultural market before," explains Jason Klein, president-CEO of the NNN. To head the new division, Klein tapped Mike Cano, a long-time Hispanic media sales executive who had been vice president-business development and partnerships for La Opinion, publisher of La Raza, and president-CO of Impacto USA, before joining the NNN as director of Hispanic media. Klein said the new Hispanic network includes most of the leading Hispanic newspapers, which tend to be clustered in the major U.S. markets, and generally are operated by the same big general market newspaper publishers that are among the NNN's top members. Klein said the timing of the rollout couldn't be better, because the 2010 U.S. Census revealed strong growth and consumer spending power among Hispanic Americans. He said the main target for the Hispanic network is advertising budgets currently earmarked for local Spanish-language TV stations, and that digital media isn't yet a significant factor for Hispanic advertising budgets among major U.S. marketers. Klein said the NNN would continue to package advertising buys targeted at other multicultural segments, but does not currently have plans for spinning off any other new divisions to focus on them.
"Project Runway," the hit A+E Networks Lifetime reality show and designer competition that is debuting in its ninth season Thursday, will encourage fans to use Twitter to vote on specific designers in a campaign dubbed "Fan Favorite." The 20 designers have been assigned their own hashtag consisting of #PR and their first name. Mass Relevance will assist A+E Networks by compiling the tweets and the votes. At the season end, the designer whose hashtag has been tweeted the most will become the fan favorite and receive a $10,000 cash prize, explains Evan Silverman, senior vice president of digital media for A+E Networks. "We were looking for a campaign that encourages fans to use social media in real time and in an open scalable platform that's visible to others that may, or may not, watch the show," he said. A 15-second spot that outlines the Fan Favorite campaign will air in each episode. Designer hashtags are being incorporated into the show. Every time a designer is on camera, Bunim/Murray Productions, the production company, will incorporate their Twitter Fan Favorite tag into the shot. The Project Runway Twitter account will moderate a live chat with three or four former designers or fashion experts during each episode of the show. The A+E digital group for the show is trying to understand the correlation between television ratings and social media conversation. Services such as Trendrr and Bluefin Labs are pioneering a new industry to measure social TV engagement, but they are clearly in the early stages with products and ability to draw exact correlations between the conversation and television ratings. "When the social media engagement levels are high for our shows, we often see spikes in ratings -- correlated or not, it's unclear," he said. "With Fan Favorite, we're looking to provide our passionate 'Project Runway' audience one more reason to engage in the social media conversation around the show." By tapping Twitter in a season-long, real-time voting contest, Silverman believes the show can increase the level of engagement significantly. When the social buzz increases the visibility and conversation around a show rises, it impacts television ratings. The idea to bring real-time live tweeting to the show, however, has an ironic twist. "Project Runway" is taped months in advance, which makes it a bit tricky for tweets to determine the outcome. Silverman said this is the first time "Project Runway" will stage a season-long voting competition to give fans a voice. Project Runway has done fan voting in the past, but this is the first time using Twitter to do so in real time. He said Twitter can't confirm whether this is the first campaign on the platform to leverage voting.
Looking for greater access to valuable set-top box data for its local TV research products, Nielsen has made a multi-year deal with Kantar Media for its consumer viewing data from DirecTV set top boxes. Nielsen will use Kantar Media's DIRECTView service in local TV audience measurement. Nielsen has developed a proprietary, hybrid methodology for the U.S. market that combines Nielsen's National People Meter panel data with set-top-box and other sources of data. Nielsen's local TV efforts would hopefully move it away from many local TV markets that still rely on diary-based measurement. In 2008 Kantar Media (then TNS Media Research) struck a deal with satellite programmer DirectTV to create an opt-in audience measurement panel of 100,000 DirecTV subscribers. Currently, DirectTV has 19.4 million subscribers. "DIRECTView is one of many sources of data Nielsen is incorporating in our efforts to provide higher quality local TV audience measurement," said Steve Hasker, president, Nielsen Media Products and Advertiser Solutions, in a release. He added: "Our innovative approach to enhance local TV measurement addresses the technological limitations of using set-top-box data alone, and we expect it will provide valuable benefits to local TV markets." George Shababb, president of Kantar Media Audiences North America, said: "The sample size and granularity made possible through return path data advances what audience measurement has traditionally been able to deliver and will help offer advertisers in local markets an improved service."
