Many people may use big-name video service Netflix, but one study says other streaming video companies are getting higher marks.ConsumerReports.org says 81% of its subscribers who used a streaming service in a recent month tapped Netflix, but more under-the-radar services, such as Vudu, Apple iTunes, and Amazon Instant Video, all scored higher for overall satisfaction in Consumer Reports' first comprehensive ratings of video services.Because of a better selection of titles available, pay-per-view streaming services, such as Amazon Instant Video, iTunes and Vudu received high marks from more than 60% of users.It wasn't just Netflix, ConsumerReports says this is a common problem with other all-you-can-watch streaming services, that includes Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus.Right now, ConsumerReports says 52% of its 15,277 subscribers used a streaming service compared with 47% who saw a movie at a theater. It says 43% rented a DVD or Blu-ray disc, and 32% used their cable provider's video-on-demand service.While its streaming video service isn't that well regarded, Netflix's disc-by-mail service and independent video stores were judged to have a more satisfying selection of titles, including current ones, than even the best streaming services."Our survey revealed that a healthy selection of titles is one of the biggest factors in overall satisfaction with video services, which is why disc rental services and pay-per-view streaming services scored the highest in our Ratings," stated Jim Willcox, senior electronics editor, Consumer Reports.
Audi has been teasing its forthcoming A3 e-tron plug-in gas/electric car with images in its brand campaign, and talking about it outright to technorati at thought-leadership conferences like the TED2012 where Audi had "Social Space" kiosks for attendees to explore Audi powertrain technology. Now the automaker is launching a video documentary series, "Electric Life," focusing on a pure-electric variant of the A3 e-tron as well as the "e-Pilots" who are testing the vehicles in real-world situations. The e-Pilots are a cadre of Audi employees who get to use the vehicle in their day-to-day lives. The company has dispensed 17 of the prototype vehicles to Audi folks across the country as part of the program. The first in the video series shows one of the subjects having a charging station installed in her home. By testing the car in different markets, Audi hopes to attain a profile of the effect of climate conditions, driving patterns and energy performance and use insight gained in the final development of future EV technology applications. Although it is starting with plug-in hybrid under the hood, Audi is mulling full battery-electric (BEV), and extended-range electric (EREV) versions. The Audi A3 e-tron in the pilot program has a fully electric powertrain with a 26kw lithium-ion battery. Jeff Curry, director of e-mobility and sustainability strategy at Audi -- who spoke to Marketing Daily from the Plug-In Conference and Expo in San Antonio, Texas -- says the electric car has piqued the interested of Audi owners, and that the videos "Are meant for a broad audience. We are at an early stage of e-tron brand establishment in the U.S. so it's really an early look at how we are putting these on American roads." He says the goal of the video series is also to generate conversation. "We are very strong in both traditional and social media, and we have a huge social fan base. We give Audi fans interesting stories, content and insights about what we are bringing and we are looking for feedback on products like e-tron, so social media becomes a powerful medium for us." The company will sell a plug-in hybrid version first, per Curry. He says the car will be in U.S. showrooms in 2014, so right now Audi is in fine-tuning mode. Curry says the pilot program is thus a bi-modal program: first to test and second to tout. The ideal markets for the A3 e-tron are also strong Audi markets, Curry says, adding that progressive, urban markets are where Audi sells a majority of vehicles and also where there is the strongest infrastructure for charging and consumer predilection for electric cars. "We are now seeing broad interest in major metro areas across the country -- and that suits us perfectly because of where our customers are distributed, because of their aggressive attitude and mindset. Also, at the time we are launching there is a growing interest, generally, in premium electric vehicles."
