December 25th used to be TV day where the Christmas double issues of Radio and TV Times had been studied enthusiastically over the previous week to ensure family viewing schedules were agreed and World War 111 avoided.
This might be looking at the bygone media world with snow tinted glasses but whilst families haven’t changed that much, media has. Multimedia tasking rules the day. Charades with the Great Escape in the background has been replaced by playing Mario Brothers on the DS. Texting mates to check out each others pressies while watching Dr Who or e-mailing friends and family from a mobile phone in between the turkey and Christmas pudding seems to be the norm for many people.
And those shrewd purchasers amongst us will be checking out the January sales online.
Technology hasn’t detracted anything from the Big Day. It just makes it like any other day but more so.
If this is Christmas Present then Christmas Future should be something else!
Have a good one …
Ian Prager, Planning Director
Wednesday 22 December 2010
Monday 13 December 2010
It's TV Jim and yes, basically as we know it!
Attending Thinkbox’s recent Tellyporting seminar reinforced why media is such a fun place to work in. It gave a great opportunity to navel gaze on how technically savvy but not geeky families will interact with TV both as a piece of technology and entertainment device over the next three years.
Three years in technology development terms is about as long as the Palaeozoic era. The view amongst the experts was rather comforting. It goes some way like this.
Enjoying TV programmes with other people will still be by far the preferred way to interact with television. Social media has a role to play by extending the number of people you can share the viewing experience with. People will remain proud of their television sets and will want them to be the focus of home entertainment. After all they bring cinema to their homes. They will love the way they can access VOD on their TV rather than lap top. In fact the role of online will be a way of augmenting TV pleasure by enhancing programme content rather than a distraction.
And broadcasters will take advantage of this development. Mobile will have a support role rather than be a challenge to the TV set. In other words, a continuation of the move towards integration of technologically rather than fragmentation.
In other words basically Jim, its television as we know it.
Ian Prager
Planning Director
Three years in technology development terms is about as long as the Palaeozoic era. The view amongst the experts was rather comforting. It goes some way like this.
Enjoying TV programmes with other people will still be by far the preferred way to interact with television. Social media has a role to play by extending the number of people you can share the viewing experience with. People will remain proud of their television sets and will want them to be the focus of home entertainment. After all they bring cinema to their homes. They will love the way they can access VOD on their TV rather than lap top. In fact the role of online will be a way of augmenting TV pleasure by enhancing programme content rather than a distraction.
And broadcasters will take advantage of this development. Mobile will have a support role rather than be a challenge to the TV set. In other words, a continuation of the move towards integration of technologically rather than fragmentation.
In other words basically Jim, its television as we know it.
Ian Prager
Planning Director
Tuesday 7 December 2010
It's TV Jim and yes, basically as we know it!
Attending Thinkbox’s recent Tellyporting seminar reinforced why media is such a fun place to work in. It gave a great opportunity to navel gaze on how technically savvy but not geeky families will interact with TV, both as a piece of technology and entertainment device, over the next three years.
Three years in technology development terms is about as long as the Palaeozoic era. The view amongst the experts, however, was rather comforting. It goes some way like this.
Enjoying TV programmes with other people will still be by far the preferred way to interact with television. Social media has a role to play by extending the number of people you can share the viewing experience with. People will remain proud of their television sets and will want them to be the focus of home entertainment. After all they bring cinema to their homes. They will love the way they can access VOD on their TV rather than lap top. In fact the role of online will be a way of augmenting TV pleasure by enhancing programme content rather than a distraction.
And broadcasters will take advantage of this development. Mobile will have a support role rather than be a challenge to the TV set. In other words, a continuation of the move towards integration of technologically rather than fragmentation.
In other words basically Jim, its television as we know it.
Three years in technology development terms is about as long as the Palaeozoic era. The view amongst the experts, however, was rather comforting. It goes some way like this.
Enjoying TV programmes with other people will still be by far the preferred way to interact with television. Social media has a role to play by extending the number of people you can share the viewing experience with. People will remain proud of their television sets and will want them to be the focus of home entertainment. After all they bring cinema to their homes. They will love the way they can access VOD on their TV rather than lap top. In fact the role of online will be a way of augmenting TV pleasure by enhancing programme content rather than a distraction.
And broadcasters will take advantage of this development. Mobile will have a support role rather than be a challenge to the TV set. In other words, a continuation of the move towards integration of technologically rather than fragmentation.
In other words basically Jim, its television as we know it.
Monday 22 November 2010
The Impact of Occupation on Charitable Giving
We have just finished a fascinating piece of work. Using Touchpoints we investigated if occupation has an impact on charitable giving. Guess what? It does. Employees in the public sector give significantly more than those in the private sector. And they give to specific causes.
Using the figures that George Osborne produced as part of the CSR we were able to quantify the potential loss to the sector overall, and then follow it up with bespoke work for our clients. For example, one was concerned about a capital appeal in the West Midlands, and we were able to quantify the potential loss in total public donations over the next year.
We followed this piece of work up with a joint quantitative online survey, with one of our creative partner agencies, WPN.
The objective was to probe issues thrown up by the Touchpoints work. The results really surprised us. Only some 5% of public sector employees are likely to lose their jobs in the next 3 years, but the fear in the sector is very widespread. 48% of public sector employees told us that they were planning on giving less to charities.
Now this may be a short-lived phenomenon. We have seen very poor response rates in October both before and after the CSR, and those have now recovered in November. It may equally rear its head again in the new year when redundancies and VAT rises really bite.
Either way we suspect the impact of occupation will be felt further than in just the charity sector, and it’s a theme we will continue to investigate.
More anon …
Mike Colling, Managing Director
Using the figures that George Osborne produced as part of the CSR we were able to quantify the potential loss to the sector overall, and then follow it up with bespoke work for our clients. For example, one was concerned about a capital appeal in the West Midlands, and we were able to quantify the potential loss in total public donations over the next year.
We followed this piece of work up with a joint quantitative online survey, with one of our creative partner agencies, WPN.
The objective was to probe issues thrown up by the Touchpoints work. The results really surprised us. Only some 5% of public sector employees are likely to lose their jobs in the next 3 years, but the fear in the sector is very widespread. 48% of public sector employees told us that they were planning on giving less to charities.
Now this may be a short-lived phenomenon. We have seen very poor response rates in October both before and after the CSR, and those have now recovered in November. It may equally rear its head again in the new year when redundancies and VAT rises really bite.
Either way we suspect the impact of occupation will be felt further than in just the charity sector, and it’s a theme we will continue to investigate.
More anon …
Mike Colling, Managing Director
Wednesday 10 November 2010
The Future of Print Media
I spent Monday afternoon with a new industry group: Print Power. As one might gather from their name they have been formed from leading print companies (Associated, News International, NPA, PPA etc) to promote print as a united medium.
They asked me to represent the media buying industry, and speak on the subject “What does print have to do to earn a crust in a modern media world”.
This came hard on the heels of a request two weeks ago to appear on a Thinkbox programme and speak to the future of TV advertising.
The contrast between the future prospects for the two media channels was shocking. The death of both TV and press has been banded about by industry pundits for at least ten years. Normally these arguments are ill constructed and based on short term share loss to new channels. Over the longer term most channels (and cinema is a great example) reinvent themselves and recover both consumer audience share and revenues.
And that would appear to be the case with TV. With the launch of YouView, Google TV, IP enabled sets from Sony and Samsung, and a host of other initiatives TV is reinventing itself. We will see more change in the next 30 months than I have seen in my last 30 years in media. In fact I think the future of TV deserves a blog of its own!
But the future for print media is, for the moment at least, bleak. In the last 13 years the total print share of advertising revenue has fallen from more than 60% to 40%. And I see no new innovation coming over the horizon. The last major print jump forward was the Apple Mac in 1984 - revolutionising editorial and seeing the number of magazines leap from hundreds to tens of thousands. Print is suffering in reach- only 46% of us read daily; and in dwell times: we read for less than 3 hours a week. And ask consumers which media channel they wouldn’t live without and it's all screens, TV, computer, phone. Paper doesn’t get a mention.
Print at the moment feels like an aging sports team. They performed well once, but they are getting older. Competitors are younger and train harder. They should take a leaf from TV’s book: reinvention, but with consumer benefits remaining at the core. Print Power is maybe the first step in that, but it will be a long journey.
Mike Colling
Managing Director
They asked me to represent the media buying industry, and speak on the subject “What does print have to do to earn a crust in a modern media world”.
This came hard on the heels of a request two weeks ago to appear on a Thinkbox programme and speak to the future of TV advertising.