EA Sports looks to tap into the sometimes overwhelming devotion college football fans have for their favorite teams in a new advertising campaign touting its NCAA Football 12 title. Television commercials from San Francisco agency Heat show fans taking their dedication to the extreme in 15-second vignettes. One commercial shows an out-of-shape Louisiana State University fan lifting his "man boobs" (as the spot is called) to ensure no spot on his torso is not covered in purple and gold. Another spot shows a University of Texas fan getting his broken wrist and fingers set in the "Hook 'em Horns" gesture. A third spot shows a University of Florida fan in the gym working out by making the university's "Gator Chomp" gesture on one of the weight machines. "You're devoted," reads on-screen text in each ad. "But are you totally devoted?" "Unlike other sports where people are involved with the league or with star players, with the NCAA they're really involved with the schools and the pageantry," Dustin Shekell, advertising manager for EA, tells Marketing Daily. "This year, the campaign is about taking that devotion to a certain level. That's what the sport is all about." Targeting male college football fans between 12 and 34 (both avid gamers and non-avid gamers), the commercials are running on spot broadcast television as well as 15 cable networks, including ESPN, Comedy Central, Spike, Adult Swim and MTV. A print spread promoting the game will also appear in ESPN the Magazine, and the agency has developed 15 conference-specific flash banners that will appear on more than 200 Web sites through a geotargeted buy. The Internet elements of the campaign have proven to be particularly successful, helping identify potential customers through social media and Internet searches, Shekell says. "Things like Facebook give you a great targeting ability for fan affinity," he says. "We've put more [into] digital than in years past because it performs so well."
Netflix's second-quarter results show improving numbers when it comes to revenue, income, and the number of subscribers -- but investors still aren't all that happy. In mid-day trading, the price of Netflix shares sank 8% due to revenue that was lower than Wall Street expectations -- and because the company said it expected some negative backlash due to the recent price increases. The company's stock closed down under 2% at $281.53. In after-hours trading, the stock was down over 9%. Netflix profit was up more than 50% in the second quarter of 2011 to $68.2 million versus $43.5 million for the same period in 2010. Revenue was at $788.6 million versus $519.8 million in the second quarter of 2010. Media analysts were anticipating revenue at around $791.5 million. Subscribers grew 1.8 million to 25.6 million. Concerning Netflix price hikes, Reed Hastings, CEO, stated: "It is expected and unfortunate that our DVD subscribers who also use streaming don't like our price change. Some subscribers will cancel Netflix or downgrade their Netflix plans." Still, Netflix projects higher revenues and overall gains in total subscribers for its next reporting period. The company's streaming video business is outgrowing the traditional DVD rental operation -- although it offers a more limited library of TV series and films. But Netflix says customers still like the DVD mailings, which can be more costly to the company. Netflix has also made some recent non-exclusive library deals with CBS and NBC Universal and has committed to the expensive, new TV series "House of Cards," originally a 1990 British thriller.
What a show, with dueling arguments and superstar spokesmen. But we can now announce a deal. It's done. Our long national nightmare is over. With rancorous negotiations behind us, and billions of dollars rescued, the nation is secure. I speak of course of the NFL Players Association agreement with management. Now we can get on with our lives, our liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, at least every Sunday. As to that other issue, raising the national credit card limit from $14.3 trillion to, well, whatever is more than that, of course, that will have to wait. As the world watches in amazement and/or horror on MMTV (minute-to-minute television), we have seven, that's seven, plans on the table. We have Reid and Boehner and CCB and McConnell and G6, the Grand Bargain and The Can (as in kick it). All but The Can have been pronounced as non-starters by one side or the other. And that will be vetoed by the President, he says, if Congress dares to pass it in the emergency which is already upon us. What goes on here? Deadlines have a way of providing focus, particularly when played out in the stark sight, sound and motion of television, as we watch much of the posturing give way to bottom line positions. And now we have the bottom line. It's the length of the deal. It's always been about the length of the deal. One side insists on an extension through 2012. The other side on a multistep process that insures we argue about this again, in the heart of the election season of 2012. Which, of course, will be the ultimate TV show. There you have it. And with that clarity, let's understand the depth of the trouble we're in. Our negotiators have now exposed the motives underlying their by-the-poll positions, and it is likely to have a similar effect: to default itself. That means interest rates rise, credit becomes even scarcer, the business environment gets more difficult. And it's not a walk in the park now. So what do we do? For those who have not yet made the mental adjustment, we're on our own. No help is coming to save the day. If we toil at IBM or for a garage start up, we're all entrepreneurs now. Everyone. Joseph Schumpeter, an economist and political scientist, was "a champion of innovation and entrepreneurship," according to The Economist magazine. From entrepreneurs, or "wild spirits" as he called them, come changes in a nation. He believed that these individuals are the ones who make things work. He said an entrepreneur "disturbs equilibrium" and is the prime cause of economic development. And he did not confine his view of the entrepreneur to individuals in new enterprises. He said that innovation also comes from the large companies that have the resources to invest in R&D which drives innovation. There is one more characteristic of the entrepreneur. It is leadership. Leadership means the willingness not just to innovate or launch a new enterprise or a new idea, but to accept responsibility for the outcome. It is to be accountable. All change begins with attitude change. It may be an odd time to think about the opportunities ahead of us, because the challenges appear so daunting. But that's when the largest gains are made. That's when the game is won. It is now up to all of us to disturb some equilibrium.