In the new mobile age, power is a hot commodity. In a new marketing campaign showcasing its “24-hour” battery solution, Duracell Powermat shows off how a man can keep his phone fully charged throughout the day (with a bit of celebrity mixed in). “Smartphones, and the capabilities they have, have made us incredibly powerful. [They] have revolutionized how we live and put a lot of technology in the palm of our hands,” says Harry Woods, partner and creative director at Woods Witt Dealy & Sons, the agency behind the campaign. “But that’s sort of diametrically opposed to the powerlessness that comes when the battery dies three or four hours into the day.” The new campaign uses the tagline “Never be powerless,” and features brand spokesman Jay-Z (an investor in the company, which is a joint-venture set up between Procter & Gamble and Powermat), as a representative of power, says Woods. “In every way possible, he’s one of the more powerful people we could think of, and decided he was a good icon to represent the brand,” Woods tells Marketing Daily. “He’s there to be an advocate to the idea that you don’t have to take powerless for an answer.” An online video released this week begins following a young man from the beginning of his day, when he takes his smartphone and backup battery charger off a Duracell Powermat charging station. As the commercial takes him through his day, the young man is tracked with a green battery indicator, showing his power levels remaining in the upper 90%. (Other people he encounters are also represented by battery power levels, many of them red and in the lower percentages.) The video shows the young man going to work, to a coffee house to meet with friends, to a sports bar, and finally to a nightclub with friends -– all with his battery mostly fully charged. After he places the phone on a charging pad in the club (next to another, identical phone), the phone begins to ring. He goes to answer it, noticing the caller is only identified as “B,” when a hand reaches out asking for the phone. That hand belongs to music mogul and rapper Jay-Z (one presumes the caller is his spouse, Beyonce). The young man, abashed, hands it over. “Never be powerless,” states Jay-Z at the end of the video. The video is already available for viewing on YouTube and is being shared via social network media and public relations efforts, Woods says. Out-of-home executions featuring Jay-Z and the “Never be powerless” tag will be running in New York this summer. The campaign will likely expand to other national markets this fall, although Woods would not provide any other details.
MillerCoors’ Blue Moon Brewing Co. has launched its first branded Web series, hosted on the brand’s Facebook page. Created by Digital Broadcasting Group (DBG), “The Local Scene” series was shot on location at three popular live entertainment/restaurant venues: the AOA Bar & Grill in Manhattan, The Rock Shop in Brooklyn, and Maxwell’s in Hoboken, N.J. Some segments bring viewers behind the scenes with three indie bands – San Antonio’s Hacienda, Montreal’s Islands and Louisville, Ky.’s A Lion Named Roar – during the hours leading up to their performances. In other segments, host Ryan McDonough talks with the venues’ chefs about signature recipes that pair well with Blue Moon. The series, which will also be available on select sites within DBG’s digital distribution network, was designed to bring Blue Moon’s “Artfully Crafted” tagline and “sensory merchandising techniques” (e.g., the signature slice of orange served with glasses of Blue Moon) to life in the online video platform, noted Brad Johnson, brand manager of Tenth & Blake Beer Company, MillerCoors’ craft and import division.
Sharpie knows it has a following of enthusiasts who think of it as more than a mere marker. In recent years, the brand has capitalized on its following to launch marketing programs that celebrate a creativity among its fans, such as last year’s takeover of YouTube’s home page with an ad full of user-generated art. And this year is no different. For 2012, the brand is encouraging followers to use their Sharpie markers to create artwork that will go into a music video featured as a commercial during the MTV Video Music Awards in September. For two weeks (until Aug. 6), fans will be encouraged to submit artwork designed with Sharpie markers via the brand’s Facebook page or Web site. That artwork will eventually be worked into a music video for California Wives, a Chicago-based indie-pop band that will be making its video debut with the ad. “What we’re really about is putting fans at the center of our story,” Ryan Rouse, global director of marketing for Sharpie, tells Marketing Daily. “It’s not about ambushing an audience with an ad; it’s about taking the passion within our community and amplifying that.” After the ad’s television debut, the brand is encouraging people to create their own cut of a music video featuring their own Sharpie artwork to share with friends and others. “We want to inspire self-expression.” Rouse says. “We’re viewing [the customizable video] as an opportunity for fans to express themselves with what they’ve started with Sharpie, and it will be shared with links back to Sharpie and Facebook, encouraging others to create their own.” In the run-up to the video’s debut, Sharpie will showcase the work of two fans -- Emmy Star Brown and Enrico Miguel Thomas -- in advertising, social media and public relations efforts. Television ads (and longer-form videos available online), from Draftfcb Chicago showcase the artists’ work using Sharpie products on salvaged glass (Brown) and maps (Thomas). “Our hope is that their stories of inspiration inspire all of us to create our own art,” Rouse says. “The thought process is to tell the story of members of our community that are starting something amazing and inspirational, and that will inspire people to use the product."
