PepsiCo continues to build on the impressive success of its half-the-calories juices brand, Trop50, with (more) new extensions and new “Girlfriends”-themed TV spots starring "30 Rock" star Jane Krakowski. The latest launches are a Trop50 Juice with Tea line in three varieties (peach with white tea, raspberry with green tea and pear lychee with white tea); plus Trop50 Red Orange (red oranges combined with OJ). All provide a full day’s RDA of Vitamin C per eight-ounce serving. The juice/tea drinks, at 35 to 45 calories per glass, also include Vitamin E; Red Orange, with 50 calories, includes potassium. The 2012 continuation of the “Girlfriends” campaign, launched in September 2010 with a plan calling for it to continue through 2011, obviously means that it has resonated with the core target audience: women who love juice but don’t want all the calories -- or artificial sweeteners. (This campaign, started in conjunction with Trop50’s switch from a paper carton to a plastic carafe that shows off the juices’ color, succeeded the brand’s initial campaign featuring another hot 40-something star, Kyra Sedgwick of "The Closer.") Trop50 addressed women’s calorie and artificial-sweetener objections by adding water (it’s 42% juice) and the stevia/plant-based sweetener PureVia –- lowering PepsiCo’s costs and fattening its margins in the bargain. The new Krakowski spots, like the original ones, were created by Contagious Content and directed by "Made of Honor" director Paul Weiland. The basic premise -- Krakowski dishing with friends about “life, love and looking good” (in PepsiCo’s words) -- also continues. The latest ads include one that has Krakowski waking her Manhattan neighbors with an over-the-top rendition of “I’m Walking on Sunshine” after drinking Red Orange; and one in which she daydreams about a seductive dance with Luc Laurent (“Dancing With the Stars,” “Brothers & Sisters”) but decides her true yen is for a “refreshingly different” drink…like Trop50 Juice with Tea. Trop50’s site features Krakowski’s image, previous TV spots, and current Facebook “buzz” topics -- seeded with questions like “Have you seen our new ads?” and “Are you a fan of our new Red Orange flavor?” -- with a ready comment click-through to the brand’s Facebook page. There, promotions of the new varieties (and click-throughs to women’s blogging sites offering praise and coupons for them) await. The new Trop50 varieties join a rapidly expanding portfolio that includes three varieties of OJ (no pulp, no pulp with calcium/Vitamin D, some pulp); Farmstand Apple, pomegranate blueberry, pineapple mango, and regular and raspberry lemonades. More extensions can almost certainly be counted on, given Trop50’s track record. Launched in early 2009, its food/drug/mass retail sales (excluding Walmart) were $7.4 million in 2010, according to SymphonyIRI (making it that year’s sixth-largest food/beverage launch). A Mintel Oxygen report on the U.S. fruit juice/juice drinks market released in January reports Trop50 having crossed the $100-million mark. PepsiCo reported that Trop50’s sales were up 50% in last year’s Q3 (on top of 37% growth in the previous year’s Q3). “We’re selling everything we can make” under the Trop50 brand, “and that’s a good challenge for us to meet,” PepsiCo CFO Hugh Johnston said in the same call. While the brand’s sales are still small in comparison to the overall $6-billion-plus Tropicana brand, its full potential would appear to be far from tapped. Moreover, its success inspired Tropicana’s “add-water/raise margins” juices strategy, as described to Businessweek by PepsiCo Global Beverages chief Massimo D’Amore shortly before he retired in February.
TV incentive social media programs seem to be gaining ground. In revealing some results of its social TV rewards app, ACTV8.me -- which has deals with Fox Broadcasting (for "New Girl"), Mark Burnett Productions, Oxygen TV, Virgin Produced -- says early data shows heavy usage and rewards for viewers with "digital currency." Though it didn't offer specifics concerning programs or networks, the company says early data shows users of the app are interacting an average of 10 times per episode and accepting over two offers per episode. ACTV8.me says a typical episode like NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice," a Mark Burnett Production, could equate to big rewards. The show has been averaging around 10 million total viewers. Digital currency is intended to be a major promotion incentive. Early trials have tied into mass marketing campaigns with Walgreens, General Motors and Kraft Foods. Now, ACTV8.me is partnering with Tango Card, which offers digital gift cards and rewards for online, social and gaming applications and online channels. Early this year, another TV rewards/social media effort began -- Viggle -- where viewers who check into their favorite TV shows get rewards such as movie tickets, music and gift cards.