The NFL is coming back -- and TV marketers are breathing easier. But might they be gasping again? Back in April, NFL TV advertisers -- who target male viewers -- believed their fall marketing plans might be in big trouble, due to a possible league shutdown. The concern was big, said those executives, because there were few alternatives to run their media and make business hay. Now the league is seemingly good to go this season. But the frantic thinking that beset the business for months might reveal a seemingly underlying problem in the growing entertainment and marketing world. Is there just one potent media platform for male-targeted media plans? For many marketers, the NFL's performance dynamics are unmatched; limited inventory, high viewership and big consumer engagement stir the pot. One would think, in 2011, there would be other options. And some competing programmers -- cable TV and others -- might chime in here that there are. Existing NFL marketers might counter that none of those options have as big an impact as pro football. In contrast, look at the options for getting women viewers, which are seemingly plentiful everywhere -- network, cable, syndication. There's little doubt that TV -- especially with regularly scheduled, Monday through Friday primetime fare -- offers a lot of places to get women viewers. Men? We know they watch a lot of football, as well as the other big three (or two) sports leagues). You might include mixed martial arts and X-Games. Offline? Men can be happy interacting with video games. But the NFL is a big and effective place to get all that a marketer needs -- with little hassle. That why it's no surprise that 80% of NFL advertising deals have already been completed for this upcoming season -- all of which happened even with a better than a fair chance the entire season would be canceled. Seemingly, TV marketers had planned -- or not planned -- for no other options this year. All this means that there was always some confidence by NFL owners and TV networks that too much business was at stake for a deal not be happen between the players and the owners. Still one wonders why, in this growing digital age, some TV marketers can be tackled so quickly.
Here you are, reading the TV Board on MediaPost. So it's probably safe to assume that you, like me, love -- or at least give a hoot about -- television. Those of us who have created new companies in the space -- TRA, Invidi, Visible World, Simulmedia, Black Arrow, Media Bank, Canoe -- have joined the big players (networks, stations, media agencies, advertisers) in pursuing a big opportunity in TV and TV advertising. But have you ever asked yourself why? This is a question that the inspirational speaker/advisor Simon Sinek rhetorically asked in a TED talk last year. As Sinek pointed out, most people have no problem explaining "what" they do (broadcast a program, for instance) or "how" they do it (on a branded network addressing a specific niche). However, very few can say "why." For example, as he likes to say, Apple's "why" is that it challenges the status quo and thinks differently about everything it does. This is much more than what other computer companies do -- make consumer electronic devices and computers (the "what") that have unique designs (the "how"). So, again, "why" TV? It's not the most interactive medium around. It's not the most dynamic medium around. It's not the most innovative or even the most profitable media around (though I might argue that it's getting there). Nonetheless, as David Goetzl wrote last week in MediaPost's TVBlog, "TV is a triumphant medium." Despite increasing competition for viewers' eyeballs and advertisers' dollars, and despite new-media fear mongers who point to imminent declines in consumer spending, program ratings, and media budgets, the reality is this: · Most people -- at least most American adults -- still watch more television than any other medium. · Television ad spending is poised to increase. · Though online advertising is growing more rapidly, most ad dollars still target TV. So television continues to be resilient as ever. But "why"? Television is a great branding medium. In fact, according to a study by Innerscope Research and Fox Broadcasting, it's the best branding medium -- better than online. The study, which looked at participants' biometric response to advertising, found that "unconscious emotional responses direct attention, enhance learning and memory, and ultimately drive behaviors that our clients [aka advertisers] care about." Combine that with the fact that new data solutions now allow advertisers to track how ads are driving actual sales, it becomes clear that even as online and other platforms continue to join the media mix, television will remain a core branding platform. Viewers connect with television and its advertising. There's little question that television viewers connect with their favorite programs. But they connect with the advertising, too. Big-screen advertising is mostly branding, while online advertising is generally transactional -- users (not "viewers," note) are asked to click through to see or read or buy something. By contrast, television inhabits a certain sweet spot that may or may not lead to a transactional event. Either way, however, viewers will certainly be entertained and engaged. Television just keeps getting better. Television may be "old" media, but technology is changing it rapidly and dramatically. When was the last time the TV industry had hundreds of millions of VC dollars flood into the space? Every day, television programming is becoming more interactive, is available on more screens, Web analytic techniques are now available to create more accountability, and addressable advertising on television is just about here. As anyone who was at CES this year knows, more great change is just around the bend. For all these reasons, and despite myriad challenges, television seems not only to be here to stay, but it's thriving. You see it in the creative renaissance in programming and advertising, and in viewers' response to both. Now it's up to us to make it so -- keep the programming innovative (and mostly ad-supported), the advertising relevant, and the right audiences watching. Why? Because we love television -- and the ads that run on television.