The contrast between the future prospects for the two media channels was shocking. The death of both TV and press has been banded about by industry pundits for at least ten years. Normally these arguments are ill constructed and based on short term share loss to new channels. Over the longer term most channels (and cinema is a great example) reinvent themselves and recover both consumer audience share and revenues.
And that would appear to be the case with TV. With the launch of YouView, Google TV, IP enabled sets from Sony and Samsung, and a host of other initiatives TV is reinventing itself. We will see more change in the next 30 months than I have seen in my last 30 years in media. In fact I think the future of TV deserves a blog of its own!
But the future for print media is, for the moment at least, bleak. In the last 13 years the total print share of advertising revenue has fallen from more than 60% to 40%. And I see no new innovation coming over the horizon. The last major print jump forward was the Apple Mac in 1984 - revolutionising editorial and seeing the number of magazines leap from hundreds to tens of thousands. Print is suffering in reach- only 46% of us read daily; and in dwell times: we read for less than 3 hours a week. And ask consumers which media channel they wouldn’t live without and it's all screens, TV, computer, phone. Paper doesn’t get a mention.
Print at the moment feels like an aging sports team. They performed well once, but they are getting older. Competitors are younger and train harder. They should take a leaf from TV’s book: reinvention, but with consumer benefits remaining at the core. Print Power is maybe the first step in that, but it will be a long journey.
Mike Colling
Managing Director
Monday 8 November 2010
The Key Messages from mediaPro 2010
Despite the best efforts of London Underground, this year’s mediaPro 2010 at London’s Olympia was a great success. The two day exhibition included a talk from our very own MD Mike Colling on how integrated planning helped the RSPCA quadruple response, double ROI and recruit new donors. However, the main aim for the mc&c team in attendance was to seek out new ideas and innovations. Our objective - to help give our clients the cutting edge for the year to come and continue mc&c’s approach of placing innovation and new thinking at the heart of our business.
Indeed, as ever in media, new ideas and thinking were not in short supply during the two days. The challenge in fact was to cut through the noise and find the key messages that really will stand the test of time to ensure our media approach is business effective not just a pretty PowerPoint slide.
So, here are the team’s two day highlights:-
Day 1: Tim Brooks MD of Guardian News & Media put it bluntly when he predicted that print media will most likely not exist post 2025. Lovers of the press fear not. As Brooks stated, the biggest growth area for the Guardian is mobile readers, despite their small share of total audience at present. The trends all point upwards for in this technology, with a world of smart phone dominance and mobile online interaction surely not that far off. The challenge for advertisers is to recognise how audience engagement changes with this medium and how best to make advertising effective on this platform.
The sense of being in the middle of a paradigm shift in business thinking, as the reality of an online world comes to fruition, was further brought home by Peter Fenton, investor and board member of Twitter. Fenton provided a tour de force narrative of the growth of the ‘global village’ represented by the growth in social media and most importantly, the emergence of what he see as the new consumer. This consumer is connected (online), empowered (with numerous social network connections) and impatient when it comes to an online response. While crucially the challenge is to reach out to those who have the greatest influence in this environment and engage them with a comprehensive engagement strategy. The challenge for brands, therefore, is to recognise this new communication environment, where listening to consumers is the key to really engaging them and old top down models are a thing of the past.
Day 2: Surely one of the highlights of the key note speeches, and music to our ears, was Roy Sutherland’s speech on behavioural economics. mc&c has been championing the insight behavioural economics can offer our clients for some time now and we are already converted! The challenge we face is to take this rather abstract thinking and ensure it’s made concrete as a media strategy, put into action and delivers results.
The middle of the day saw the enthusiastic advocacy of content led marketing strategy by Paul Troy of Barclaycard, following the success of the ‘waterslide’ campaign. For Troy this is the future, where consumers come to engage you instead of you constantly reaching out to them – driven by a content idea that naturally lends itself to cross platform delivery.
However, Troy’s questioning of the push advertising model, although compelling and certainly a key development of the last few years, suffers from one key question. What’s the nature of your business? Not all businesses have the budget or the natural flexibility to offer great content. Indeed, these questions were powerfully brought home by Nick Emmel of Dare, who questioned the need by advertisers to always chase the new idea or technology for their campaigns. As Emmel made clear, yes, these innovations can be great and the choice over whelming, but don’t be suckered into thinking that because they exist you have to use them. The key is to look at the media problem and answer the question ‘what’s the best solution?’ This could be the latest online development or it may be using press ads and TV. Choice doesn’t mean choose everything, it means selecting the best channels for your campaign driven by knowledge of what delivers, an insight that mc&c have long held to with our emphasis on data led media strategies that test, analyse and deliver.
And the key message we took away from our two days?
This is an industry built on shifting social trends, technological change and ever changing commercial pressures, where new ideas and innovation are the keys to ensuring our clients get the best use and value out of their media activity. In this sense we work in an industry shaped by change.
However, we are also shaped by continuity. The recent attempts at social revolt in Iran may have been aided by new the new social media of Twitter, but the 1979 revolution was fuelled by speeches recorded on cassette. As Billy Joel sang, “we didn’t start the fire”. Media innovation and change is constant throughout societies across the globe.
Nevertheless, it’s also a commercial environment where you need to be careful not to lose your head. Despite the huge changes over the last 30 years, key values still remain vital for success:
Understand your business
Understand your audience and
Understand what you want to achieve
Innovation and good old fashioned media commonsense are the real skills we as an agency can offer our clients. The world keeps on turning …
Jamie Cregan
Media Planner Buyer
Indeed, as ever in media, new ideas and thinking were not in short supply during the two days. The challenge in fact was to cut through the noise and find the key messages that really will stand the test of time to ensure our media approach is business effective not just a pretty PowerPoint slide.
So, here are the team’s two day highlights:-
Day 1: Tim Brooks MD of Guardian News & Media put it bluntly when he predicted that print media will most likely not exist post 2025. Lovers of the press fear not. As Brooks stated, the biggest growth area for the Guardian is mobile readers, despite their small share of total audience at present. The trends all point upwards for in this technology, with a world of smart phone dominance and mobile online interaction surely not that far off. The challenge for advertisers is to recognise how audience engagement changes with this medium and how best to make advertising effective on this platform.
The sense of being in the middle of a paradigm shift in business thinking, as the reality of an online world comes to fruition, was further brought home by Peter Fenton, investor and board member of Twitter. Fenton provided a tour de force narrative of the growth of the ‘global village’ represented by the growth in social media and most importantly, the emergence of what he see as the new consumer. This consumer is connected (online), empowered (with numerous social network connections) and impatient when it comes to an online response. While crucially the challenge is to reach out to those who have the greatest influence in this environment and engage them with a comprehensive engagement strategy. The challenge for brands, therefore, is to recognise this new communication environment, where listening to consumers is the key to really engaging them and old top down models are a thing of the past.
Day 2: Surely one of the highlights of the key note speeches, and music to our ears, was Roy Sutherland’s speech on behavioural economics. mc&c has been championing the insight behavioural economics can offer our clients for some time now and we are already converted! The challenge we face is to take this rather abstract thinking and ensure it’s made concrete as a media strategy, put into action and delivers results.
The middle of the day saw the enthusiastic advocacy of content led marketing strategy by Paul Troy of Barclaycard, following the success of the ‘waterslide’ campaign. For Troy this is the future, where consumers come to engage you instead of you constantly reaching out to them – driven by a content idea that naturally lends itself to cross platform delivery.
However, Troy’s questioning of the push advertising model, although compelling and certainly a key development of the last few years, suffers from one key question. What’s the nature of your business? Not all businesses have the budget or the natural flexibility to offer great content. Indeed, these questions were powerfully brought home by Nick Emmel of Dare, who questioned the need by advertisers to always chase the new idea or technology for their campaigns. As Emmel made clear, yes, these innovations can be great and the choice over whelming, but don’t be suckered into thinking that because they exist you have to use them. The key is to look at the media problem and answer the question ‘what’s the best solution?’ This could be the latest online development or it may be using press ads and TV. Choice doesn’t mean choose everything, it means selecting the best channels for your campaign driven by knowledge of what delivers, an insight that mc&c have long held to with our emphasis on data led media strategies that test, analyse and deliver.
And the key message we took away from our two days?
This is an industry built on shifting social trends, technological change and ever changing commercial pressures, where new ideas and innovation are the keys to ensuring our clients get the best use and value out of their media activity. In this sense we work in an industry shaped by change.
However, we are also shaped by continuity. The recent attempts at social revolt in Iran may have been aided by new the new social media of Twitter, but the 1979 revolution was fuelled by speeches recorded on cassette. As Billy Joel sang, “we didn’t start the fire”. Media innovation and change is constant throughout societies across the globe.
