Building out its video offering, AOL on Thursday announced a large distribution deal with Discovery Communications. Per the partnership, AOL’s On Network will now feature mostly short-form video from Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Investigation Discovery, Science Channel and Military Channel. “We've long been advocates of the idea that content providers need to distribute their offerings to multiple platforms in order to maximize exposure and ROI,” said Ran Harnevo, SVP of The AOL On Network. Among other new programming, viewers can expect Discovery Channel’s MythBusters, its annual Shark Week, TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress and Animal Planet’s River Monsters. Along with On Network’s 14 channels, the new content will be shared across the AOL On video hub, AOL’s owned and operated properties, and publisher partners. In addition, The AOL On Network and Discovery will offer content from Discovery and Revision3’s recently launched online video series, DNews. Launched last April, the AOL On Network brought the company's entire video cache under one umbrella. It currently boasts a total audience of more than 68 million unique visitors per month. The On Network also presently has a library of about 470,000 videos, according to AOL. AOL recently reported that third-quarter ad revenue increased 7% to $340 million, while overall revenue was flat at $531.7 million. Year-over-year, AOL said its total online audience grew by 4% in the third quarter of 2012.
Darth Vader (probably) won't be in the Super Bowl this time around, but Volkswagen is bringing back a creative theme, or a least the feeling, from a 2012 ad, "Smiles." The salubrious sentiment from that fourth-quarter ad last year will come back in the second quarter of the Super Bowl this year. Actually, it’s online now in teaser form. “Sunny Side,” via Deutsch, L.A., reverses a tactic that a couple of automakers have used in the past: taking an act or artist who made it big on YouTube and putting them in an ad. Volkswagen, by contrast, is featuring actual clips from YouTube videos that are wildly popular simply because its "stars" -- a politician, a baseball manager, a woman who suffers from a nearly Harlequin-romantic love of cats -- erupt in rage, tears, and violent frustration. Think of the Winnebago guy, who, famously, melted down during a bolloxed attempt to make a promotional video. That clip, by the way, is in the spot. But then, those real people from the viral videos (not the Winnebago guy) show up in the second half of the spot, happy and dancing across a grassy field with mega-star Jimmy Cliff leading the way, playing pied piper with a reggae rendition of the Partridge Family hit, "C'mon Get Happy." Kevin Mayer, VP marketing at the Herndon, Va.-based Volkswagen of American, tells Marketing Daily that, like last year's "Smiles" ad, which came out during the caustic presidential campaign, the new ad is partly intended to be a tonic for the present rage-driven social mosaic of acts too awful to recount here. "Because of the success of 'Smiles,' it seemed like the natural thing to do this." Mayer points out that the teaser isn't a version of the actual creative for the Super Bowl as much as a hint at the direction those ads will take. As the teaser comes to a close, others join the crowd: a weatherman with a tattered umbrella torn to shreds by a hurricane, a little girl who threw a temper tantrum in a grocery store, for example. "We do have a vehicle in the ad, but it's really a brand message. We didn't want to do a Super Bowl ad for Volkswagen, but a Volkswagen commercial for the Super Bowl. We wanted to make sure that whatever we said connected to customers and served as an umbrella for the brand." Mayer says the campaign will be supported by a big digital effort, including a YouTube takeover, and free downloads (available now) on Volkswagen's social media sites and home page.
