• by Mitch Oscar , Op-Ed Contributor, March 23, 2010

The first quarterly MPG/Media Contacts-sponsored Collaborative Alliance of 2010 was held at the venerable Helen Mills Theater on March 15^th.  The Ides of March bested the Tides of March, as foul weather and flooding across the tri-state area was no match for the combined power of the Collaborative Alliance.  They even had the fish to prove it. As many of you may be aware, the quarterly Collaborative Alliance is a forum in which 225+ media professionals gather over lunch to help navigate the future of the consumer and advertiser relationship within the evolving televisual landscape. The next Collaborative will be on June 23^rd. Presenting lineup will be posted in a few weeks. In the interim, if you are interested in attending, and are not on our regular invitation list, please let us know.

This synopsis was written by Don Seaman, MPG Vice President/ Director of Communications:

Highlights

Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB, sounded an industrywide alarm about government regulation of online advertising.   His "War Against the Web" presentation warned of the accelerating dialogue on both the state and federal levels of government to create an "opt-out" online landscape, citing privacy issues and how they relate to aggregated advertising targeting of online users.  Randall maintains that while the online advertising community appears to be acting in the best interests of privacy concerns for its customer and transparently providing a relevant and safe ad environment for the entire online community, government regulation is looming unless the industry takes some unified action in response.

"Have you been biometric'd?" asked MPG's Mitch Oscar before introducing the next presenter, Innerscope's Co-Founder and President Brian Levine.  Mitch gave a bit of background before calling Brian to the dais.  Innerscope is a company that measures unconscious emotional response to all forms of media stimuli, particularly of live people.  But for this event, Innerscope and the Collaborative Alliance planned to rerun a test which had once been done by a neurologist on a dead salmon, who placed the fish in an MRI machine and mysteriously picked up phantom signs of life from the expired beast.  For our test, not only was a dead salmon biometrically wired, but two mimes were also, for the duration of the afternoon's event.  Alert attendees could watch the mimes' unconscious responses as the session began.

Brian came on to explain the nature of their study - they compared the emotional engagement responses of "media leaders" and a cross-section of consumers.  MPG invited Innerscope into their New York offices to conduct the test of the media leaders (including a select group of MPG staff), while they tested the consumer group test in Boston.  The test itself involves using several physical methods (heart rate, respiration, movement and sweat levels) to measure unconscious responses to various video content as well as several test questions.  Surprisingly, many of the responses from the media leaders were quite similar to the consumer group - with a bit more attention paid to branding and logos.

Quantcast CMO Adam Gerber and Tivo GM of Audience Research and Measurement Todd Juenger stepped up to present a look at their joint project - "It's Your Audience - We Just Find It."  Quantcast brings the power of their Internet tracking ability with Tivo's DVR data to analyze such variables as cross-platform reach and frequency and affinity to national TV advertising, and how it translates into online consumer action taken.  The found that there can be a real lag time - up to 15 days from campaign exposure to online activity related to the product.

Chris Gagen of Posterscope (strategic partner with Havas' Chrysalis) showed some very unique out-of-home media they have in place, primarily in Europe.  One interesting concept was a bus kiosk equipped with an interactive sign which synced custom artwork to a user's iPod, then uploaded still images from the display to Flickr.  Another demonstrated the impact out-of-home media can have when uniquely personalized, as two "brand ambassadors" used hidden cameras to direct very personalized messages to passers-by and evoked cause-and-effect responses in a very direct way -- one included an instant impromptu consumer conga line.

Richard Vogt of Ipsos Mendelsohn next presented a list of the top 10 things media professionals don't know about the affluent ($100,000+ household income).  The #1 thing that we don't know?  Less than 11% of affluents believe what business leaders tell them.

Bruce Friend, President of OTX, was the last presenter of the day with some results of their Longitudinal Media Study.  Most importantly to our business was that the new media platforms are not coming at the expense of old media platforms -- rather, the "media day" is lengthening.  Social media users in particular are also heavy consumers of other online content, especially online video.  In fact, social media users tend to spend over one additional hour with media overall than the average media consumer.  So any fears of media cannibalization should be put to rest -- as more media becomes available, more media content will be consumed on all available platforms, without sacrificing other media.

The afternoon concluded dramatically. Mitch returned to send in the clowns and serve up the salmon, with the results of the biometrically tested late salmon, as attended by the two enthusiastic mimes. 

The findings?

The fish is dead.  Long live the Collaborative Alliance.