Nevertheless, it’s also a commercial environment where you need to be careful not to lose your head. Despite the huge changes over the last 30 years, key values still remain vital for success:
Understand your business
Understand your audience and
Understand what you want to achieve
Innovation and good old fashioned media commonsense are the real skills we as an agency can offer our clients. The world keeps on turning …
Jamie Cregan
Media Planner Buyer
Wednesday 27 October 2010
The Impact of SMS as a Response Channel
I spent this morning looking at some pretty dreadful results. One of our clients recently ran a test campaign that didn’t succeed. With 20/20 hindsight one can see why not. A new proposition to a new audience, with a new creative agency, and a new media mix, at a new price point. They had asked for a radical jump, and that’s what they got. Good clear learning that they shouldn’t progress in that direction in the near future. And that’s valuable.
But they also learnt one positive thing, and that’s the value of adding sms as a response channel to their DR advertising. For them it generated c40% incremental response. Net additional consumer contacts that wouldn’t otherwise have been captured. And that’s fairly typical of results across our client base. Increasingly we are seeing response to DRTV and other media channels move away from phone and towards text and online. And we would much rather consumers texted us than went online. Online we might convert 2% of responders to some form of sale. If they text us we typically convert 35%+.
Consumers’ love of SMS as a channel seems to be growing and showing no sign of abating. In 2009 we sent 104 billion text messages, 4 per day for every man woman and child. It’s a mobile medium that is here and viable for most clients now. It’s well worth considering if you aren’t using it.
But they also learnt one positive thing, and that’s the value of adding sms as a response channel to their DR advertising. For them it generated c40% incremental response. Net additional consumer contacts that wouldn’t otherwise have been captured. And that’s fairly typical of results across our client base. Increasingly we are seeing response to DRTV and other media channels move away from phone and towards text and online. And we would much rather consumers texted us than went online. Online we might convert 2% of responders to some form of sale. If they text us we typically convert 35%+.
Consumers’ love of SMS as a channel seems to be growing and showing no sign of abating. In 2009 we sent 104 billion text messages, 4 per day for every man woman and child. It’s a mobile medium that is here and viable for most clients now. It’s well worth considering if you aren’t using it.
Wednesday 20 October 2010
The Future of DRTV Continued
I am writing this blog from Amsterdam, and the global fundraising conference that is held there each year. Many of the 900 attendees use DRTV to recruit new donors, and there is much debate amongst delegates about falling levels of telephone response.
The world seems to have divided into two camps:-
- those who are just seeing falling phone response and despairing and
- those who are seeing phone response fall, but total response to DRTV rise
This latter group are integrating SMS and web response into their commercials. As a result they now typically see 30%+ of their income from DRTV come via web donations. SMS response can add 10%+ incremental response, and sometimes more than double response.
As media channels converge, and consumers spend more and more time consuming more than one channel simultaneously, measuring campaign results will become harder. DRTV plays a vital role on many clients’ schedules, reaching audiences that other media do not, and generating very cost effective response. It is vital that our measurement systems keep pace with changing consumer behaviour.
Mike Colling
Managing Director
The world seems to have divided into two camps:-
- those who are just seeing falling phone response and despairing and
- those who are seeing phone response fall, but total response to DRTV rise
This latter group are integrating SMS and web response into their commercials. As a result they now typically see 30%+ of their income from DRTV come via web donations. SMS response can add 10%+ incremental response, and sometimes more than double response.
As media channels converge, and consumers spend more and more time consuming more than one channel simultaneously, measuring campaign results will become harder. DRTV plays a vital role on many clients’ schedules, reaching audiences that other media do not, and generating very cost effective response. It is vital that our measurement systems keep pace with changing consumer behaviour.
Mike Colling
Managing Director
Wednesday 13 October 2010
The Future of TV?
Over the last couple of weeks I have been pondering what the future might hold for the medium we all spend a day a week watching still. (I have to confess I have been prompted to these thoughts by the need to write a speech on this subject, promised to a conference next week!)
What have I found in my researches?
Firstly, TV is in rude health. Despite doom-mongers prophesising its impending demise viewing to TV is stronger than ever, and showing no signs of abating. If anything I suspect viewing levels will continue to grow going forward as we all read less and watch more.
Secondly, there is no evidence that TV viewing will be replaced by consumers watching video online. Whilst lots of people do watch video online (43% of us at last count) we don’t spend much time doing it (less than 1% of our media day).
My third finding is that we are about to see a huge amount of change in the TV landscape. The last few years have seen an explosion of channels (from 3 when I started to 650+ now), digitisation, the advent of the PVR, but, as the poet said “you ain’t seen nothing yet”
The big impacts, I think, will come from 3D and HD devices, on demand content (the launch of YouView from the BBC et al next year), searchable content and personalised interfaces (Google, Apple and others launching this year) and home media centres that will allow movement of content across devices (Virgin, BT, this year and early next).
So from a technology point of view we will see huge change. But what impact will it have?
Well for viewers I'm not sure the impact will be that great. In five years' time we may well be able to watch anything we want, anywhere, on any device. I suspect that for the majority of us our viewing habits will not change. Most viewing is a passive activity. We get home, slump in front of the set, and watch what schedulers put in front of us. Even when we have PVR technology for ease of recording and playback, or video on demand via iPlayer through our TV’s, less than 9% of viewing in those households is on demand or time shifted.
So, our viewing patterns won’t change radically in terms of what we watch. But I think the one change that might be drastic is how we watch TV. We used to watch in social groups, typically families gathered around a single set. That is a thing of the past. But we are fundamentally social animals and TV viewing is a social activity - conversations around the water machine in the morning about last night’s viewing convince us all of that. And the growth of social media, now almost 25% of all internet time, and engaging 40% of all of us each week, reflects that need.#
One of the big changes I foresee to TV viewing over the coming years is the convergence of social media and TV. We used to watch TV in physical groups, all in the same room. I see us watching TV in virtual groups, chatting in real time to friends or family about the programme we are physically, separately, watching. That has huge implications for advertisers, about which more next time ......
What have I found in my researches?
Firstly, TV is in rude health. Despite doom-mongers prophesising its impending demise viewing to TV is stronger than ever, and showing no signs of abating. If anything I suspect viewing levels will continue to grow going forward as we all read less and watch more.
Secondly, there is no evidence that TV viewing will be replaced by consumers watching video online. Whilst lots of people do watch video online (43% of us at last count) we don’t spend much time doing it (less than 1% of our media day).
My third finding is that we are about to see a huge amount of change in the TV landscape. The last few years have seen an explosion of channels (from 3 when I started to 650+ now), digitisation, the advent of the PVR, but, as the poet said “you ain’t seen nothing yet”
The big impacts, I think, will come from 3D and HD devices, on demand content (the launch of YouView from the BBC et al next year), searchable content and personalised interfaces (Google, Apple and others launching this year) and home media centres that will allow movement of content across devices (Virgin, BT, this year and early next).
So from a technology point of view we will see huge change. But what impact will it have?
Well for viewers I'm not sure the impact will be that great. In five years' time we may well be able to watch anything we want, anywhere, on any device. I suspect that for the majority of us our viewing habits will not change. Most viewing is a passive activity. We get home, slump in front of the set, and watch what schedulers put in front of us. Even when we have PVR technology for ease of recording and playback, or video on demand via iPlayer through our TV’s, less than 9% of viewing in those households is on demand or time shifted.
So, our viewing patterns won’t change radically in terms of what we watch. But I think the one change that might be drastic is how we watch TV. We used to watch in social groups, typically families gathered around a single set. That is a thing of the past. But we are fundamentally social animals and TV viewing is a social activity - conversations around the water machine in the morning about last night’s viewing convince us all of that. And the growth of social media, now almost 25% of all internet time, and engaging 40% of all of us each week, reflects that need.#
One of the big changes I foresee to TV viewing over the coming years is the convergence of social media and TV. We used to watch TV in physical groups, all in the same room. I see us watching TV in virtual groups, chatting in real time to friends or family about the programme we are physically, separately, watching. That has huge implications for advertisers, about which more next time ......
Monday 6 September 2010
The Dawn of Daybreak
Watched the dawn of Daybreak, the re launch of GMTV, this morning. First reaction, there was a lot of purple in the studio. Instead of the old GMTV style of someone talking to you at the kitchen table we were transported to a view of the city of London. I wonder what people in Liverpool think about this?
Adrian Chiles' grumpy act is fine when talking about West Bromwich Albion but will probably fail to appeal first thing in the morning. Accusations of transferring the One Show to ITV have already been made but that’s not the real problem. In fact that wouldn’t be too bad. The show is likely to fall between two stools. One the one hand BBC Breakfast, where high quality journalism, flows effortlessly in a likeable fashion and Sky News Sunrise which has a slick global aura about it. I’m not sure where Daybreak sits.
