With upfront season in full swing -- and many TV watchers predicting record commitments to new programming from ad buyers -- VideoNuze’s Will Richmond says that now is the perfect time to remind everyone in the media ecosystem about live television’s inexorable decline. DVR penetration is approaching 50% of U.S. households, which he says means “the days of forcing viewers to tolerate almost a minute of advertising for every two minutes of TV programming they viewed are fading.” Thankfully, online video advertising is maturing at precisely the right time, he says. So why should content providers and advertisers alike be optimistic about online video? Richmond provides four main reasons: 1. Most online video ads cannot be skipped. Viewers also tend to be more tolerant of the ads they see in videos because online streams come with fewer ads. 2. With online distribution, the TV network or content provider is able to set the ad policy, whereas with cable TV, the pay TV provider sets the ad policy. 3. The movement towards enhanced targeting and analytics will increase the value of video advertising. Competition will also lead to greater transparency, which ultimately means better metrics for advertisers. 4. Because clicking on a video is a lean-forward rather than lean-back action, video advertising can move into the realm of interaction, or engagement. If done right, Richmond says this should lead to better ROI and a better user experience. Richmond acknowledges that video advertising still has measurement and structural issues (particularly on the agency side) that prohibit marketers from being able to reach key objectives (like buying a quality audience at TV-like scale). Nevertheless, as live television viewing continues its slow march toward becoming completely on-demand, and as these issues are sorted out, he says online video advertising will become more and more attractive to both buyers and sellers.
Telecom carriers around the globe believe that in LTE, or 4G -- which is anticipated to become the first truly global mobile phone standard -- a “gold mine” could be waiting for them in the form of video-calling. The Verge’s Chris Ziegler, reporting from the International CTIA Wireless conference in New Orleans, says that even before the industry confab, a number of carriers -- including AT&T -- had called for a unified video-calling protocol on 4G, and that “the buzz wasn't any quieter at CTIA last week.” Neville Ray, chief technology officer, T-Mobile USA, said: "I think (video-calling is) more of a growth area -- an opportunity. I think the interesting piece about video calling is that was the killer app for 3G... of course, the quality in the early 3G days was just not there. I think with 4G, improvements in the network, improvements in the handsets, video-calling is clearly a growing opportunity." Terry McCabe, chief technology officer of LTE services specialist Mavenir Systems, agreed: "Video is where it's at in terms of where the operators believe that LTE has a tremendous differentiation." This is particularly true for the carriers, added co-worker Madan Jagernauth, vice president of marketing and strategy. Unlike say, Skype, which is an over-the-top video-calling solution, the carriers can offer a “one-stop shop” for communication, allowing users to dial any number and choose from voice, video or messaging, depending on their preference and the recipient’s hardware and network capabilities.
In an interview with paidcontent.org, Brian Sugar, CEO and publisher of Sugar, Inc., claims that video is the future of media sites. “Video is the natural progression of content on the Internet,” he says, adding that the monetizing part is still in test mode. Mid-rolls, branded integrations, and video ecommerce are his favored revenue streams. “Branded content is an important part of making video work,” Sugar says. “We also have a big market in video and commerce -- we have over 800 partners who are retailers. Technology helps us track when they make a sale through us.” Asked whether a media site can make it on ad revenue alone, Sugar contends that advertising and commerce are one and the same. “We refer to our partners as advertisers,” he says. “It’s hard to think of someone who just does display advertising. It would be a shame to have just one revenue stream when you can layer on other streams. It makes sense as you build out your brands.”
Starting with the NBA finals, ESPN is teaming with Twitter to create new ad programs around major sporting events. These new programs will be promoted online and on-air across Twitter, ESPN and ABC and ESPN's digital properties. Regarding the tie-up, Joel Lunenfeld, Twitter’s vice president of global brand strategy, said: “It’s the first time advertisers can engage [ESPN’s audience] across screens and where the conversation is happening on Twitter.” As for the timing of the deal, Lunenfeld pointed to the rise of connected devices, and consumers’ increasing taste for digital multitasking. Indeed, as Nielsen recently found, about 45% of Americans who own tablets and smartphones watch television while watching something else at the same time. Thirty-six percent of smartphone owners engage in this "two-screen" experience. The announcement coincided with ESPN’s network upfront presentation, which took place in New York on Tuesday. Each ad program will be co-created by ESPN and Twitter, beginning with GameFace -- the first effort, which will be focused on the NBA Finals. GameFace will be integrated throughout the live ABC broadcasts and ESPN’s "NBA Tonight" programming with a dedicated Twitter hashtag #GameFace. Fans will be encouraged to tweet photographs of their “game face” throughout the finals. At the conclusion of each game, "NBA Tonight" analysts will highlight the competition and reveal the best photographs on-air. The best photos will also be featured in a photo gallery on ESPN.com/NBA. On Twitter, #GameFace will be supported through Twitter’s Promoted Products suite -- including a Promoted Trend during the finals -- and the experience will be plugged on the @NBAonESPN Twitter handle. At the conclusion of the NBA finals, ESPN basketball analyst Jalen Rose is expected to tweet his top five favorite #GameFace entries before revealing the final winner, who will receive a grand tour of the ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn. Additional sports events that have been identified include the Global X Games, Road to the BCS National Championship, Super Bowl, World Series, NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and NASCAR Chase for the Cup. Future events will offer a similar interactive experience, according to Lunenfeld, with new themes and dedicated hashtags to drive the sports conversation on Twitter.