One of the most vexing challenges facing marketers today is commercial wear-out. It’s the negative effect of having a video ad or spot appear on TV or online for too long, or just playing it so often and in so many places that it not only stops selling the product or service, but also starts to annoy the viewer. The worst part about commercial wear-out is that it usually happens to some rgreat creative executions. A marketer gets a favorable response from a new commercial; sales start to move; and customer kudos and likes start to pour in. That’s when the trouble starts. The brand pumps up the volume, the spot’s rotation gets increased, and the channel distribution grows, as well. The next thing you know, sales stop growing; customers send emails of annoyance; and all those great indicators turn negative. To illustrate what can happen, let’s take the case of two competing Insurance companies. For our purposes, let’s call one Insurance Company SF and the other, Insurance Company P. Company SF spent a ton of money to get a well-known and polished football MVP to do a classroom careers day spot. The commercial was charming, with some great dialogue. (My favorite line was “that’s not a job”). The spot appears everywhere, on every sports channel, multiple times per week, and on every playoff game, again sometimes twice in the same game. It gets so bad that Company SF has to go into uts out-take footage to splice together two other “versions” of the same spot, although the similarity is so striking you would hardly notice that it’s a different commercial. Now let’s take a look at Company P, who has been using a well-traveled female actress / spokesperson, in her plain white uniform. Company P has produced a ton of different videos, promoting the brand and also promoting all of the different insurance coverages provided by Company P. The spots range from a savings message, to a spoof on a dramatic love scene in the pouring rain, to a fast-paced moment in an Asian food cart assembling orders. Because of the extensive number of videos available and effectively rotated, the brand comes across as interesting, entertaining, and inviting even though the media levels for the overall Company P campaign are probably quite similar ti Company SF. Many companies have their own wear-out measures. At a previous company of mine, once a commercial hit 600-800 TRPs (Target Rating Point – GRP method) on TV, it was time to pull it down. In general, TV commercials begin to show signs of wear out at about three times the TRP level of the awareness plateau for a particular commercial. For example, if a spot starts to plateau at 400 TRPs, it will begin to show signs of diminishing impact at about 1,200 TRPs. Clearly, one important option is to have the discipline not to over-air or over-distribute a spot, no matter how great it might be. The second working solution is having more videos in-the-can for each campaign. The challenge on this front is to do it affordably. In previous columns, I shared three ways of increasing the number of spots for your campaigns: You can do batch shooting, where you plan on doing multiple spots in a single shooting session, even if it stretches out over a couple of days. As another option, you can crowdsource your video. Crowdsourcing can generate dozens of great videos to utilize, all written to your creative brief. Or, you can bring production in-house, allowing for your own editing and production capabilities to generate more videos for more channels. Whichever direction you choose, be sure to remain cognizant of the wear-out factor on video usage. After all, annoyed customers do not contribute to a positive ROI!
Every day, I spend at least a few minutes browsing through MarketingCharts.com, and reading the latest stats about anything and everything Internet-related, particularly when it comes to online video. In most of the 10 books I’ve written, I’ve included some sort of graph built from studies that other people have done, and I’ve relied on official, published reports to guide my thinking and beliefs about everything from marketing to online video. At some point, though, it dawned on me that I have eyes, ears and the ability to talk to people. And while by no means scientific, I can get an understanding of what the world is like on my own. So I started keeping a notebook of casual observations and interviews with people about their video-watching habits. It started on my bus into work and back home again. I began by walking slowly up and down the aisles during each trip (eventually, the odd looks finally stopped, and people just thought I was harmlessly insane). On average, each bus held about 40 people -- 15 would be sleeping, four would be talking to each other, and the other 21 would be focused on their phone (some would be on a tablet, but not very many). Of those using a mobile device, usually around five would be watching a video -- about 25% of everyone who was using a mobile device, and 12.5% of the population of the bus. I also began to observe people during lunch, in a variety of places. Surprisingly, I didn’t catch anyone watching online videos on their mobile devices if they were there with other people. (Rudely checking their e-mail while in the middle of a conversation, yes, but not watching videos.) Pretty much everyone (I’d say a full 90%) eating by themselves, however, were engaged with their mobile devices, with about four out of every 10 watching an online video. This surprised me -- I thought the number would be lower than that. Again, it’s about as unscientific as it gets, but these were pretty healthy numbers. Over the months (I'd started