With ratings plummeting something had to be done, but maybe, all was needed was some editorial guidance. There is nothing wrong with a populist approach –look at the Sun. The difference being The Sun has top class contributors. Daybreak still has a star in Lorraine Kelly but they need more talent in depth.
Richard Madeley, who knows a thing about this type of TV, is pretty pessimistic about its success. Sadly I share his pessimism. Adam Crozier has gone for the Sven Goran Erickson solution when he ran the FA. Hire someone who is expensive but with a proven record, and we all know where that led us.
Ian Prager
Planning Director
Adrian Chiles' grumpy act is fine when talking about West Bromwich Albion but will probably fail to appeal first thing in the morning. Accusations of transferring the One Show to ITV have already been made but that’s not the real problem. In fact that wouldn’t be too bad. The show is likely to fall between two stools. One the one hand BBC Breakfast, where high quality journalism, flows effortlessly in a likeable fashion and Sky News Sunrise which has a slick global aura about it. I’m not sure where Daybreak sits.
With ratings plummeting something had to be done, but maybe, all was needed was some editorial guidance. There is nothing wrong with a populist approach –look at the Sun. The difference being The Sun has top class contributors. Daybreak still has a star in Lorraine Kelly but they need more talent in depth.
Richard Madeley, who knows a thing about this type of TV, is pretty pessimistic about its success. Sadly I share his pessimism. Adam Crozier has gone for the Sven Goran Erickson solution when he ran the FA. Hire someone who is expensive but with a proven record, and we all know where that led us.
Ian Prager
Planning Director
Wednesday 28 July 2010
The Future of Five
Lots has been written about Richard Desmond’s purchase of Five - mostly centred on the view that he is going to make Five an extension of Asian Babes!
To me, this view is just mischief making. When Five was Channel 5, their policy of making the then Channel 5 into Channel Filth was well documented. Who can’t fail to remember Cheggers in Naked Jungle a programme which lead one observer to refer to it as a “nasty little piece of voyeurism posing as a game show”? It didn’t work to build ratings and revenue ten years ago and it certainly won’t work now. And Richard Desmond knows this. The Daily Express doesn’t have a page 3 girl and the Daily Star hasn’t become the Sport!
More to the point is how Desmond’s energetic and entrepreneurial spirit will shake up Five. So far he has said a lot of sensible things. He is likely to stick with CSI, Australian soaps and go for Big Brother but I’m sure he’ll also give the channel a little shot in the arm with some Daily Star and OK! content. It looks like he is fully committed to Project Canvas which will champion broadcast and broadband connectivity through the TV rather than the computer.
There is little doubt that Five’s sales teams will become more Express like and will ferret around for any loose change found under the sofa cushions. And there is absolutely no doubt that fully fledged cross platform deals will be part of everyday negotiations.
If his track record with the Daily Star and OK! is anything to go by Five’s future looks to be safe hands but it won’t be the dawn of a new age of broadcast quality!
Ian Prager
Planning Director
To me, this view is just mischief making. When Five was Channel 5, their policy of making the then Channel 5 into Channel Filth was well documented. Who can’t fail to remember Cheggers in Naked Jungle a programme which lead one observer to refer to it as a “nasty little piece of voyeurism posing as a game show”? It didn’t work to build ratings and revenue ten years ago and it certainly won’t work now. And Richard Desmond knows this. The Daily Express doesn’t have a page 3 girl and the Daily Star hasn’t become the Sport!
More to the point is how Desmond’s energetic and entrepreneurial spirit will shake up Five. So far he has said a lot of sensible things. He is likely to stick with CSI, Australian soaps and go for Big Brother but I’m sure he’ll also give the channel a little shot in the arm with some Daily Star and OK! content. It looks like he is fully committed to Project Canvas which will champion broadcast and broadband connectivity through the TV rather than the computer.
There is little doubt that Five’s sales teams will become more Express like and will ferret around for any loose change found under the sofa cushions. And there is absolutely no doubt that fully fledged cross platform deals will be part of everyday negotiations.
If his track record with the Daily Star and OK! is anything to go by Five’s future looks to be safe hands but it won’t be the dawn of a new age of broadcast quality!
Ian Prager
Planning Director
Tuesday 20 July 2010
You’re probably bored already…
HOW CAN I GET YOUR ATTENTION?! I can assure you I’m shouting this at you at the top of my voice, catching some rather curious glances in the office. Yet you, the reader, remain nonchalant, unaffected by my efforts to catch your notice. This is the problem that a marketer faces with the written word, you can make it big, make it small, make it blue or pick the ‘sexiest’ font you can find, it is still however, just words and can quite easily be ignored.
This week we were advising a client on the importance of using video in an ecommerce environment. We outlined to them the significance of video when engaging the public; involving more of the senses, sight, sound and even emotion. Building a solid relationship with your clients is a main key to boosting your sales. The use of video is an effective and simple way to make this connection. Video marketing is not just designed to increase brand awareness but it has a direct effect upon sales; jewellery makers ‘Dynomighty’ were a new company to the market, in the US, they implemented a video marketing campaign on ‘youtube’ and increased sales by $130,000 in three months. Angelbeds.com (Internet Retailer Top 500 company) implemented a video marketing campaign with great success; the videos were implemented on the home page and product comparison pages in mid-August of 2007. Conversion rates immediately jumped 11% in one month and increased 47% year-over-year in Q4 of 2007.
Video marketing is a cost effective way to demonstrate a product, the consumer can almost ‘try before they buy’, and seeing the product in action rather than just a written description is of immeasurable value for the e-commerce industry where web interaction is the only contact between business and customer. This removes the uncertainty involved with purchasing online, inevitably increasing sales figures. With many people now scouring the net for videos on share sites, ‘Nike’ created a viral ad showing footballer ‘Ronaldinho’ hitting the crossbar consecutively without the ball dropping, this ad had over 50 million views worldwide. Video marketing as an entity is increasing every day, with US giants ‘Cisco Systems’ citing in their latest ‘Visual Networking Index’ forecast that global IP traffic will increase 4.3 times through to 2014 and that video will be the primary driver, accounting for 91% of traffic by 2014. A media source of this magnitude, as a company or a marketer, cannot be ignored.
Peter Bradley
Trainee, mc&c
This week we were advising a client on the importance of using video in an ecommerce environment. We outlined to them the significance of video when engaging the public; involving more of the senses, sight, sound and even emotion. Building a solid relationship with your clients is a main key to boosting your sales. The use of video is an effective and simple way to make this connection. Video marketing is not just designed to increase brand awareness but it has a direct effect upon sales; jewellery makers ‘Dynomighty’ were a new company to the market, in the US, they implemented a video marketing campaign on ‘youtube’ and increased sales by $130,000 in three months. Angelbeds.com (Internet Retailer Top 500 company) implemented a video marketing campaign with great success; the videos were implemented on the home page and product comparison pages in mid-August of 2007. Conversion rates immediately jumped 11% in one month and increased 47% year-over-year in Q4 of 2007.
Video marketing is a cost effective way to demonstrate a product, the consumer can almost ‘try before they buy’, and seeing the product in action rather than just a written description is of immeasurable value for the e-commerce industry where web interaction is the only contact between business and customer. This removes the uncertainty involved with purchasing online, inevitably increasing sales figures. With many people now scouring the net for videos on share sites, ‘Nike’ created a viral ad showing footballer ‘Ronaldinho’ hitting the crossbar consecutively without the ball dropping, this ad had over 50 million views worldwide. Video marketing as an entity is increasing every day, with US giants ‘Cisco Systems’ citing in their latest ‘Visual Networking Index’ forecast that global IP traffic will increase 4.3 times through to 2014 and that video will be the primary driver, accounting for 91% of traffic by 2014. A media source of this magnitude, as a company or a marketer, cannot be ignored.
Peter Bradley
Trainee, mc&c
Monday 12 July 2010
World Cup Review
World Cup 2010 was last night brought to an end by a Yorkshireman amid eruptions of celebration around the stadium; unfortunately the Englishman was the referee and the fans in rapture were the Spanish.
World Cup 2010 began 11th June 2010 with thirty two teams in the group stages; it will be remembered for the early exits of holder’s Italy, the sullen French and another year England failed to deliver. The World Cup was viewed by a collective audience of approximately 26 billion, once again underlining the opinion that the World Cup is the largest worldwide event and therefore for those in marketing and media, every four years it’s ‘all systems go’. A well-placed advertising campaign during this period of time is guaranteed to have the largest audience than any other time, equally a media gaff on the scale of ITV HD ‘0-1 USA win’ after cutting to an advert and missing England’s goal, can be catastrophic. A major issue faced by an advertiser is the thrashing that ITV took in the ratings battle with the BBC, many citing the lack of advertising being a major pull for their 54 percent share of those viewing the final. 3.3 million viewers tuned in to watch the final on ITV and ITVHD compared to the 15.1 million on BBC and their HD channel. Therefore it seems clear that although the World Cup is the largest sporting event on the planet, the media and advertising world must be creative and not merely bombard the viewer with television advertising, as they will ultimately switch over. To put the efforts of ITV in perspective, the highest recorded ratings of Coronation Street is 27 million; room for improvement indeed.
