• by January 27, 2003

Future Tool
They’ll Put Pen to PC, But Will You Put Ad Dollars There?
by Kate Kaye

You’re jotting down notes at a strategy meeting and the guy from creative starts up with another dull spiel. So you tune out and read that article about last night’s game when an ad for Ford’s latest SUV model whizzes across the page. This scenario isn’t as futuristic as it seems. In fact, if Microsoft gets its way, it could be happening as soon as November.

That’s when the company will launch its long awaited pen-based notebook PC product, the Tablet PC. And if recent talks between the company and publications including Forbes, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal are any indication, Microsoft is hoping content publishers and their advertisers will be just as excited about the launch as Bill Gates is. However, before advertisers consider integrating the Tablet PC into the media mix, a lot of questions must be answered. Most important: What is this thing and who will use it?

At first glance, the Tablet PC, formally known as the Microsoft Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, appears to be nothing more than a souped-up laptop. All models can run Windows XP-compliant applications; each comes with a keyboard, long battery life, and built-in wireless capability, and can be docked for desktop use with a mouse.

It’s the digital pen technology that sets it apart. With it, users can write directly on the screen, save and organize those handwritten notes and even transform them to typed text.

How many times have you read a Word document or viewed a PowerPoint presentation and wanted to mark it up with comments the way you would the margins of a book? The digital pen allows for this, too, and even folks without the Tablet PC can see those comments. In theory, anyone who takes notes on a regular basis would be a candidate for purchasing a Tablet PC, although Microsoft’s primary targets are on-the-go information workers the company calls "corridor warriors" or "road warriors."

Microsoft may choose to promote the Tablet PC to vertical markets such as health care and education. Still, think back to how the push for PDA usage among physicians and hospital workers went. When’s the last time you saw a doctor or nurse with a PDA?

Plus, price estimates range from the cost of a high-end laptop to dramatically more expensive. In this ROI-based economy, the hefty price tag could preclude any significant adoption in the first few years.

Because Microsoft refused to comment on the potential advertising opportunities enabled by the Tablet PC, we can only guess how they will play out. In terms of ad-supported publisher content, the most we can be sure of is that a list of unnamed advertisers will be participating in The New Yorker’s launch of its content on the Tablet PC in late September.

When it comes to accessing content, one main concern is whether the Tablet PC will interpret information in a different way than the average PC. If so, cautions Patrick Weir, rich media technical producer in the ad development department at CNET Networks, it could act as a barrier to publishers, some of which already have to repurpose content for wireless programming languages. He also insists that without broad bandwidth capabilities and the bundled-in support "it would be difficult for Microsoft to get publishers to publish content especially for the Tablet PC."

Still, to fulfill Bill Gates’ pledge that the Tablet PC "will become the most popular form of the PC within five years," publishers and advertisers will have to add the Tablet PC to their list of viable media outlets.

CurrentThinking
Momentum
by John Gaffney/P>

If you dropped a cell phone and a can of Coke from the roof of a tall building at the same time, would they hit the ground together? Throw physics out the window. A new marketing theory called "momentum" says that digital products must have a different set of rules for advertising and promotion from their analog cousins to gain positive force.

The concept of digital marketing momentum is the brainchild of Cisco Systems marketing VP Ron Ricci and AMD marketing VP John Volkmann. At its most basic level, their theory holds that marketing digital products calls for an emphasis on the element of change in the products themselves. So if your ad campaign for a cell phone account is touting the same features as it did a year ago, you’re on the wrong track.

On the other hand, an "analog" product such as packaged goods needs to keep more of a consistent image for consumers if it is to gain and maintain its marketing momentum. So "Just Do It" will work every time. Which brings us to the first "momentum" corollary: Analog brands can pick up momentum if they include a digital component. Witness the PepsiStuff campaign of 2000, which added Yahoo! as a marketing partner and went on to be one of the most successful promotions in Pepsi history.

"Changing things is more difficult in an analog world," says Ricci. "In the digital world, what you are today is not what you’re expected to be a year from now. From an advertising perspective, that means a lot of change for digital products and more consistency for other categories."

The "momentum" theory will be expounded upon in a book from Harvard Business Press this November called Momentum: How Companies Become Unstoppable Market Forces. It is richer in detail than its advertising applications suggest.

For example, it hammers home the importance of differentiation in marketing and advertising. It talks a lot about the evolution of "the marketplace of ideas." And it provides a wealth of knowledge about tech marketing.

StartupCloseup: G4 Gaming Network
Ex-Disney animation chief aims for 18-34 year olds.
by Paul Gough

The broadcast quality and complexity of today’s video games have spawned a new digital network called G4.