doing this in September), I found other places -- trains, parks, anywhere I saw people with a mobile device and could subtly figure out what they were doing with it -- and I kept diligent notes on their habits. But it wasn’t long before simply observing wasn’t enough. Since New York City is actually a friendlier place than most people give it credit for, I started talking to people to find out more about their online viewing habits, and once again, found myself a little surprised by what I learned. Very few of the people I spoke to were watching for a particular reason. Some watched to catch up on a show they followed and for some reason missed (about 15%), but most were watching videos at random, in tune with what they were doing timing-wise. Commuters, for example, were more likely to watch longer-form videos that lasted about as long as their commutes -- they wanted to relax, not watch one video after another. People at lunch, on the other hand, were far more likely to watch one- or two-minute videos that they could view (I guess) between bites, and not have to think too much about. Apparently dining is more conducive to browsing around, for some reason. But regardless of where or what they were watching, one aspect seemed to unite practically every viewer I talked to. With the exception of those watching an episode of a show they had missed, everyone else watched online video for one specific reason: to kill time. Frankly, they were bored, and to a certain extent, lazy. As one person put it, “I watch because it’s too much work to read.” None that I spoke to had any interest in investing their time in story-driven, episodic show that they had never heard of. Few (less than 3%) planned on actually doing anything with educational or how-to content that they were watching -- but still they enjoyed watching it (probably not too dissimilar from people who watch these types of shows on TV). Online news, and particularly Hollywood gossip shows, were also popular, even among men, who weren’t nearly as reluctant to admit this as I would have expected. Perhaps for fear of laughing out loud on an otherwise quiet bus, viewers tended to watch more serious programming when in public. They preferred comedy at the office, when they were behind closed doors, and while watching at home after work, when they were more apt to watch short, funny clips produced by amateur videographers. Practically everyone I spoke with seemed to agree that while they enjoyed watching online video, and very much expected to continue watching more of it, it wasn’t a practive they relied on. If original, Web-based content was taken away from them completely, they’d go on without missing a beat. That wasn’t the case, however, when it came to their favorite TV shows -- more people expressed disappointment at the idea of no longer being able to watch their TV shows online. So what did I learn from my informal research? People want to watch online video, but they don’t need to. It’s an interest, but, unlike TV, not a compulsion. It’s a solo activity, and thus it’s unlikely for a rabid audience to form around any one show or online series. It’s a time-filler, but that’s not a bad thing. Online video, still now in its earliest stages, is becoming the go-to source to fill the time between other activities. From a marketing standpoint, that’s a lot of time and a lot of access. And what now may be an “I can quit anytime I want to” kind of deal, might quickly become more addictive than people expect.
Okay: that Coca-Cola video. I was out last week attending to matters of important personal business and, as a result, missed most of the tsk-tsking and are-they-serious? giggles in its wake. To recap: the beverage giant, fearing that it's about to absorb a few love taps from the regulatory mallet, released "Coming Together," a clip proclaiming that it is an ally in the fight against obesity, diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis, pancreatitis, kidney failure, cavities, sugar tongue and every other health scourge to which overconsumption of its 650 beverages may or may not contribute. Check that - Coca-Cola isn't just an ally; it's the ally, the United States to the FDA's France. But my goal here isn't to pick apart "Coming Together." No, I'm inserting myself into the debate as a concerned friend - you know me, a total softie for struggling multinational monoliths that are dealing with some heavy stuff, man. In that spirit, I offer up a six-pack (synergy!) of ideas for Coca-Cola's next videophonic attempt to charm the masses. *** Concept #1: "Simpler times, simpler choices": We open on a moonlit drive-in, where pretty Cindy sips ever-chastely from her bottle of Coca-Cola BlK as her date for the evening, gentle Bobby, eyes her with only the most honorable of intentions. We then cut to scenes of wholesome-looking teens clad in Annette Funicello-grade beach togs doing typical teen stuff - hula-hooping, cheering on the football team, putting up decorations for the big dance - with delightfully frosty Coca-Cola beverages in hand. Then comes the kicker: "Coca-Cola, because today is yesterday's tomorrow." Feasibility: Classic Americana no longer plays well in the heartland - thanks a lot, crystal meth. Also, the #cleanfun hashtag might already have been co-opted by the ironists at Barky Beaver Mulch & Soil Mix. Concept #2: "NO-BAMA!": A few months back, 47 percent of the population spoke with the power and potency of a thousand electric tubas. Its collective voice could not have been heard any more clearly: Big government is for losers. In the wake of this groundswell, Coca-Cola would be foolish not to