Peter Bradley, Trainee MC&C
World Cup 2010 began 11th June 2010 with thirty two teams in the group stages; it will be remembered for the early exits of holder’s Italy, the sullen French and another year England failed to deliver. The World Cup was viewed by a collective audience of approximately 26 billion, once again underlining the opinion that the World Cup is the largest worldwide event and therefore for those in marketing and media, every four years it’s ‘all systems go’. A well-placed advertising campaign during this period of time is guaranteed to have the largest audience than any other time, equally a media gaff on the scale of ITV HD ‘0-1 USA win’ after cutting to an advert and missing England’s goal, can be catastrophic. A major issue faced by an advertiser is the thrashing that ITV took in the ratings battle with the BBC, many citing the lack of advertising being a major pull for their 54 percent share of those viewing the final. 3.3 million viewers tuned in to watch the final on ITV and ITVHD compared to the 15.1 million on BBC and their HD channel. Therefore it seems clear that although the World Cup is the largest sporting event on the planet, the media and advertising world must be creative and not merely bombard the viewer with television advertising, as they will ultimately switch over. To put the efforts of ITV in perspective, the highest recorded ratings of Coronation Street is 27 million; room for improvement indeed.
Peter Bradley, Trainee MC&C
Wednesday 7 July 2010
Off the Net
I have just had a wonderful but also salutary experience this last weekend.
I spent three days in the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. It’s a huge wilderness, about 600,000 acres and a population of less than 19,000.
The upside - it’s a beautiful wilderness. We were within 25 feet of a pair of golden eagles, beaches that would not disgrace the Caribbean, red deer, salmon, and no traffic.
No road traffic and not much digital traffic either. Hours of no phone signal, and broadband only in the hotel. An iphone is pretty useless here.
This is a community that’s pretty dependent on direct channels. The vehicles we saw most frequently were the Royal Mail and other parcel delivery services. But the media channels that drive the sales are analogue and not digital. Local press, TV, local magazines, local radio, and above all Royal Mail are all far more important parts of the media mix than digital here.
This was a useful reminder that sometimes some of the biggest users of direct services may still be in pockets that require an analogue answer and not purely a digital media solution.
Localism is a theme I shall return to …
Mike Colling, Managing Director
I spent three days in the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. It’s a huge wilderness, about 600,000 acres and a population of less than 19,000.
The upside - it’s a beautiful wilderness. We were within 25 feet of a pair of golden eagles, beaches that would not disgrace the Caribbean, red deer, salmon, and no traffic.
No road traffic and not much digital traffic either. Hours of no phone signal, and broadband only in the hotel. An iphone is pretty useless here.
This is a community that’s pretty dependent on direct channels. The vehicles we saw most frequently were the Royal Mail and other parcel delivery services. But the media channels that drive the sales are analogue and not digital. Local press, TV, local magazines, local radio, and above all Royal Mail are all far more important parts of the media mix than digital here.
This was a useful reminder that sometimes some of the biggest users of direct services may still be in pockets that require an analogue answer and not purely a digital media solution.
Localism is a theme I shall return to …
Mike Colling, Managing Director
Monday 28 June 2010
iAds - ipop ups, just what the world needed
Apple has officially unveiled its new mobile advertising platform, iAds for its new iPhone 4.
The new iAd platform will be built directly into the iPhone 4 OS interface potentially meaning users get little say as to whether they chose to opt in or not. Apple suggest that iAds is being developed to change the face of advertising, but surely this is just a pop up that's been made almost impossible to opt out of as it's preloaded to your handset?
Fear not, Mr Jobs has stated that far from rehash a 10 year old technology, he has in fact identified a flaw of both standard online advertising and TV advertising — the combination of interaction and emotion. The key is that ads will keep users within an app, rather than redirecting users to a browser window. So don't worry that you are seemingly trapped inside a never ending advert as you will be 'enjoying' being 'emotionally interacted with'. Sounds like something a catholic priest might be accused of!
I'm sure all you Apple evangelists will gush that iAds is great and that the ads are so engaging, so relevant, lets just wait until you've been served your 20th 'flab to fab' ad and see how engaged you are! Then again I'm sure there's an app for that.
Bodhi Morrison, Head of Digital MC&C
The new iAd platform will be built directly into the iPhone 4 OS interface potentially meaning users get little say as to whether they chose to opt in or not. Apple suggest that iAds is being developed to change the face of advertising, but surely this is just a pop up that's been made almost impossible to opt out of as it's preloaded to your handset?
Fear not, Mr Jobs has stated that far from rehash a 10 year old technology, he has in fact identified a flaw of both standard online advertising and TV advertising — the combination of interaction and emotion. The key is that ads will keep users within an app, rather than redirecting users to a browser window. So don't worry that you are seemingly trapped inside a never ending advert as you will be 'enjoying' being 'emotionally interacted with'. Sounds like something a catholic priest might be accused of!
I'm sure all you Apple evangelists will gush that iAds is great and that the ads are so engaging, so relevant, lets just wait until you've been served your 20th 'flab to fab' ad and see how engaged you are! Then again I'm sure there's an app for that.
Bodhi Morrison, Head of Digital MC&C
The Budget: every cloud…
Doom! Gloom! Swingeing cuts! While the emergency budget may make for depressing reading for many sections of the UK, what does this practically mean for the advertising and marketing industries?
The advertising industry is one of the most cyclical of all industries – by this I mean that it very closely tracks macro economic movements in terms of UK GDP. Typically, it follows GDP’s suit around two quarters later which means good news over the next year or two if the government’s forecast and the Bellweather Report are to be believed.
Clearly however, the changing financial landscape will affect parts of the UK differently. Were I parent relying on child benefit or a public sector worker seeing consumer goods prices rise thanks to VAT while knowing that my pay was frozen for the next two years, I would not be enthralled by my prospects. Broadly though, the prime ABC1s beloved of advertisers will still be available and willing to spend, so what is the big impact going to be? Regionality – that’s what.
To be more specific, it is not macro regionality, but dynamic shifts within regions at a much more micro level. This will particularly be evident in place such as the North East where there is a high level of public sector employment. Where the region as a whole will probably be adversely affected, some specific areas will remain relatively unaffected thereby creating pockets of people who are disproportionately wealthy compared to their surrounding peers.
This clearly represents an opportunity for highly targeted strategies – where the difference between good and bad targeting can be as wide as just a street or a town, this is extremely vital. What we will see coming into effect is the increased use of micro-targeting, particularly with techniques such as IP flooding, retargeting and postcode level display and emails.
mc&c have previous in this area – have a look at the First Bus case study on the website to see how successful such a strategy could be.
These techniques will enable you to reach customers in more intricate ways – perhaps even down to single contacts. I’m not sure that we could target your vitriol at George Osborne though.
Tim Part, Business Development Manager
Doom! Gloom! Swingeing cuts! While the emergency budget may make for depressing reading for many sections of the UK, what does this practically mean for the advertising and marketing industries?
The advertising industry is one of the most cyclical of all industries – by this I mean that it very closely tracks macro economic movements in terms of UK GDP. Typically, it follows GDP’s suit around two quarters later which means good news over the next year or two if the government’s forecast and the Bellweather Report are to be believed.
Clearly however, the changing financial landscape will affect parts of the UK differently. Were I parent relying on child benefit or a public sector worker seeing consumer goods prices rise thanks to VAT while knowing that my pay was frozen for the next two years, I would not be enthralled by my prospects. Broadly though, the prime ABC1s beloved of advertisers will still be available and willing to spend, so what is the big impact going to be? Regionality – that’s what.
To be more specific, it is not macro regionality, but dynamic shifts within regions at a much more micro level. This will particularly be evident in place such as the North East where there is a high level of public sector employment. Where the region as a whole will probably be adversely affected, some specific areas will remain relatively unaffected thereby creating pockets of people who are disproportionately wealthy compared to their surrounding peers.
This clearly represents an opportunity for highly targeted strategies – where the difference between good and bad targeting can be as wide as just a street or a town, this is extremely vital. What we will see coming into effect is the increased use of micro-targeting, particularly with techniques such as IP flooding, retargeting and postcode level display and emails.
mc&c have previous in this area – have a look at the First Bus case study on the website to see how successful such a strategy could be.
