Several high-profile brands including Virgin Media, BT and O2 have inadvertently bought advertising placed in front of neo-Nazi content on Google’s video-sharing site YouTube. The Guardian reports that the neo-Nazi groups Blood & Honour and Combat 18 have participated in Google’s AdSense program, which means that both Google and the extremist groups have earned money from ads placed alongside their videos on YouTube. The report claims that the groups are using their YouTube channels "to provide links to extremist materials and neo-Nazi Web sites, where discussion groups and literature can be accessed." Because AdSense is an automated program, neither Google or the aforementioned brands knew that the ads were being placed near questionable content. And because Google does not pre-screen video content uploaded to YouTube, Google didn’t even know the neo-Nazi videos were there. However, once it was alerted to their presence, Google removed them immediately. YouTube certainly promotes free speech, but per its rules, it does not permit “hate speech,” which it defines as “speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity." That may be, but The Guardian points out that Google wouldn’t say whether it plans to put any protections in place to prevent a repetition. The search did say, as it has before, that due to the volume of content uploaded to YouTube -- 60 hours of video per minute or nearly 10 years worth of content every day -- that it cannot pre-screen content before it is uploaded; instead, it relies on users to flag inappropriate videos. When told that its ads were appearing next to neo-Nazi content, Virgin Media replied that it was “concerned” and would work with Google and its advertising partners “to understand what measures can be put into place to prevent these occurrences going forwards."
Watching paid video content on mobile devices is climbing -- but gaming consoles remain the overall leader when looking at all new digital devices.Now, 29% of consumers watch paid content on a handheld device, while viewing on laptop/desktop computers has declined to 39% from 48% in 2011, according to J.D. Power and Associates Reports.Tablets are the most popular. The study finds that 18% of consumers use tablets for viewing paid video content, up from 11% a year ago. Mobile phone usage is not far behind -- 16% of consumers have been watching video on phones, an improvement from 14% in 2011.The study also notes that nearly one-fourth (23%) of customers view paid content via gaming consoles, compared to those who view paid content via handheld devices (29%).Overall gaming consoles continue to be a high usage device when viewing video -- 6.3 hours per week, compared with 5.3 hours on a laptop/desktop, 4.9 hours on a wireless phone, 4.5 hours on a music player, and 4.4 hours on a tablet. “These findings illustrate that while customers appreciate the convenience and value that gaming consoles provide, the TV screen is still a preferred viewing media,” stated Frank Perazzini, director of telecommunications at J.D. Power and Associates.“On the other hand, average viewing times for mobile devices and computers are likely impacted by battery life and screen size," he noted.Overall satisfaction with pay-to-view video service providers averages 750 -- on a 1,000-point scale -- up from 743 in 2011.
Facing stiff competition, online video ad networks are introducing new products and services faster than marketers can make sense of them. Adap.tv is expected to debut a new tool on Thursday, designed to give buyers greater visibility into campaign results -- before running a single impression. Called the Campaign Optimizer, the predictive technology uses historical data to analyze billions of impressions. Once buyers set their desired performance goals, the system returns the real-time price and inventory availability needed to achieve them. It is set to hit the market next month. Toby Gabriner, president of Adap.tv, said the service takes the mystery out of planning online video ad campaigns. “Buyers need to see and understand the outcome of their campaigns in order to make intelligent decisions,” he said. According to internal data, the new product works. Indeed, in a recent study, Adap.tv analyzed campaigns over a three-month period and found that on average, optimized campaigns delivered 30% higher completion rates, and 21% lower cost-per-completed-view (CPCV) than those not using the Campaign Optimizer. But don’t take his word for it, said Gabriner. He is encouraging dubious buyers to adjust their performance goals for specific ads -- such as completion rate and level of distribution on preferred sites -- and see the impact on their campaigns. By 2016, domestic digital video ad spending will explode by over 250%, from $2 billion in 2011 to $5.4 billion, Forrester predicts. The potential sums explain why Adap.tv -- along with Tremor Video, YuMe, and other video ad networks -- are so concerned with buyers’ needs. On the back end, Adap.tv technology is automatically allocating inventory, which it believes will efficiently achieve buyers’ pre-set goals.