In an effort to accelerate his vision of a “reactive advertising” marketplace in which ads become a form of entertainment content that consumers proactively engage with, think about and then compete to win prizes based on how well they remember it, serial entrepreneur Frank Maggio is putting his patents for it on the block today. The portfolio, which includes one U.S. patent, two foreign patents, and various applications covering reactive advertising, will be sold in a “sealed bid” auction in San Francisco today by patent broker ICAP. As part of the offering, Maggio will retain a non-exclusive license on the portfolio, which covers reactive advertising applications across a dozen media, including TV, online, mobile, cinema and even print. He will also retain an exclusive license on one key application, the development of a national TV and online game show where commercials are the primary form of content, and viewers at home will compete to win millions of dollars in prizes based on how well they watch them. Maggio, who has gotten Madison Avenue’s attention several times -- first when as a former Procter & Gamble executive he figured out a way to game a sweepstakes by rival Beatrice that personally netted him millions of dollars in prize money that he parlayed to become a multimillionaire investor, and a second time when he invested in the development of now defunct Nielsen TV ratings rival erinMedia -- is hoping to do it again by enticing some big multimedia company to acquire and develop the reactive advertising marketplace. After years of development and testing that showed promising results, Maggio said he simply doesn’t have the resources and clout to develop a marketplace around the reactive advertising marketplace following his loss of millions of dollars in Florida’s Gold Coast real estate market crash, where he had much of his personal fortune tied up. Maggio did receive an undisclosed financial settlement from Nielsen as part of the resolution of a federal antitrust suit he filed against the TV ratings giant, and he sold off erinMedia’s technology patents in a similar sealed auction earlier this year for an undisclosed amount. He said the buyer of the erinMedia patents will remain undisclosed until the buyer makes it public, but he added that it would ultimately “raise eyebrows” in the industry when it does become known. Meanwhile, his focus is on accelerating the reactive advertising marketplace, and developing his advertising-based game show as part of what he hopes will be an industry shift around the concept. “When I left P&G 25 years ago, I knew the solution to the advertising problem was to find a way of getting people to pay attention to ads and then measuring how well they paid attention,” he told MediaDailyNews on the eve of the patent auction -- adding that to do that, you also had to educate consumers that the ads they were watching had a reactive component to them. He believes a nationally televised game show is just the way to do that, but it also requires incessant promotion and reinforcement of the concept, which he says he lacked the resources to do. In tests he conducted of his so-called ReacTV two-hour game show, he says the average view time was one hour and four minutes daily, and that 97% of ads were “watched to completion.” “Reactive ads work better and there is a stunning halo effect for the advertiser who uses it because it’s a rewarding technology,” Maggio asserts, adding that the key is “consumer education” -- and that a game show that effectively turns home viewers into “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire” contestants, competing for millions of dollars of prize money based on how well they recalled the ads, is just the way to do that. “My vision is that nobody is skipping the ads, because the ads are content,” he says.
What do you do while watching video? This new analysis from USA TouchPoints suggests that whichever platform you watch video on, there’s a good chance you’ll be eating, talking with friends and family or just relaxing.
This shouldn't have to be said, by me or by somebody who actually has some clue what he's talking about, but casting funny people in your video does not, as if by sprinkling a magical comic elixir, make your video funny. Case in point: "Growing Up and Getting Out," the "funny" series/sweepstakes rolled out by KFC and Comedy Central to promote the chain's new McNuggety foodstuffs. The series features the great Dave Koechner, playing a variation on his clueless, blustery oaf from Anchorman and pretty much every movie, TV show and web series ever made. Hell, his appearance here doesn't even represent the guy's first dip in the grubhouse-chain branded-video pool. Months ago, he projected the same blithe inappropriateness in "Always Open," a branded series for Denny's. In "Always Open," however, the creators had the good sense to let Koechner riff with abandon - which, if nothing else, gave us one of the more authentic Yeti impressions committed to semi-celluloid. In "Growing Up and Getting Out," Koechner gets shoehorned into the role of Weird Dad In Weird Marriage (to Weird Mom, played by equally reliable funnyperson Mo Collins), whose weirdness batters and bemuses his straight-laced son. KFC and Comedy Central try to give "Growing Up and Getting Out" a topical sheen, citing a statistic at the start of the series about college grads moving back in with their parents. Along those lines, they invite those grads to share their living-at-home tales - because, you know, every unemployed, overeducated 20-something is totally eager to trumpet the ego-deflating, true-adulthood-postponing hilarity of his plight. There's a comic backdrop for you. (Apropos of nothing, here's what I might have shared when I was relegated to living at home during my post-schooling sit-about: "My mom and dad are loving and supportive. There are always clean towels in the bathroom. I crave death's icy embrace.") Anyway, son Michael returns home from school with pal Rob in tow, only to find that Weird Dad has converted his old bedroom into a "thinking room." Sister Sarah yips about her perfect SAT scores, Weird Parents recall Michael's fixations on rubber sheets and Paula Abdul, and Rob munches on an omnipresent box of KFC Bites. It doesn't sound all that funny, and it plays less funny than it sounds. Part of the problem is that "Growing Up and Getting Out" is proudly, stridently meta. The characters note the presence of the smarmy narrator/host, while Rob wink-winks his way through his prop Bites ("Does anyone want a bite? They're really good"). That's a real problem, and it's compounded by KFC's seeming inability to trust the series to work promotional magic on its own, as witnessed by the turbo-annoying tactic of affixing a traditional KFC Bites commercial to the start of each ep. I don't know if there's an easy solution here, as clearly it's not economically feasible to funny-test series of this ilk on focus groups. Perhaps the folks who produce them should refrain from wearing their viral aspirations on their sleeves, so to speak, and ratchet down the heavens-this-is-chucklesome puffery a few notches? There's something to be said for allowing your viewers some small sense of discovery, rather than instructing them that copious volumes of whimsy will soon be administered. Here's episode one. Here's episode two. Whoever has the strength of spirit to make it through numbers three through five, shut out the lights when you're done.