These techniques will enable you to reach customers in more intricate ways – perhaps even down to single contacts. I’m not sure that we could target your vitriol at George Osborne though.
Tim Part, Business Development Manager
Sky Sports News: it’s just not cricket
Friday 18th June was a disastrous day for sport. Forget England’s passable impression of an over 70s team in the scoreless bore-fest with Algeria, I’m talking about Sky’s decision to withdraw Sky Sports News from Freeview and turn it into a pay TV channel. One quotation which appeared beside the BBC report caught my eye. It reads as follows:
“There is a broad, emerging consensus that in the multi-media era it is insane to give content away for nothing”
Tim Luckhurst, Professor of Journalism, University of Kent
Interesting. Provocative. Utter claptrap.
The fact is that as the world becomes more advanced in terms of multi-media content, the easier it becomes to find content of similar quality and substance. Since I churned from the Sky platform to Freeview and subsequently Freesat last year, I have not once laid eyes on Sky Sports and my scarily useless knowledge of all things sporting has not diminished as a result. BBC Sport does the same job in terms of headlines and there are scores of places I can get my Spurs and Surrey fixes earlier than Sky could ever report the gist of the story. Indeed, most of the time Facebook and Twitter get there first.
There are three possible reasons why Sky have taken SSN away from Freeview.
1. They actually think it a valuable commodity. As discussed above, this is crazy. As media fragments, generic content such as SSN becomes less valuable, whereas the crown jewels become the prize. Where else can the UK public watch shows such as 24, Lost or Premier League Football? Professor Luckhurst described SSN as a “loss leader”. He is probably right, but will Sky 3 +1, which has replaced SSN on the Freeview EPG, be as successful?
2. They want to annoy Freeview. In times of recession, downturn and economic strife, downtrading becomes a serious concern for premier businesses. By taking away even the smallest piece of content from Freeview, Sky are flexing their muscles in a public way. It is worth PR in itself.
3. Murdoch’s pay wall is writ in stone. This could be a clear indication that Sky are aggressively pursuing the pay-per-view model for all of their content.
Whatever reason it is, I doubt that there will be serious ramifications for either Sky or Freeview which just makes the decision all the more puzzling.
Going back to the dear Professor, I think I may have been a little unfair. He is not entirely worng – he is just missing a word. Had he said “the wrong content” he would have been spot on. Giving away some of your content as a sweetener is vital – we have seen from our years of work with Which? that giving a free guide gives a much better quality of customer than prize draw. Customers recruited on brand values stay longer and are more profitable than those lured in on a false premise whose latency and inertia provides any revenue. These themes are explored in an article on the subscription business model which can be found on the mc&c website.
Tim Part, Business Development Manager
Friday 18th June was a disastrous day for sport. Forget England’s passable impression of an over 70s team in the scoreless bore-fest with Algeria, I’m talking about Sky’s decision to withdraw Sky Sports News from Freeview and turn it into a pay TV channel. One quotation which appeared beside the BBC report caught my eye. It reads as follows:
“There is a broad, emerging consensus that in the multi-media era it is insane to give content away for nothing”
Tim Luckhurst, Professor of Journalism, University of Kent
Interesting. Provocative. Utter claptrap.
The fact is that as the world becomes more advanced in terms of multi-media content, the easier it becomes to find content of similar quality and substance. Since I churned from the Sky platform to Freeview and subsequently Freesat last year, I have not once laid eyes on Sky Sports and my scarily useless knowledge of all things sporting has not diminished as a result. BBC Sport does the same job in terms of headlines and there are scores of places I can get my Spurs and Surrey fixes earlier than Sky could ever report the gist of the story. Indeed, most of the time Facebook and Twitter get there first.
There are three possible reasons why Sky have taken SSN away from Freeview.
1. They actually think it a valuable commodity. As discussed above, this is crazy. As media fragments, generic content such as SSN becomes less valuable, whereas the crown jewels become the prize. Where else can the UK public watch shows such as 24, Lost or Premier League Football? Professor Luckhurst described SSN as a “loss leader”. He is probably right, but will Sky 3 +1, which has replaced SSN on the Freeview EPG, be as successful?
2. They want to annoy Freeview. In times of recession, downturn and economic strife, downtrading becomes a serious concern for premier businesses. By taking away even the smallest piece of content from Freeview, Sky are flexing their muscles in a public way. It is worth PR in itself.
3. Murdoch’s pay wall is writ in stone. This could be a clear indication that Sky are aggressively pursuing the pay-per-view model for all of their content.
Whatever reason it is, I doubt that there will be serious ramifications for either Sky or Freeview which just makes the decision all the more puzzling.
Going back to the dear Professor, I think I may have been a little unfair. He is not entirely worng – he is just missing a word. Had he said “the wrong content” he would have been spot on. Giving away some of your content as a sweetener is vital – we have seen from our years of work with Which? that giving a free guide gives a much better quality of customer than prize draw. Customers recruited on brand values stay longer and are more profitable than those lured in on a false premise whose latency and inertia provides any revenue. These themes are explored in an article on the subscription business model which can be found on the mc&c website.
Tim Part, Business Development Manager
Thursday 13 May 2010
Twitter or TV?
At the iMedia conference in Brighton this week there was a good deal of discussion about social media and how best to measure it.
Oddly though, there was little consideration of the fact that different verticals will be able to benefit from social media in very different ways.
One way of looking at verticals is to place them on a grid where one axis runs from low to high emotional importance and the other axis runs from low to high rational importance.
Verticals with high emotional importance contain products that we buy because they “say” something about us. Verticals with high rational importance contain products that we buy because we need them.
Using the emotional-rational grid we can divide verticals into four sectors:
High rational, high emotional (HRHE) verticals like travel, motor cars and electrical devices. These are verticals where the functionality needs to be right, where we are risking relatively large amounts of money, and where part of why we buy is because we feel comfortable with the brand
Low rational, high emotional (LRHE) verticals like fashion, print media and charity. These are verticals where we are not risking a great deal, where we don’t really need the products but where we do feel emotional engagement because the products we buy “say” a lot about us
High rational, low emotional (HRLE) verticals like banking, retail and utilities. These are verticals where the functionality needs to be right, where we are risking relatively large amounts of money, but where we are not emotionally engaged with the brand
Low rational, low emotional (LRLE) verticals like washing powder and petrol. These are verticals where we are not taking great risks and where there is no emotional involvement with the brands. While products in these verticals are important the functionality they deliver is generally simple.
HRHE verticals can use social media very creatively. As well as using social media to research the marketplace by listening to conversations and to manage their reputation they can actively “campaign” messages through social media.
LRHE verticals are in a similar position – able to exploit their emotional connection with consumers through social media, although they may need to work harder as there is little they can say about rational benefits.
HRLE verticals however will find it far harder to exploit social media for campaigning. They have little emotional connection with their consumers and proactive use of social media platforms will frequently be considered intrusive – who wants to hear from their bank on Facebook? They can however use social media for market research and importantly for managing their reputations. For instance few people are likely to praise a bank’s service to their friends but many will criticise it if something goes wrong.
The LRLE verticals are the Cinderellas of social media. No one is interested in them: why would you blog about washing powder or review a cleaning fluid? For brands in these verticals social media are far less important. While they should monitor conversations just in case a big issue starts to brew, they need to do little more than that.
Both HRLEs and LRLEs need to employ advertising techniques to add a layer of emotional connection to their brands. But for HRHEs and LRHEs that are considerable opportunities to enhance their brands through social media.
The lesson here is that brands should consider whether they are in a vertical that can usefully use social media for active campaigning or merely for research and for more reactive communication.
A failure to understand this can result in wasted budgets and in losing the opportunities that more powerful media activities can deliver.
Jeremy Swinfen Green, Digital Director
jeremy@mcand.co.uk
Monday 26 April 2010
What should digital TV really look like?
The kind folk at Broadcast magazine recently asked me to act as one of the judges for their Digital Broadcast Awards. It was a fascinating afternoon with, as you would expect, some excellent entries.
My first thought though was: why “digital”? I was told that the awards were about content aired on digital terrestrial channels which of course encompasses anything from BBC 1 and ITV to more niche channels like BBC parliament and FiveUSA as well as various shopping and information channels.
But these days, “digital terrestrial” seems a slightly out of date and artificial set of channels to base an awards ceremony around.
OK they are all free, which is, I suppose, a point of difference. But there are many “TV channels” that are now available purely online while others provide so much content online that you don’t really need a TV to watch them (although of course you still need a TV licence!).
Restricting the awards to purely “digital terrestrial” means that anything winning a “Streamy” award wouldn’t be included for the Broadcast awards.