One new minority-owned cable channel is getting a boost from some launch advertising deals. Aspire, the new cable Comcast cable network that willl offer African-American programming under ownership of Earvin “Magic” Johnson, signed deals with Universal McCann for a number of clients, including Nationwide Insurance and L’Oréal USA brands L’Oréal Paris and Maybelline New York, as well as Garnier and Soft-Sheen Carson. Aspire launches in June. Two of those clients -- L’Oréal brands and Nationwide Insurance -- are getting category exclusivity for an undisclosed period of time. In addition, Universal McCann clients will get product placement efforts in programming on another cable network -- GMC, a music and family entertainment channel in 50 million TV homes. More deals are on the way. In a press release, Mary Jeanne Cavanagh, executive vice president of ad sales for Aspire and GMC, said her team is on the verge of closing additional Aspire launch deals before the upfront. In February, Comcast Corp. announced that is was launching new minority-owned independent networks to be distributed on its systems between April 2012 and January 2014. They include Aspire; Revolt, a new music channel from Sean “Diddy” Combs; BabyFirst Americas, a Spanish-language baby/young child channel; and El Rey, a Latino-programming network from film director Robert Rodriguez.
New digital video services should be permitted to operate on a level playing field with broadcasters and other traditional programming services, says former TV and movie studio executive Barry Diller. In speaking to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, Diller, the chairman/CEO of IAC and investor in Aereo, a new digital video service, said: “It will take vigilance to make sure that Net neutrality is to be safeguarded." This includes Internet services such as Aereo. Aereo is a new digital video service delivered over the Internet to individual virtual "antennas" for consumers. Because it uses “antennas,” it is akin to what consumers do with their TV antennas to get a “broadcast” station. In that regard, the company claims, it should not be subject to making retrans deals with TV stations. Broadcasters have filed lawsuits against Aereo. Diller, a proponent of the Internet service, believes the Communications Act of 1996 needs to be changed -- to now include Internet services that didn’t exist when the act was passed into law. He says some 15% of U.S. TV homes used over-the-air signals, but the quality is poor. Aereo provides clearer signals. “By making over-the-air signal digitals useful to consumers, Aereo is bringing the very reality Congress sought.” Diller added that Aereo is just one of many companies/services looking to make progress by using the Internet to send TV/video to consumers. While he didn’t name others, Diller did say some current TV distributors should have less power. “If intermediaries have less control, creators could reach consumers more directly, and will not have to sign over so many rights to distributors. In the question-and-answer section, Diller said: “What online can offer is more a la carte programming… The Internet gives the ability to offer the narrowest of narrowcasting. There is no closed pipe.” That said, he didn’t think video on the Internet would overrun traditional TV systems: “It’s not going to replace pay television.”
Sometimes, what’s old is new again. AOL, whose robust content syndication strategy has helped distance itself from its aggregator past, is once again touting itself as a portal – this time for all things video. The new hub, dubbed “AOL On,” was dubbed Tuesday evening during its portion of the digital “NewFront” to advertisers, agencies and the press in New York City. With big acquisitions like The Huffington Post and 5Min Media, AOL had been focusing on spreading its influence to other sites and syndicating content around the Web. Now, it seems, the company wants to bring those eyeballs back. With AOL On, the Web giant is bringing its entire video offering under one umbrella. AOL On is comprised of 14 discrete channels and more than 300,000 videos, including a new slate of seven original Web series (also something the company has tried in the past), and some 1,000 publisher content partners. Many of the publishers have been part of AOL’s 5Min syndication network, and while their video programming will continue to be syndicated through that platform, they will for the first time be organized around a single destination. Compared with Google’s video giant YouTube, 300,000 videos may not sound like a lot, but the company claims AOL On will be distinguished from other video sites by its library of premium video programming, which advertisers covet because the content is deemed brand-safe. AOL says AOL On videos will be original, as well as “partner,” or branded content. Ran Harnevo, AOL On’s senior vice president of video, highlighted the importance of AOL On being available across devices. He added that the video portal could both complement and compete with TV buying strategies. “We are well-positioned not only from a scale perspective, but from a programming perspective to capture TV dollars,” Harnevo said. “It is undeniable that online video has strategic advantages relative to TV, and we have the programming, audience and measurement tools to not only target audiences but find them where they are on the Web.” As part of its bid to capture TV dollars, AOL earlier this month said it would use Nielsen’s new Online Campaign Ratings panel data to sell and guarantee advertisers audience guarantees based on online’s equivalent of “gross rating points” (or GRPs), which is the same metric used to buy and sell television.