The new Cadillac XTS sedan represents a new chapter for the GM luxury division, as it ventures beyond its three-vehicle lineup of the CTS sedan, SRX crossover and Escalade SUV. The new car, which starts at around $44,500, resides between a mid-size and large sedan and replaces the discontinued DTS and STS duo. The 2013 XTS is also the new flagship for Cadillac, and serves as the up-market bookend of a portfolio that will soon include -- at the other end of the spectrum -- the ATX compact luxury car, which arrives later this year. That car, which be a competitor to cars like Audi A4 and BMW 3-Series, is also the gateway vehicle Cadillac is counting on to bring in brand-new buyers who will considerably lower the median age of the Cadillac owner base -- which is now about 62, per Cadillac Global Marketing Director Jim Vurpillat. "We about five years older than the average luxury [auto] buyer, but part of that is the youngest luxury segment is compact." Vurpillat tells Marketing Daily that deliberately targeting younger consumers doesn't work because it does nothing to change perception. "Rather than just going after younger buyers, it's really more important not to be perceived as 'old.' So, for instance, last year we advertised V-Series [Cadillac's high-performance sub-brand] significantly, because it's a perception-change agent," he says. The brand was in New York this week to show off the XTS and the new telematics platform, CUE (for customer user experience), of which XTS is the first beneficiary. Vurpillat points out that XTS advertising, which focuses on CUE and other wizardry, is technology-centric. CUE was designed to look and function like a smartphone or iPad, with basically no buttons at all. Rather, CUE uses gesture-sensitive technology and a tactile-response or "capacitive" faceplate where icons kick slightly when you touch them. Advertising focuses on technology: one spot asks viewers to count the number of buttons on the control console of their current car, and then compares that to the array in XTS, which technically doesn't have any buttons, since the capacitive-icon feature extends to the whole column, making the entire telematics platform look and function a bit like a big smartphone. Another ad for XTS touts the car's Safety Alert seat, which elicits a physical "nudge" either to the sides, back or front, depending on whether the vehicle is warning the driver that it is veering into a different lane, or if there is crossing traffic in front or behind. Vurpillat says everyone who takes delivery of XTS gets the iPad 3, in which is installed with an app that walks the new owner through CUE. "Each dealership also has a trained technology expert," he says. "Two to three months before cars hit dealerships [sales staff] are trained on CUE." Vurpillat adds that the division has also sent 25 connected-tech experts to Cadillac regions to assist dealers. Matt Highstrom, Cadillac interaction designer, tells Marketing Daily that CUE will be rolled out to Cadillac's other vehicles after XTS, starting with ATX and SRX. "In today's world people expect to be able to pick up a device and have it operate like the device they are accustomed to. An easy interface is fundamental," he says.
For those enterprises still receiving substantial cash from the traditional television business model there is no need to question the issue of bundling – the packaging of large numbers of TV networks into a cable or satellite subscription. Traditional television producers (national broadcast and cable networks, local stations/channels) and distributors (Comcast, Cablevision, Time Warner Cable, Direct TV, etc.) really have no desire to go to what they assume would be a less lucrative model -- one where consumers don’t pay for content they don’t watch, and advertisers don’t pay for ads that aren’t seen. Cable and satellite systems smartly offered bundled subscriptions to their customers from the get-go. With hundreds of cable networks to choose from, it would have been burdensome and technologically unwieldy in the 1980’s and 1990’s to sell pay-as-you-go, “a la carte” offerings. By bundling networks in different tiers (basic, sports, premium, pay cable) the cable/satellite operators could over-deliver content desired by viewers, and in turn promote sampling of networks the viewer might not know about. This built-in marketing engine increased the perceived value to consumers and justified rate increases every few years. The producers of content (cable networks, production studios) love this model, because they get paid for content by the distributors on a per-subscriber basis. So if a cable network was watched by only 10% of a cable system’s subscriber base each month, and ignored by 90%, they would still receive rights fees based on all subscribers. This gives content producers cost certainty with which to develop and produce programming. But in the emerging business model of T/V (Television/Video), it takes four to tango. Bundling works for 1) content producers and 2) distributors, but no longer serves today’s 3) media consumers and 4) advertisers. Consumers end up paying for networks they do not care about or watch. Bundling sustains the linear television approach where programming