Founder and CEO Charles Hirschhorn, former head of Disney TV Animation, brought the idea for G4 to cable giant Comcast Corp. in January 2000. Through his work with Disney, Hirschhorn says, he saw the leap in technology in movies and video games in the late 1990s. He knew Disney reached the under-12 crowd quite well, but he saw an opportunity to reach teenagers and twentysomethings who live and breathe the complex world of video and computer gaming.

It’s a lucrative market. More than 145 million Americans play video games, many on a console that’s smack dab in the center of their lives in the family room or living room. Others play on handheld consoles, cell phones, PDAs, or the Internet. It’s not just a kids’ market, either: Research shows 61% of gamers are over 18. And Americans spent more than $8 billion in video games in 2001. Many of them fit into G4’s core demographic, men 18–34 and teenagers 12–17.

"All their interests are programmed — music, comedy, sports — and there’s lots of it, with the exception of video games," Hirschhorn says. According to him, the segmentation is becoming just as real as the demographics of soccer moms and "tweens." "Gamers are emerging as their own subset," he says.

And it’s the video gamers’ lifestyles that G4 sets its sights on. The network focuses solely on entertainment, news, and information surrounding video gaming and its users. It’s not an interactive network — gamers can’t play on the network — but its programming is designed to engage the interest of them. There isn’t anything like it on TV, something that G4 uses to its advantage.

Comcast, which owns the network, delivers 3 million digital cable subscribers nationwide. Insight Communications kicked in another 3 million before the network’s April 24 launch. G4 is in 23 of the nation’s 25 leading DMAs.

Since then, the 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week network has broadcast its mix of 13 weekly series and specials devoted to gaming and gamers. The programs include previews, documentaries on the making of games, competitions, reviews, and plenty of tips. The premiere program is the half-hour Cheat! Pringles Gamers Guide, which offers tips to cracking the mystery of some of the more complicated games. (So-called cheat sheets are produced by gaming manufacturers to help gamers get through the tougher portions.) The program is sponsored by Pringles potato crisps, owned by Procter & Gamble Co.

For P&G, Cheat! provides the opportunity to reach its core demographic where they live. "We thought this would be a great partnership," says P&G spokeswoman Tonia Hyatt. "It’s fully integrated from beginning to end. For us, it’s about advertising and meeting your consumers where they are." Not only is the Pringles name on the program’s title, but the product is everywhere. "It’s truly a G4 and Pringles partnership," she says. Pringles also sponsors advertorial spots in between G4 programs that offer quick tips on hot games.

G4 is nearing deals with other charter sponsors, although at press time there wasn’t anything to announce. Hirschhorn says G4 offers an opportunity to get in at the ground floor with a network, as some advertisers did with ESPN and MTV before they became household names. Hyatt says that’s another reason why sponsoring Cheat! was so attractive.

The network also offers 30- and 60-second TV spots which have been used by music, movies, home videos, armed services, consumer products, and retailing advertisers.

HowTo . . . Sponsor NPR
Reaching your target audience and then some.
by Amy Corr

Say your client is looking to buy some radio time. They want to promote a new product, but they don’t want to run on commercial radio stations for fear of being forgotten in the slew of ads. Or maybe they don’t want to be sandwiched between Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys.

You might want to check out NPR (National Public Radio). NPR is made up of 600 national radio stations, broken down into categories such as News, Classical, and Jazz. Reaching an affluent audience of 20 million listeners a week, it reaches almost every demographic except teens. According to Gordon Bayliss, VP, corporate sales at WGUC (an NPR station), if you are looking to reach an upscale 25-54 demographic, an NPR sponsorship can be effective. It has worked for fast-food chains, local upscale restaurants, furniture stores, magazines, newspapers, TV shows, car manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and hotels, to name a few.

Sponsoring an NPR station is fairly simple. Here’s how to get started.

Contact your local NPR station, or NPR directly. They can put you in touch with their underwriting team, who will determine the stations that work best for your product and the daypart you should continue sponsoring. Having a creative execution in mind is welcome but not necessary. NPR will research your product and the lifestyle it aims to attract, and in the end, the creative scripts will come from NPR and your brand working together. Prerecorded spots are NOT accepted. Once the creative is decided upon, a local radio host will record your announcement (lasting 10-20 seconds) so that listeners will better identify with your product when "their" host is talking about it. A spot cannot talk about pricing, use comparative language (“we’re the number-one-selling car”), or offer incentives (“sign up and we’ll give you a free toaster”). There are usually four or five spots run in a given hour, compared to 20 in commercial radio stations. Small, local radio station spots can run as cheap as $200 for 10 spots over a five-week period. If you want to launch your product nationally across numerous stations, pricing varies.

For more information, visit the NPR website (www.npr.org), or contact J. C. Patrick, NPR station representative, at 1-800-329-5380 x 2736.