Last Friday, China Dailyreported that Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn -- which makes Apple’s iPad, iPhone and other consumer electronics devices from various companies -- said it would begin working on “iTV, Apple Inc’s rumored upcoming high-definition television.” The story claimed that Foxconn CEO Terry Gou had said the company was preparing to build the TV, but that “development or manufacturing has yet to begin.” On Monday, Foxconn refuted these claims. "At no time did (Gou) confirm that Foxconn was in development or manufacturing stages for any product for any of its customers. He did say that Foxconn is always prepared to meet the manufacturing needs of customers should they determine that they wish to work with Foxconn in the production of any of their products," the company said in a prepared statement. For years, analysts and industry watchers have said that Apple is planning to launch a smart television. In his biography, Steve Jobs tells Walter Isaacson, his biographer: “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly linked with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.” Apple, meanwhile, has refused to comment on speculation that it is working on a smart TV.
Worldwide video usage on computers is now as common as watching it on traditional television among online consumers. The growth is helped by the rise of video usage of mobile devices. Looking at 56 countries, Nielsen says 84% of viewers watch video on computers at least once a month. This is actually a bit higher than television, where the survey says 83% of worldwide consumers watch TV at least once a month. This has changed from two years ago where -- on a monthly basis -- 90% of consumers watched video content on TV at least once a month versus 86% on a computer. What's changed? Over half of global online consumers (56%) say they watch video on a mobile phone at least once a month -- and 28% at least once a day. Overall, 74% of global video consumers watch video via the Internet, on any device. Mobile video is strong in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East/African regions of the world, where over 70% of online consumers watch video on mobile phones at least once a month. About 40% watch at least once a day. But in North America, Nielsen says mobile video is currently less of a big deal -- only 38% of consumers say they watch mobile video once a month. Dounia Turrill, senior vice president of client insights of Nielsen, stated: “With the growth of smartphones, mobile video consumption is on the rise for entertainment content, particularly in emerging markets where many consumers leapfrog home Internet altogether in favor of the all-in-one smartphone.”
Unilever will use some unusual input from consumers and NBCUniversal for a series of on-air and online advertising to start up a new campaign for Clear Scalp & Hair Therapy. The campaign "Best Night Ever" uses technology called Interlude to enable users to decide what happens next in the story of two characters, Chloe and Logan, whose great-looking hair helps them move past the velvet ropes into hot nightclubs. For example, choices include everything from whether to follow Chloe or Logan through the club to where to go once inside -- the bar, lounge, or DJ booth -- and deciding whether the DJ should “heat it up” or “slow it down” on the music front. Each week, story choices from users will be tracked and will determine how the story unfolds in on-air vignettes and online videos. NBCUniversal's integrated marketing group and Mindshare Entertainment put together the deal. A 15-second on-air teaser starts May 14 on "America's Got Talent" and continues through sweeps week. Beginning May 21, one celebrity each week will make their on-air debut in a series of spots, including Jane Krakowski of NBC's “30 Rock," Andy Cohen of Bravo's “Watch What Happens Live,” Giuliana Rancic of “E! News,” Style’s “Giuliana and Bill” and “Saturday Night Live” alum Tim Meadows. The series ends the week of June 11. The campaign will run across NBCUniversal networks including: NBC, Style, Oxygen, E!, and Bravo, as well as Web site NBC.com, MyStyle.com, Oxygen.com, Eonline.com, Bravotv.com and DailyCandy. John Shea, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of integrated media at NBCUniversal, stated: “In today’s crowded marketplace, it is more important than ever to rise above the clutter with breakthrough creative that engages audiences in new and unexpected ways."