and its advertising are thrown up against the wall of network scheduling, and what sticks, sticks. Unfortunately for viewers and advertisers, what sticks and gains audience is a small proportion of the total universe of programming and ads paid for through subscriptions. Add the fact that cable and broadcast networks have continually expanded their commercial loads over the last 20 years, and we see how viewers now pay high tolls in terms of time and attention to get “free” content (which by the way is no longer free due to escalating subscription costs). Advertisers have tolerated this model over the years around the ideas that more supply would keep costs down, and because no one ever got fired for buying national or local television. Without commercial ratings, there is no reliable measure of how much channel switching and ad avoidance takes place in ever-expanding commercial breaks, allowing the media “emperors” to rarely be criticized by advertisers for their scanty “wardrobes." Yet linear ratings continue to decline. Consumers have long shown a desire for on-demand programming. The first “video on demand” platform -- video stores -- was neither digital nor electronic. Film and television viewers would pay $3-4 a night to select and rent a video they could view on their time schedule. The in-store experience of browsing for titles was for many their first “search engine” for media content. It was also the first time that the film and television industry could earn revenues after the scheduled run of a program. Advertising for the most part wasn’t part of the equation. Consumers were happy with more control over their viewing and the “long tail” was born. In the 1990s the internet arrived – seemingly out of nowhere – and soon search and on-demand information and entertainment delivery was available at levels never imagined, though only now is streaming and downloadable video truly viable due to increased bandwidth. Media consumers, particularly younger ones raised on the internet, love the instant gratification of clickable content. Now, consumer electronics manufacturers are building/marketing smart or “connected” TVs that along with ancillary gadgets like Roku are able to connect viewers to high-speed internet streaming. Content sellers like Amazon Plus, Netflix, Hulu and other OTT or “Over the Top” services, along with expected entries from Apple and Google, can bypass cable company subscription offerings a-la-carte and at lower total price points, with or without advertising. Meanwhile cable and satellite distributors have pressured their content suppliers to withhold programming from Netflix, Hulu and the like, and the U.S. Justice Department is investigating restraint of trade accusations against those distributors. As a counter-strategy, the OTT providers are beginning to develop original programming to compete. The infrastructure has shifted to the point where cord-cutting and movement to a VOD T/V world is possible. When consumer and advertiser demand catch up with what is possible, content providers and distributors will have no choice but to compete in a new, unbundled T/V world. I would offer that this is not the end of the world for media providers. An “a la carte” model would not necessarily be less lucrative for content producers and distributors. Adjustments would need to be made in the viewer payments and advertising costs for video-on-demand content delivery and verified interactive ad delivery respectively in order to sustain the quality content that consumers and advertisers demand. Since there would be greater value to both viewer and advertiser for actual delivery of the elements they want most, those cost increases would be justified and willingly paid. The win/win/win/win is that consumers/advertisers will pay higher per-consumption costs and benefit from a lower total aggregate spend, while producers/distributors will receive higher per-consumption payments. Lucrative revenues will be there for providers, tied to real media consumption rather than the current linear system where consumers and advertisers pay for programs and ads that are never seen.
After watching "Clean Break," a Schick-backed series in which a pair of outdoor adventurists embark on outdoor adventures, I'm supposed to feel something, man. I'm supposed to start questioning authority, embrace the rituals of bonding with my peeps and chatting up surf rats, and ask my travel agent about bungee tours of the Serengeti. Then I'm supposed to affirm my newly forged emotional bond with Schick, the brand that raised the blinds on my sad stationary existence, by ditching the Gillette razor that I've used for years. Instead, I'm making a list of every person who I may have aggravated, embarrassed or otherwise offended during my 20s, and spending the next few weeks in full-on atonement mode. Why? Because Schick has told me, in essence, that 20-something guys are loud, adventure-starved louts, quick with a "whooo!" but slow to process anything other than surface-deep impulses (e.g., "surfboard is shiny"). Since Schick believes that the fearless-bro-ism of "Clean Break" is what makes 20-somethings tick - that this audience is wowed by suspiciously approachable bikini babes, water