We all agree that the RFP process is, to put it bluntly, in disarray. Chances are that if you buy anyone in ad sales or media planning an adult beverage and ask them about the RFP process, you will be in for an interesting, unfiltered conversation. The RFP fire drill has become the industry norm, if not painful status quo, one that we all hope will be simplified as agencies reduce the number of approved media suppliers. Similarly, the approved media suppliers continue to strive to stay ahead of the RFP process, attempting to put their best foot forward well in advance of the fire drill. It’s a frequent discussion topic, but those conversations don’t seem to get us anywhere. What we need -- both buyers and sellers -- is to think about this in terms of mindset and industry citizenship. Cutting Through The Gripe While planners and buyers are undoubtedly tired of hearing sellers gripe about the process, most of that could be resolved through creating a more open forum for questions and comments. Some planning and buying teams are already doing this with sets of preferred vendors, offering the opportunity for questions because, in many instances, vendors have similar inquiries. However, given the current lack of communication that occurs throughout the typical process, the receipt of any feedback, whether positive or negative, is considered a “win” in today’s RFP paradigm. The main reason sellers grit their teeth and smile at the same time at the mention of the letters “RFP” is that all the sweat and man hours that go into a response either lead to a “send us your specs” or a simple “sorry.” Nowadays, submitting an RFP can feel like a game of darts, where bullseyes are few and far between. The collaborative spirit that is crucial for advancing brand advertising goals is noticeably absent from the RFP process, which is clearly detrimental to all involved. Rather than complain about how no one gets a fair shake, let’s, for starters, consider adjusting two clear areas: the buy-side evaluation process and the sell-side expectations. Cutting through the gripe comes down to open dialogue, collaborative approaches and clear communication on expectations from both sides. How Can We Cool Our Jets? Adopting a civil and collaborative interaction during the RFP process requires an understanding of each other’s very real limitations. On the planner and buyer side, there is simply no way to adequately communicate a client’s broader marketing strategy, or even corporate objectives, in a three-page client brief. On the seller side, we should not approach every campaign with the goal of solving world hunger. Let’s relax and keep perspective. This is media -- we’re not saving lives! Far too often sellers scramble to create big ideas because they think that will win the pitch, when more often than not, the truly big ideas have already received their commitments. Hence, if you’re getting an RFP, it’s likely because you’re an incremental add-on to the broader campaign objectives. While the planning and buying teams can be clearer on key performance indicators such as cheap reach, brand building, Facebook Likes, traffic driving, or otherwise, sellers can stop sending in the same responses regardless of what the campaign objectives are. It is more than acceptable to bow out of an RFP when you truly know you’re not a fit, rather than endeavoring to sign yourself and your company up for deliverables that are not central to your business model or competencies. A Rational Pace Minimizes Pain Another complicated part of the RFP process is the sense of dread that comes from working around the clock on an offering that will likely be either rejected or disregarded. A RFP is usually required immediately, even when submitting for media opportunities in T2013 and beyond. Sellers can also do themselves a favor by prioritizing for both themselves and their team. Should you pitch something that was due yesterday? Probably not. RFPs that were issued nine months ago with deadlines just a few days away are, in all likelihood, a waste of your time, and it is likely that you only received the request because you begged. Weigh the net benefit of winning the pitch against all the work your team will pour into it on a short deadline, and decide whether you really want to participate. While these are simply a few suggestions to improve the RFP process across the industry, we are not going to fix this overnight. However, we can improve matters by simply thinking and acting in a better, more productive manner. We all recognize that although the RFP process is far from perfect, with a little extra work on both sides of the aisle, we can build a collaborative and subsequently more seamless digital advertising marketplace.