Some months ago I moved house. Among all the attendant trials and tribulations, my family and I acquired an array of new possessions while simultaneously discarding others. It’s all part of the chaos and pain of the process. We also acquired a fistful of new utility suppliers –- among them our sparkly new MSO. Which meant a new program guide. Now you may say that a program guide is a program guide. While I’d agree that among MSOs they may not differ that much, a handful of subtle differences in design and functionality can be enough to make a profound difference to the user experience. In the good old days (and yes, you can already see which way this article is going), accessing my DVR was as easy as pressing the obviously marked “My DVR” button that was prominently displayed on my remote. From there, navigating the different functions -- record, playback etc. -- was easy. It took no thought. Here was a company that actually seemed to want you to use the function. All well and good. Fast-forward to the present day and more than six months after signing on with my new MSO, I still have to work hard to remember where in God’s name my DVR is. Indeed, so counterintuitive is this interface, that it took us as a family 10 days to work out how to record programs and another two weeks before we could find them in order to enjoy the relative luxury of actually watching them! All this with an 11-year-old in the house, which normally means such issues are resolved in about 30 seconds. Now instead of the long-lamented “My DVR” button, I am mysteriously required to press the yellow button. Exactly why yellow is felt to signify DVR I’ve no idea, but I’m sure somebody somewhere has an incredibly good explanation. It just happens to fly over the head of mere mortals (subscribers), without any kind of textual indication (maybe something like “press here for DVR”). Having pressed yellow -– which we only did in a fit of frustrated and random frenzy of button pushing -– we were then taken to a curious and disjointed list of functions ranging from Parental Controls to the all-too-appropriate Help menu (which, incidentally, didn’t). Only when we spotted something along the bottom of the page did we realize that we had to drop down to another menu, scroll sideways two or three times, click again to reveal the holy grail -- the long lost programs we had been hoping we’d recorded. You can only imagine our joy. At that point, I wanted to write this article but felt it was unfair to do so. No doubt this would become a familiar process and ultimately become easy and familiar as past experiences. Well six months later, I can affirm that is not the case. To use a bit of technical user experience jargon, this sucks mightily. I still defer to others when trying to use the DVR and regard the whole interface as an abomination. Trying to sort through VOD content -- free or otherwise -- is equally difficult, and I’m convinced there are whole sections of programming inventory that I’ve never found. A kind of mythical VOD graveyard where programs die from never being watched. While this may not be the case with every MSO, I find it incredible that one of the larger players can still provide this kind of service. If this is the kind of user experience that stands to greet the age of enhanced TV and that will support the promise of return path data and transactions, I fear there will much disappointment ahead.