Last year, AAA famously determined that the average cost of yearly auto ownership has reached $8,776 per year. BMW is promoting its owner service policy, Ultimate Service, with two 30-second spots that feature consumers amazed at how little it costs to maintain a BMW with the automaker’s no-cost maintenance program. The coverage on all new BMWs is for the first 50,000 miles or four years of ownership, and includes the BMW Assist Safety Plan, roadside assistance and warranty. The campaign is from New York-based Kirshenbaum, Bond, Senecal and Partners (KBS+), which won the account last summer, replacing Austin, Texas-based GSD&M. The campaign shows fictive customers in humorous ads where they do not believe a service advisor when told their maintenance is no cost, and mistakenly think they are being given special treatment. The first ad shows a woman being told the work on her car is free of charge. She thinks the guy is just flirting with her. So as she tries to explain that she's married, the representative clarifies that no-cost maintenance is standard for all new BMW owners. The second ad has a customer assuming he is being given special treatment and trying to repay the representative by casually slipping tickets to a sports event into his shirt pocket -- which isn’t there -- leading to an awkward moment. Said Dan Creed, VP marketing, BMW of North America, the ads “give us the opportunity to tell that story in a fun and memorable way.” The Woodcliff Lake, N.J.-based arm of BMW is extending the effort with a series of online videos, similar to a series of digital shorts the automaker used to support the new 3 Series. The automaker says those proved popular enough to get picked up by dealer groups for their television ad buys during Super Bowl XLVI. The company will start running the Ultimate Service digital shorts next month with a second group of videos to launch in July via social media channels. The video ads are similar in setup to the TV spots, with an incredulous customer and a service person continuing to elaborate features of the coverage plan. Each of the shorts has consumers asking: "What are you going to tell me next?" In one, a customer says: “What are you going to tell me next, that we’re in a commercial?” at which point, an unseen director yells “cut,” enters the scene and begins to critique the customer’s performance. In another, the customer replies: “What are you going to tell me next, that my father-in-law likes me?” a moment before his father-in-law appears, compliments him and gives him an encouraging slap on the backside. A BMW spokesperson tells Marketing Daily that the campaign is about setting the automaker apart in the after-market service and care department. She says the spots were designed for a national media placement, but while it will definitely run in dealer group regional buys, the company hasn't determined whether to drop the ads into the national media cycle. When it comes to how much service a vehicle might actually need, J.D. Power and Associates' 2012 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study put Lexus number one among all brands, luxury or otherwise in the number of problems per vehicle over three years of ownership. Porsche was second and Cadillac came in third. Mercedes-Benz came in at number six; Lincoln was seventh; Audi was 15th and BMW was in 20th place. Only Jaguar and Infiniti lagged BMW among luxury brands in the study, which measures 2009 model-year vehicles. Tom Libby, lead analyst on forecasting with Polk, says the luxury market has become so competitive it is no surprise that automakers in the segment are finding points of differentiation. "BMW is in a very competitive situation with Mercedes and Lexus, where they are almost one-to-one in sales. They are likely looking for a leg up," he says. BMW had a strong April (as did almost everyone.) Sales of BMW vehicles were up 12% in April for a total of 21,062 compared to 18,801 last year. Year-to-date, the BMW brand is up 15.7% to 82,611 compared to 71,417 sold in the first four months of 2011. Lexus said it sold 9,441 vehicles, up 25.6% percent over April 2011. Jesse Toprak, VP of industry analysis at TrueCar.com, says that BMW has first-mover status in the luxury maintenance and warranty area, but that nowadays it is in the middle of the pack when it comes to the breadth of its offering. "Ten years ago, they were clearly sort of the front of the pack in terms of vehicle maintenance, but [in TrueCar's warranty ranking] they are in the middle in terms of basic warranty and powertrain," he says, adding that Hyundai leads overall. Toprak tells Marketing Daily that the goal of a campaign like this is brand enhancement aimed principally at entry buyers considering the 3-Series who are a lot more focused on value than, say, a person buying a 7-Series premium car. "They are talking to consumers who think they perhaps can't afford a 3-Series."