I am not sure if all that’s particularly important. But it did nake me think about the nature of TV programmes on a digital platform and how they can be developed beyond simple long form TV to enhance the viewer’s experience.
And looking at some of the entrants to the Digital Broadcast Awards helped me identify some of the possibilities.
As well as programmes that make no attempt at online enhancement, there seem to be two aproaches, one which we might call “normal” and one which is very definitely "advanced".
Normal enhancements
There is a “normal” level that looks pretty like the “extras” you get when you buy the DVD of a movie.
- You get the long form video (of course)
- You probably get some additional editorial, perhaps some short form clips and out-takes, pictures and text based bckground
- And you are pretty certain to get one or two more interactive elements: voting perhaps, a forum where you can submit comments, even the opportunity to upload your own pictures or video
- The channel might also market the programme by uploading clips and information to other, third party sites such as YouTube where more people may discover it
Advanced enhancements
But increasingly many programmes are developing advanced online content and applications that really blur the boundaries between the long form TV video format and online interactive formats.
Thus some programmes:
- Use viewer interactions or feeds from Twitter and other sites to tweak story lines
- Create immersive video games based around the programme
- Provide alternative storylines and extra characters online
- Merge the real world with the programme by for instance sending emails to registered viewers from characters in the programme
- Introduce new characters (or even the whole programme) online before they have been seen on the programme
These advanced enhancements are where the real creativity will be seen over the coming year or two. With the rapid acceleration of the long awaited “convergence” between online and TV (as witnessed by the launch of internet enabled TVs) perhaps this area should be the focus of future awards.
It is certainly the area that programme makes should focus on!
Jeremy Swinfen Green, Digital Director
Tuesday 6 April 2010
The first step in a revolution. Or a bold experiment doomed to failure?
So it's finally happened. After months of speculation the first of the UK national newspapers will start charging for online content from June.
It's a brave move which will be watched with interest by many different parties. And despite the confident soundbites coming out of NI there's no doubt that this is a high-risk move.
However it's not necessarily as risky as some are making out. Only the quality papers, which attract an online savvy audience, will be going paid-for initially.
TimesOnline currently has 1.22m daily users. Even if only 5% of these convert they would bring in £1.8m on a daily pass. The initial success of TimesPlus suggests that these numbers aren't just pipedreams.
Moreover the new Times and Sunday Times sites will be very popular with advertisers. In a similar way that paid-for papers bring in a better quality response than the freesheets so NI will have an effective monopoly in this sector and could theoretically charge accordingly.
If Murdoch follows through with his promise of improving content to differentiate his sites from other publishers' then NI may well succeed in stealing consumers away from the free sites. It's no coincidence that this announcement comes hot on the heels of the BBC's declaration that they will be significantly reducing their online offerings.
But it still feels like a very risky move. TimesOnline simply does not inspire the same brand loyalty as Guardian.co.uk, MailOnline and the behemoth that is the BBC. While there are so many other free alternatives out there it's hard to see what NI can offer consumers to put themselves far enough above their competitors to justify charging for content.
Chris Skone James, Senior Planner Buyer
It's a brave move which will be watched with interest by many different parties. And despite the confident soundbites coming out of NI there's no doubt that this is a high-risk move.
However it's not necessarily as risky as some are making out. Only the quality papers, which attract an online savvy audience, will be going paid-for initially.
TimesOnline currently has 1.22m daily users. Even if only 5% of these convert they would bring in £1.8m on a daily pass. The initial success of TimesPlus suggests that these numbers aren't just pipedreams.
Moreover the new Times and Sunday Times sites will be very popular with advertisers. In a similar way that paid-for papers bring in a better quality response than the freesheets so NI will have an effective monopoly in this sector and could theoretically charge accordingly.
If Murdoch follows through with his promise of improving content to differentiate his sites from other publishers' then NI may well succeed in stealing consumers away from the free sites. It's no coincidence that this announcement comes hot on the heels of the BBC's declaration that they will be significantly reducing their online offerings.
But it still feels like a very risky move. TimesOnline simply does not inspire the same brand loyalty as Guardian.co.uk, MailOnline and the behemoth that is the BBC. While there are so many other free alternatives out there it's hard to see what NI can offer consumers to put themselves far enough above their competitors to justify charging for content.
Chris Skone James, Senior Planner Buyer
Tuesday 9 March 2010
The London Weekly – myth or reality?
The London Weekly, a new free newspaper aimed at the London commuter market was launched at the start of February, aiming to fill the gap left following the demise of the London Lite and thelondonpaper in late 2009.
Created by a group of private investors calling themselves Global Publishing, the paper is distributed outside Underground stations on Fridays and Saturdays. The team behind it describe it as "the only free newspaper in London covering light entertainment, gossip, politics, health, music and fashion" – obviously unaware of the London Evening Standard.
Working in the heart of media land, I use the tube to travel to Tottenham Court Road from Stockwell and back again daily, where I’m constantly exposed to the Metro, City AM and the Standard, as well as weekly magazines, such as Shortlist, Stylist and Sport. However, as of yet I’m still to be offered one of the supposed 250,000 copies of the London Weekly – and we’re now on issue 5.
Have I just been in an oblivious daze as I stumble out of the tube on Friday morning still half asleep? Possible but unlikely it seems, as a quick survey of the office reveals nobody else has seen it either – and I’m pretty sure at least half of them were awake.
Launching a new free-sheet in London is a daunting task no doubt, and anyone attempting to do so would of course face difficulties along the way and bumps to smooth. However, targeting Friday and Saturday tube users (Friday users likely being very different to Saturday users) and failing to make it readily available, especially in its first few weeks of existence, seems like a bad way to start.
Kyle Seeley, Planner/Buyer
Created by a group of private investors calling themselves Global Publishing, the paper is distributed outside Underground stations on Fridays and Saturdays. The team behind it describe it as "the only free newspaper in London covering light entertainment, gossip, politics, health, music and fashion" – obviously unaware of the London Evening Standard.
Working in the heart of media land, I use the tube to travel to Tottenham Court Road from Stockwell and back again daily, where I’m constantly exposed to the Metro, City AM and the Standard, as well as weekly magazines, such as Shortlist, Stylist and Sport. However, as of yet I’m still to be offered one of the supposed 250,000 copies of the London Weekly – and we’re now on issue 5.
Have I just been in an oblivious daze as I stumble out of the tube on Friday morning still half asleep? Possible but unlikely it seems, as a quick survey of the office reveals nobody else has seen it either – and I’m pretty sure at least half of them were awake.
Launching a new free-sheet in London is a daunting task no doubt, and anyone attempting to do so would of course face difficulties along the way and bumps to smooth. However, targeting Friday and Saturday tube users (Friday users likely being very different to Saturday users) and failing to make it readily available, especially in its first few weeks of existence, seems like a bad way to start.
Kyle Seeley, Planner/Buyer
Monday 22 February 2010
Adding some rigour to social media measurement
Measuring the effectiveness of social media marketing is a fairly fuzzy activity. Putting a little structure around it can therefore be useful.
There are three main types of measurement you can consider. There's absolute data – data that measures size. There is trend data – data that measures change. And there is comparative data – which you could use for benchmarking.
Absolute data is factual – I might have 5000 Twitter followers, or 37 people might have commented on this blog post. Or perhaps 6000 people viewed my video on YouTube. Or my brand was mentioned 5000 times in forums. Etc etc. Some of this can perhaps be assigned a value in media terms. And while it isn't always easy to assign an appropriate value (what is a Facebook fan worth?) at least you can make a start.
Trend data is also factual – but as you are comparing two sets of data, as you can with tools like Alterian's SM2, the important fact is the change in the data. Thus if there are 10,000 positive mentions of my brand through social media in August that may or may not be good: it's hard to know. But if there were 9000 in July and 12,000 in September I can be pretty confident that I am going in the right direction and that the value of those mentions in September is 125% of the value in July.
And there is comparative data. I might have 12,000 positive brand mentions in September. But if my competitor got 50,000 that month I'm not looking so bright!
We can also separate the results of social media conversations into four areas: views, conversations, actions and effects.
First there are views. Sometimes it's possible to measure the number of people who have seen some of your social media conversations – for instance by measuring visitor numbers to your blog. You won't always be able to measure that – but where you can this may be a helpful metric.
Often these numbers will be small – perhaps too small to be relevant in media terms. But they might not be. If Sony Bravia gets a couple of million views of its ad on YouTube then that's worth something. Probably more in fact than 2 million OTSs on TV.
Then there are conversations. These are simply mentions of your brand or your competitors in various places – forums, blogs, file shares etc. They can be good, bad or indifferent (and you should be measuring that). At its simplest it equates to your PR agency counting the press clips.