You might love your iPad (though flash video might make it better). You might love your Netflix (though that price hike is kind of stupid). You might love your 3D movies (though you might feel ripped-off by low-grade storytelling). The overriding question is easy: Has your latest entertainment technology let you down? Moviemaker and mogul Jeffery Katzenberg said if many 3D movies feel lame of late, you have a legitimate gripe. In the last seven or eight months, he said, there has been n a rash of really bad movies, the worst in five years, many of the 3D variety. "They suck," he said recently. "It's unbelievable how bad movies have been." Much of this, he said, comes from Hollywood studios rushing to make a fast buck -- make that a fast and much larger buck -- with 3D movies. (And you still need to wear those stupid glasses!) Not all technology is good all the time. Some have passed their time -- and prime. For example, how many music CDs have you burned recently? Katzenberg said that things will get better. Higher-quality 3D movies from the likes of Martin Scorcese, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and James Cameron are on the way. And in 10 to 15 years, he hopes there will be 3D theatrical movies -- without glasses. Right now, it's all about weak stories -- which brings Katzenberg (and me) to another point. Cable networks -- the 2D variety -- are making great entertainment, especially in the scripted arena. Katzenberg credited the likes AMC's "Breaking Bad" and a host of other shows. And what does this mean? That some technology in 2011 may look great but, in fact, it's lightweight. While Katzenberg now credits cable, it wasn't always this way. Think back to the mid-1980s. Many media agency executives had "new technology" titles attached to their positions, work that was supposed to include ad deal-making with nascent cable networks. Back then you probably couldn't find too many cable TV program aficionados talking about all of cable's great fictional series. That's because there weren't any. In effect, that 'technology" let us down. That was 30 years ago. With any luck we won't have to wait that long for 3D -- or maybe 4D or perhaps holographic-avatar-entertainment -- to really come around. Until then -- to quote Katzenberg -- things may suck sometimes.
And here's another good reason for TV networks to dislike the Internet: they just don't get a fraction of the attention here that they do on their native platform. In a roundup of traffic metrics to the major nets this past year, Compete shows that the average unique user spend about half an hour at a network site each month. Compare that to the 34+ hours per person per week Nielsen says Americans watched traditional TV in 2010. ABC.com maintains the most consistent lead in unique viewers month to month. With peaks of about 8 million visitors in the May, November and March months, it is challenged only on occasion by CBS.com and rarely by regular third-place runner NBC.com. Presumably these numbers reflect mainly traffic to the core network URL and not the massive waves of March Madness activity that comes CBS Sports' way each year. That said, the fight for viewers online came close to a dead heat in the fall show rollout last year. Compete calculates that reality shows and their finales can drive sizable spikes. In May NBC made an especially strong showing as people flicked online to see clips and auditions for "The Voice" (+49% month-over-month in visitors to the show site) but also for "Celebrity Apprentice" (+222%). As The Donald would say, his finale was huge...huge! Despite ABC's higher audience reach, CBS tends to hold its online viewers longer each month, but still peaks at 35 minutes total for the month. There's no secret why ABC and CBS would have longer hang times: both networks encourage full episode viewing prominently on their front pages. ABC has an especially good video player interface just for navigating and playing back the current library, and CBS features the latest episodes (albeit a less compelling collection) above the fold. NBC's catalog of back episodes online frankly looks like a poorly polished e-commerce site circa 2003. Things get better once you find your way to dedicated show sites, but unlike ABC. there seems to be little encouragement to use the site as a DVR. In fact even a cursory glance at any of the network sites suggests the ongoing inner conflict over how much the web is or is not a threat to their core businesses. None of them seem clear about what they most want to do online: promote on-air broadcasts, engage viewers in enhancements of the viewing experience, or let them play catch-up with episodes.