drive its refrigerated syrup tanker through the populist gate (that is, the one hand-operated by non-union proles). I'm thinking Clint Eastwood for the end-of-clip narration: "The government has come for your guns and now your refreshing happydrinks. What's next, your cuticle scissors? Drink Coca-Cola beverages - because freedom tastes like hydrogenized fructose." Feasibility: During Presidential primary season, absolutely. Tuck this one away for 2016. Concept #3: "Look in the mirror, Tubby": The camera opens on Coca-Cola chairman and CEO Muhtar Kent. He's dimly lit and his mouth is creased in an annoyed smirk. Clearly he would rather be anywhere than here. After a bemused sigh and a quick "is this on?" aside to the camera operator, he launches into the following spiel: "I can't believe I have to come out and announce this, but soda and soda-ish drinks cannot be found on any creditable food pyramid. They are not a part of any sane diet. You people have read the labels, right? They're on the bottle for a reason. I could rhapsodize about how the health of our customers is as important to us as our wonderful network of distributors, but really: Coca-Cola believes in personal responsibility. It's not our problem if you can't dig deep into your reserve of self-discipline and lay off our products. We'll change only if you force our hand; the only thing that will motivate us to manufacture healthier beverages is if y'all stop buying our growth-stunting sugarades. Anyway, pay attention to the nutritional character of everything you cram down your food hole, or don't. It's all the same to us." Feasibility: Do libertarians drink fizzy drinks? Focus group, assemble! Concept #4: "Controversy? What controversy?": It's a beautiful day and the sun is shining and everybody is playing ball on the lawn and babies are walking their first steps and dogs are barking playfully and there are sandwiches and things like divorce and melanoma and Styrofoam totally don't exist and la la la drink Coca-Cola beverages because hey why not? Feasibility: Denial remains our elite default coping mechanism. Concept #5: "One Direction drinks Coca-Cola. Ergo, so should you.": Hand each of the lads a different Coca-Cola beverage. Instruct them to smile and display the rakish wit that was recently installed at self-marketing reeducation camp. Watch as the average weight of an American she-tween soars to a cool 135 pounds. Feasibility: One Direction has already allied itself with the enemy, plus you'd have to auto-tune the satisfied post-chug "aaaaah!" That sounds expensive. Concept #6: "No, you didn't hear us last time. We are part of the solution, not part of the problem.": "Coming Together" attracted a whole lot of attention - and as we've learned over and over again, all publicity is good publicity, except when there's dogfighting. This time around, there should be more nutritionally specious claims, like "a meal of turbo nachos and Sprite Zero has zero calories, because 4,600 calories times zero calories equals zero calories. That's basic math." Also, there will be even more whistling on the soundtrack, because the whistling in "Coming Together" almost sounds like a fife. You know who else played the fife? John Wayne, Hulk Hogan, Jack Bauer and something like 38 signatories to the original Declaration of Independence. U-S-A! U-S-A! Feasibility: I've already located footage from a small-town pep rally and 18 gap-toothed scamps of various races and ethnicities. This is so happening.
Last Wednesday over 200 agency big thinkers, decked out in their dapper best, descended upon The Yale Club for MediaPost’s Creative Media Awards dinner and presentation. Now in its ninth year, the awards show recognizes that the process of media buying, planning and strategy is every bit as creative as mocking up a print ad, or creating snazzy online campaigns. Agency folk were in town from all over the country, including Andy Rhode and Caroline Hittler from Fallon; Jenna Cohen, Keith Lusby and John Moore from mediahub/Mullen; Brandi Skrtich from R&R Partners; Rebecca Foster from Team One, and the entire crew from Colle + McVoy. The New York agency contingent was out in full force, with big representation from PHD, OMD, BrightLine, MaxusGlobal, MediaCom, Huge and Havas Media. Bow-tie-clad attendees sipped on martinis and noshed on spicy samosas, delicious ceviche, and let’s not forget… the beloved cocktail frank! After a delicious dinner of filet mignon (sorry, vegetarians!), the much-anticipated awards presentation began, hosted by MediaPost’s very own Editor in-Chief, Joe Mandese.Several Creative Media Awards judges were onhand to meet the finalists and present awards to the winners -- all of them were dashing in their suits and bow ties! Included were industry experts Mike Bloxham, Media Behavior Insititute; Tony Jarvis, Olympic Media Consultancy, Mark Stewart, Townsquare Media; and Steve Williams, PHD.Adam Broitman, Creative Media Awards judge, agency rockstar and newly appointed MasterCard VP, also made a virtual appearance (from what looked like a bunker), to present two awards categories, including the Creative Category to Fallon for IFC's "Bunk." The awards covered 21 categories of creative uses of media, plus a best-in-show, which went to the fresh faces from Rock City -- err, Motor City. Josh Diskin and Paul Glomski, from Detroit Labs, flew in to accept the big award for their Chevy Game Time App which they developed for the Super Bowl. View the full list of winners here and more pics on Facebook. Can’t get enough of agency awards? Celebrate with us at OMMA’s Agency of the Year and MEDIA’s Agency of the Year Awards.