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Boy, was that William Butler Yeats guy onto Matt Weiner! Yeats’ description of a world gone mad, with the beast slouching toward Bethlehem, was in answer to the near-apocalypse of World War I. In this episode, there are "Sopranos"-ish flashbacks and Tarantino-like screwings with chronology. They’re weird and jumpy but somehow work, when dealing with the dropping of beans, acid, and fecal bombs. There are reversals of scenes and exchanges of character, all leading to the feeling of being displaced: Peggy gets taken off the Heinz account; after an acid trip reveals the truth of their ruse of a marriage, Roger says he doesn’t want to “displace” Jane from her home after their divorce; Ginsberg opens up about being a “displaced” person in an orphanage after the Holocaust, and assures Peggy that though he really is 100% Martian, “there’s no plot to take over earth. You’re just displaced.” Don forces Megan to go to a HoJo’s in Plattsburgh with him, displacing her from where she wants to be: at work with her team, presenting. And, by so acting on impulse, Don turns into a beast, blowing his house down, alienating himself from the world. Let’s start with Peggy, who’s come up with the tag line “Home is where the Heinz is.” It’s lovely. She wants to make it elegiac, as Don did with “Carousel,” or a sacred ritual, as she did with the splitting of the Popsicle sticks. But come on, people, we’re dealing with baked beans here! “The fire is primal,” she explains, while presenting to the client in the conference room, standing next to the drawing board that she had to go back to, repeatedly. “They come there alone, gathered in the circle, they suddenly feel included. They’re safe. It’s the beans that brought them together at the end of the summer.” It is a bit hyperbolic and gassy. Still, had Don been there, he could have sold it to the Heinz guy, who really doesn’t know what he wants and admits he is not a “word person.” (I bet that line came from someone in Weiner’s past!) He says the nostalgia in the campaign works for him -- but not kids. “Kids have memories,” Peggy protests. (And, indeed, one of her good-luck talismans for presentations come from one of Don’s few childhood memories: the Violet candy that he once told Bobby that his -- Don's -- daddy liked.) Things fall apart: the undoing of the campaign is the undoing of Peggy. She defends her work the way Don would -- after all, he once even told a client that if he didn’t like it he could leave. After a colleague tells Peggy she’s being “oversensitive,” the client puts her down with, “Can you believe this girl?” She is indeed in an impossible place: Abe complains, “I’m your boyfriend, not your focus group!” Meanwhile, at the office she gets diminished for her strong convictions and called “a little girl.” Still, now she’s decided to grow, a, um backbone, just like her errant boss, and uses it to go into full Don Draper bender mode: smoking, drinking, and disappearing into a matinee in the middle of the day -- where for good measure, she smokes pot and gives a random hand job to a stranger. The movie is “Born Free” which came out in 1966, and tellingly includes a voiceover about “releasing the cub into the wild.” (Peggy later falls asleep on Don’s couch, which was often his end move as well.) But while still at the movie, a very stoned Peggy yells at the screen, “She’s not gonna make it out there on her own!” (This was pre-Mary Tyler Moore tossing her beret in Minneapolis.) So it’s interesting when Jane, in a fab outfit (part Salome, part “I Dream of Jeannie”) mirrors Peggy’s act, asking Roger, “What do you want to do? Open your vest and yell at the TV for the next 20 years?” They’re at a radical-chic uptown dinner party with pretentious Timothy Leary disciples discussing “tracing logic down to the truth.” To go along and be a good husband, Roger swallows a tab of acid, which allows him to experience a singing vodka bottle and a life-changing epiphany: that he should end his marriage. I found Jane’s acting and lines stilted and painful, but Roger was delightful, especially in answering the morning-after question of “Where are you going?” with “Out the door and into the elevator, I suppose.” Is he going to dye his hair black now that he’s been released back into the wild? Talk about reversals and symmetry: last week, Don and Megan were the picture of a functional, contented couple. He took her suggestion to wear the goofy sports coat to the dinner party, where they happily shared a private joke about not remembering Cynthia’s name. I’m not sure just why Don likes Ho Jo’s so much. But the prospect of going did seem to send him into a child-like frenzy, taking Megan, in her orange-sherbet-colored dress, on a different kind of trip. Maybe he loves Howard Johnson’s because, as Megan put it, “it’s not a destination. It’s on the way to some place,” and he only likes beginnings. Or perhaps he has a thing for the color combo of turquoise and orange. My family actually went there for an “ All you can eat” clam night once. And even though I was very young, I thought it was gross. The breakdown between Megan and Don begins in the car. But when the couple gets there, there’s some fun with Dale Van Der