Content and marketing are connected at the hip. Content amplifies marketing, and marketing fuels content. Increasingly the line between the two is getting blurred, until some scandal or controversy brings back the adage that church and state ought to remain separate. Everything old is new again, right? But now, we’re on the “future of marketing is content” train ride, and we don’t know when we’re getting off. Part of this convergence stems from the so-called death of the 30-second spot. The reality is that television is doing quite well: advertising in the U.S. crossed the $70 billion mark for the first time ever, and paid TV companies added another 484,000 clients in Q1. Yes, viewers are moving online, but despite billions of connected devices out there, it’s unreasonable to think that in the slugfest between TV and the Internet, TV will lose. But the fact remains that with falling rates, the pre-roll isn’t enough to fund online content. For content to survive -- let alone thrive -- it needs to make economic sense. Someone left common sense back in the analog world On television, media companies fund the production, marketing and distribution of content, money they then recoup over time through advertising, sponsorship, subscription, licensing, theatrical and home purchases, and so forth. Occasionally, content loses money -- it is a “hits” business, after all. Online, we treat content as a profit center. Like advertising, content generally bears a negative ROI early on. Content isn’t a widget (in the economics/accounting sense), where producing it at X amount of money and selling at Y will yield a profit, provided Y is greater than X. It’s a new medium, but not one for the faint of heart Most of the new-media content businesses ceased producing content. Once it became clear that they could not produce content at a sustainable cost, they chose exclusive licensing deals over production. Next New Networks (acquired in 2011) and Revision3 (acquired in 2012) shifted to identifying existing programs and then bringing them in-house. Even though for traditional media companies (TMCs) online revenues are incremental in theory, in fact they cannibalize traditional sales -- so naturally TMCs have refrained from publishing aggressively online. This has led to piracy of their super premium content. But TMCs have also hesitated to produce premium Web programming. That hesitation stems partly from the expectation that content ought to fund itself from the get-go. Print-centric companies like Hearst, Conde Nast, or the New York Times could have led the way in online video production (since for them it’s incremental to print and doesn’t cannibalize TV revenues, since they’re not TV-centric media companies), but they haven’t. Enter Sponsorships While branded content remains the wild card that could make programming’s ROI skyrocket, it remains a promise. Sponsorships will drive video funding for years to come. While ad networks continue to focus on pre-rolls, this leaves the opportunity for other media companies to jump on the opportunity with their sales forces. What about e-commerce? Of course, focusing on multiple sources within advertising (be it pre-rolls, sponsorships or branded content) is still not a truly diversified strategy. Some might turn to e-commerce. I asked Ben Lerer, CEO of Thrillist, for his thoughts: “Many commerce companies talk about content but not actually invest into it properly. I think part of the reason for this might be that without directly monetizing content through advertising sales, content gets relegated to the cost side of the business rather than being seen as a profit center”. Thrillist and Sugar Media have positioned their companies to generate dual revenue streams from advertising and e-commerce. The “user propensity” to… If your site’s DNA is content, it’s very hard to introduce commerce as an afterthought (same way, perhaps, that Google can’t nail social or Facebook has challenges on mobile -- it’s not something one staples on). So if you plan on generating e-commerce revenues via video content, you have to seed it early on and foster it in your editorial strategy. Whatever your plan to recoup your investment in content, it’s worthwhile remembering that the company that produces the best content at the lowest cost will have an edge over time -- but a “low enough” cost is good enough; the focus ought to be on the revenue side of the equation.
Each week, Sketchy, a Yahoo site that launched in March, releases a spoof video on a trending or timely topic du jour. Back in March, the site launched “Downton Arby’s,” an amusing spoof on “Downton Abbey” that has racked up close to 2 million views. Last week, Sketchy launched an action video based on the board game Chutes and Ladders, in an effort to spoof the upcoming theatrical release of fellow board game, “Battleship.” What’s with the board games turned into theatrical films? I doubt that anything could top the 1985 movie release of “Clue,” starring Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Christopher Lloyd, Michael McKean and Eileen Brennan. Unless I start seeing “Hungry, Hungry Hippos” or “Candyland” on the big screen. “Chutes and Ladders” takes action movie clichés to the playground, acted out by a handful of kids. One of the opening scenes shows a kid who needs to get down a slide quickly but he gets stuck, because he’s wearing shorts. There are explosions, toy gun shooting, nose picking, toy car chases, romance (almost) and a villain hellbent on getting what he wants: a pile of ice cream sandwiches. Basically, a typical big-screen action movie. The trailer was written and directed by Los Angeles-based production company Kids at Play. Principato-Young Entertainment, Electus and Yahoo Studios served as production partners. The trailer concludes with a preview of an upcoming release of another board game turned movie spoof: Hungry, Hungry Hippos. Shockingly, it didn’t look half bad. “We were in our weekly creative meeting, discussing movies that were coming out in the near future,” said Jason Berger, Founder and Executive Producer of Kids at Play. “We all grew up playing the old-school peg-in-hole Battleship game and thought how funny to make such an extreme movie based off such a simple game.” The latest Kids At Play video launched this morning and pokes fun at the Taco Bell taco shell made from Doritos. The video is a series of “leaked” Taco Bell auditions for alternate products, like a Twinkie filled with meat, a Slim Jim inside a churro, a burrito made from Twizzlers, and a Red Bull-laced energy sauce.