stunts poached from a 1997 Mountain Dew commercial and fist-bumps executed with the passion of two dads at a grade-school grammar rodeo - then gosh, that entire decade of life passed for me without a glimmer of self-awareness, and I ought to apologize for my sins against gracious living. "Clean Break" is best described as a water-sport travelogue, one that sends two totally-up-for-anything-dude dudes, Brady and Nate, on a series of rad-to-the-max-extreme outings. They cliff-dive, surf, kayak and dive-shipwrecks (that's the official lingo), somehow still managing to find time to ogle girlie-girls and sculpt their stunning abs. Along the way, they interact with individuals described as "Joel, Wake Wild Man" (kind of the Rowdy Roddy Piper of wakeboarding) and "The Indian Carver" (an old Canadian Indian who carves stuff). The two protagonists - as a tribute to the great Jimmy Serrano, I'll refer to them as "Moron Number One" and "Moron Number Two" from this point onward - do everything with gusto. They just can't help themselves, y'all. Take the second episode's surfing expedition, set to the strains of generic alt-rock by bands with names like Cassettes Won't Listen. Prior to it, the Morons don coconut-shell bras. During it, they totally give each other the business ("if you don't get up today in surfing, you gotta wear the floaties" - oh, it's SO on). After it, they kick back with some drinks - in opaque cups, of course, because god forbid brand-fueled aqua-tomfoolery should be tarred by association with evil alcohol juice. The footage is shot professionally enough (read: lots of x-treeeeeem close-ups and slo-mo shots of killer waves sloshing into the perfectly positioned hi-def camera) and the pacing never lags. But if any of this sounds remotely authentic or genuinely aspirational, I've got a bunch of Groupons for water park admission that you can have for, like, eight bucks. Meanwhile, certain sequences in "Clean Break" appear to be staged, or maybe engineered during lulls in the action to enhance the anything-goes vibe. While watching "the expert" Ekolu oar-surf, Moron Number Two pops in to utter an "aww, damn!" with all the enthusiasm of a 12-year-old who happens upon a Joyce Carol Oates novel. Similarly, the build-up to yet another ocean expedition features the following expository exchange between Morons One and Two: "So, this is like the shipwreck capital of the world?" "Yeah, man, there's like hundreds of shipwrecks around these islands." While I can't argue with the economy of the information-delivery here, it sounds flat and scripted amid all the bro-speak. "Clean Break" fares even worse as a branding vehicle. While a recent hug-job in The New York Times gave Schick folk and adjunct-professor types the opportunity to enthuse about how the series personifies the brand, surely I won't be the only one who labors to connect the dots between "Schick razor with water-themed name" and "morons playing in the ocean." In the NYT story, the Schick marketing guy laments the absence of Schick signage and rockin' shaving sequences. He should've stuck to his guns, as the pre- and post-episode brand mentions make Schick feel like a tacked-on-after-the-fact advertiser, rather than the guys picking up the tab for the entire endeavor. I couldn't have been more of an idiot during my 20s. I belched like nobody was listening, failed to send a single thank-you note and declined to invest emotionally or intellectually in any activity except fantasy sports. But even in my most insecure post-adolescent moment, I would have seen "Clean Break" for what it is: the 4,200,275th recorded attempt by a marketer in the throes of youthlust to sell the young-man demographic on image rather than substance. The irony? In this case, all Schick needs to do is talk about the damn Hydro-whatever thingie. "The razor that hydrates your skin as you shave" - hey, that sounds like something I could get behind. But how does it work? Will it render my gnarled chin all dewy and pert? Why, pray tell, won't somebody stop extreme-sandcastling for a minute and tell me about this magical, magnificent, existence-altering product? Oh well. Off I go to Diapers.com to order another 72-pack of Fusion ProGlide blades.
Well, not exactly, but Procter & Gamble is wrapping its entire content marketing strategy surrounding its sponsorship of the Olympic Games, but tweaking its endorsement reference from Olympic athletes, to their moms. It’s part of a long-term repositioning of P&G’s corporate sponsorship of the Olympic Games, says Global Marketing & Brand Building Officer Marc Pritchard during his afternoon presentation at the Cannes Festival of Creativity. Pritchard showed one version of the branded content featuring U.S. Olympic hurdler hopeful Lolo Jones and her mom Lori Jones. The video basically shows the backstory of the struggles her mom had raising her, as well as Lolo’s own personal set-backs on the road to the Olympic Games. The videos end with the same tag line P&G is using in its Olympic ads: “P&G, proud sponsor of Olympic moms.” Pritchard said the packaged goods giant is distributing similar brand content featuring local Olympic athletes and their moms in 69 countries leading up to and surrounding the games.