Woot rolling out the “orange carpet.” Megan, who looks like she really could use a sandwich or two, agrees to “a sampling of everything. I like everything.” She and Don sit in a booth, and the scene, in which he orders orange sherbet for her, even though she wanted pie, turns into a parallel experience to the one with the kids and Don in a boot at Disney Land, when Bobby spilled his milkshake. Megan handled it so serenely at the time that it’s one reason Don wanted to marry her. This time, Don acts like a brutal parent and says she’s embarrassing him. The fight escalates, and he angrily complains about how much she speaks to her mother in French. (That’s a classic sign of an abuser, btw: jealous, paranoid, controlling, wanting to distance her from her family.) Which gets her enraged, so she says the one thing you don’t say to Don, the whore-child: “Why don’t you call your mother? So he punishes her by getting into the Caddy, gunning the accelerator, and abandoning her in the parking lot. In the midst of the turmoil of his looking for her later, he calls the French mom-in-law, and makes up a story, questioning whether Megan has an allergic reaction to metal. Was it silver or gold? (Like a wedding ring, perhaps? Au revoir marriage?) “Don’t tell her I called,” he says, like a prime manipulator. And Dale Van Der Woort’s line just then in the middle of the all the tension -- “We closed the pool. Some kid had an accident” -- was pretty funny. (Shit happens.) By the time Don gets home, the next morning, he’s literally the wolf at the door. “Open the damn door, or I’m gonna kick it in,” he says, which he then does. “You’re a pig,” Megan says. “You left me there.” They then begin a violent chase through the apartment for which the choreography and camera work were staggering. “I thought you were dead!” he says, after they both fall on the floor, hurt. We see them from overhead, lying on the floor, the same shot that captured Jane and Roger. Except the newlyweds Don and Megan are crying and miserable -- while the newly separated Jane and Roger are transcendent and ecstatic. (There was a similar scene shot from overhead, of Joan, her baby, and her mother in bed earlier this season.) An abashed Don clings to Megan’s mini jumper, begging for forgiveness. “ I thought I lost you.” Here’s another sign of abusers: “Feel sorry for me. I feel so much for you I had to hurt you. Don’t you see, that’s love.” Megan is smart, and she knows it’s not. Later, Don gets caught up short at the office, when the defrocked and officeless Bert Cooper confronts him. “It’s amazing things are going well with how little you are doing,” he says. And about this, he’s right. The final scene, of Don looking out of the conference room windows through a vertical grid, suggests the falling-man weekly opening of the show. Tibetan Book of the Damned, anyone?
TV is a land of plenty these days – especially when consumers are in a rush to get to the next big thing. At least it would seem that way to Netflix. Though Netflix primarily runs older seasons of current TV shows -- and its financial picture has seemed a little weak of late (especially considering last summer’s pricing and brand-changing debacle) –- some factors don’t seem so bad. The good news: Netflix gained 1.9 million new paying customers in the first quarter of 2012. The bad: It also lost 1.1 million mail-order DVD customers. Netflix now has 23.4 million monthly subscribers who stream videoand 10.1 million DVD customers. The company says the number of departing DVD customers was a bit lower than it expected. According to company officials, Netflix believes it has a leg up on those still-slow-moving cable networks and cable operators pushing for “TV Everywhere” activities. Other new start-up subscription services believe they too can capitalize on sluggish “TV Everywhere” moves. Netflix continues to serve in a sort of consumer video “seam” -- a place where video-hungry consumers the ability can blow through a recent season’s worth of a broadcast or cable series. To many, that’s a valuable asset in a land where analysts say TV is in a new “golden age” with too many good shows to view and stay current with during a typical season. More evidence of that: According to Netflix executives, "Even now, the most watched episode of "Mad Men" on any given day on Netflix is the first episode of the first season….This means we are still growing the fan base for this show nearly six years after it first premiered on television." So that does sound pretty good for the likes of a network like AMC. The CW, which has also made a significant deal with Netflix, probably feels good about this kind of activity. Netflix may gain its current value there. But, going into the future, it also is tempted to play in the original TV series game with dramas like “Lilyhammer” and the forthcoming “House of Cards.” Still, we wonder if Netflix will have a long TV/entertainment business life like cable TV systems -- or is it just a transitional service, bridging the gap for the next big thing? Correction: Contrary to what we wrote in yesterday's TV Watch, The CW network actually derives a fifth of its total multiplatform audience from its digital platforms, including cwtv.com. Netflix is not included.