Next there are actions. This is when people have done something – taken an action of some kind, perhaps signing up to follow you on Twitter, or responding to a comment you have made in a forum.
Again often the numbers here will be very small – and the real value may not be in terms of media but in terms of the opportunity they bring to engage with brand advocates.
And finally we have effects. This is when you can see that social media activity has had an effect on something else you are doing. For instance, and at its simplest, you could measure the effect (or at least some of the effect) of social media on web traffic by tracking people from appropriate sources such as social networking sites.
Other effects might only be measurable through data analysis, for instance identifying links between social media campaigns and calls to a call centre or online sales.
Of course the effect might well be softer than a measurable and identifable action. It may be a shift in purchase propensity or brand favourability on the part of people exposed to your social media. That's harder to measure although not impossible using standard quantitative research techniques.
So there you have it. A little 3 by 4 matrix that should help you put some rigour into the process of evaluating social media.
Jeremy Swinfen Green, Digital Director
jeremy@mcand.co.uk
There are three main types of measurement you can consider. There's absolute data – data that measures size. There is trend data – data that measures change. And there is comparative data – which you could use for benchmarking.
Absolute data is factual – I might have 5000 Twitter followers, or 37 people might have commented on this blog post. Or perhaps 6000 people viewed my video on YouTube. Or my brand was mentioned 5000 times in forums. Etc etc. Some of this can perhaps be assigned a value in media terms. And while it isn't always easy to assign an appropriate value (what is a Facebook fan worth?) at least you can make a start.
Trend data is also factual – but as you are comparing two sets of data, as you can with tools like Alterian's SM2, the important fact is the change in the data. Thus if there are 10,000 positive mentions of my brand through social media in August that may or may not be good: it's hard to know. But if there were 9000 in July and 12,000 in September I can be pretty confident that I am going in the right direction and that the value of those mentions in September is 125% of the value in July.
And there is comparative data. I might have 12,000 positive brand mentions in September. But if my competitor got 50,000 that month I'm not looking so bright!
We can also separate the results of social media conversations into four areas: views, conversations, actions and effects.
First there are views. Sometimes it's possible to measure the number of people who have seen some of your social media conversations – for instance by measuring visitor numbers to your blog. You won't always be able to measure that – but where you can this may be a helpful metric.
Often these numbers will be small – perhaps too small to be relevant in media terms. But they might not be. If Sony Bravia gets a couple of million views of its ad on YouTube then that's worth something. Probably more in fact than 2 million OTSs on TV.
Then there are conversations. These are simply mentions of your brand or your competitors in various places – forums, blogs, file shares etc. They can be good, bad or indifferent (and you should be measuring that). At its simplest it equates to your PR agency counting the press clips.
Next there are actions. This is when people have done something – taken an action of some kind, perhaps signing up to follow you on Twitter, or responding to a comment you have made in a forum.
Again often the numbers here will be very small – and the real value may not be in terms of media but in terms of the opportunity they bring to engage with brand advocates.
And finally we have effects. This is when you can see that social media activity has had an effect on something else you are doing. For instance, and at its simplest, you could measure the effect (or at least some of the effect) of social media on web traffic by tracking people from appropriate sources such as social networking sites.
Other effects might only be measurable through data analysis, for instance identifying links between social media campaigns and calls to a call centre or online sales.
Of course the effect might well be softer than a measurable and identifable action. It may be a shift in purchase propensity or brand favourability on the part of people exposed to your social media. That's harder to measure although not impossible using standard quantitative research techniques.
So there you have it. A little 3 by 4 matrix that should help you put some rigour into the process of evaluating social media.
Jeremy Swinfen Green, Digital Director
jeremy@mcand.co.uk
Friday 5 February 2010
Mobile Media Metrics: a good start by the GSMA. But...
The GSMA announced the launch of their mobile media metrics tool, delivered by Comscore, at the London Imax yesterday.
It was certainly a popular event, and massively over-subscribed by all accounts. So I went along ready to be impressed.
Well, to their credit, the GSMA have managed to get the five main UK mobile operators, O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and 3UK, into one space, sharing usage data to allow robust reach and frequency numbers to be accessed by media planners.
That’s useful. We can see that 16 million people in the UK accessed the web via mobile devices (by which they mean phones – small screens, limited ease of use, but always on and always with you).
And we can see where they go: Facebook, Google, the operators, the BBC… (Actually, when you look at the figures in a bit more depth and examine page views and minutes of use, you find that mobile media is really little more than Facebook Media, but that’s another story.)
And, because GSMA have negotiated a survey of a section of mobile users we can even make some assumptions about the socio-demographics of mobile web site visitors. (Although these are assumptions and I believe will be open to some question.)
But. And it’s a very big but:
There is still no independent data. At the moment all the data comes from the operators. So you buy some media. And the operators will tell you whether or not it has been delivered.
For mobile media to have any credibility (and Michael Smith of the COI was quick to point this out yesterday) we do need to see independent campaign data such as that which is delivered by third party ad servers in “fixed” internet advertising.
Without that (and irrespective of whether you feel the heavy dominance of Facebook is an issue), it will be hard to justify serious spending on mobile media.
Jeremy Swinfen Green, Digital Director
It was certainly a popular event, and massively over-subscribed by all accounts. So I went along ready to be impressed.
Well, to their credit, the GSMA have managed to get the five main UK mobile operators, O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and 3UK, into one space, sharing usage data to allow robust reach and frequency numbers to be accessed by media planners.
That’s useful. We can see that 16 million people in the UK accessed the web via mobile devices (by which they mean phones – small screens, limited ease of use, but always on and always with you).
And we can see where they go: Facebook, Google, the operators, the BBC… (Actually, when you look at the figures in a bit more depth and examine page views and minutes of use, you find that mobile media is really little more than Facebook Media, but that’s another story.)
And, because GSMA have negotiated a survey of a section of mobile users we can even make some assumptions about the socio-demographics of mobile web site visitors. (Although these are assumptions and I believe will be open to some question.)
But. And it’s a very big but:
There is still no independent data. At the moment all the data comes from the operators. So you buy some media. And the operators will tell you whether or not it has been delivered.
For mobile media to have any credibility (and Michael Smith of the COI was quick to point this out yesterday) we do need to see independent campaign data such as that which is delivered by third party ad servers in “fixed” internet advertising.
Without that (and irrespective of whether you feel the heavy dominance of Facebook is an issue), it will be hard to justify serious spending on mobile media.
Jeremy Swinfen Green, Digital Director
Thursday 28 January 2010
DRTV exists - honest!
On Tuesday I was invited, along with some of my colleagues, to Response TV – an event organised by ITV to present some research they had conducted with the DMA to prove that TV advertising makes other media work harder.
Well, I can tell you I went with high hopes that ITV were finally going to acknowledge that DRTV exists. And that it is a good thing.
We arrived at Television Centre and were invited to watch a film. The voice-over stated: “It is widely accepted that TV advertising works by building brand associations over the long term. ... However, the responsiveness of TV campaigns could historically only be estimated by long-term sales figures or post-campaign research. Response was almost impossible to calculate accurately and brand owners would shy away from television”
Right – so I’ll just get my coat then as clearly I have been making up all of those phone calls generated in direct response to a TV ad.
No wait – once again it's simply a case that DRTV doesn't actually seem to exist. The only thing worth talking about seems to be 'Brand' television advertising.
I do get a bit cross at times – DRTV is estimated to account for 35-40% of all TV advertising. Based on 2009 Neilson figures that would put the value at between £1.2 and £1.35 billion!
But let me forget my grumpiness for a minute. A study being done by a reputable trade body such as the DMA backing up what we have been saying for quite a while now is fantastic.
At MC&C, we have numerous case studies showing that TV uplifts other activity – DRTV, inserts, doordrops, search etc. And it's nice to have someone back it up.
Anything that gets brands back to spending on TV has to be good for everyone in the media and advertising industry. This might help the TV stations get back the nearly £1/2 billion revenue lost from 2008!
Nicky Legg, Broadcast Director
Well, I can tell you I went with high hopes that ITV were finally going to acknowledge that DRTV exists. And that it is a good thing.
We arrived at Television Centre and were invited to watch a film. The voice-over stated: “It is widely accepted that TV advertising works by building brand associations over the long term. ... However, the responsiveness of TV campaigns could historically only be estimated by long-term sales figures or post-campaign research. Response was almost impossible to calculate accurately and brand owners would shy away from television”
Right – so I’ll just get my coat then as clearly I have been making up all of those phone calls generated in direct response to a TV ad.
No wait – once again it's simply a case that DRTV doesn't actually seem to exist. The only thing worth talking about seems to be 'Brand' television advertising.
I do get a bit cross at times – DRTV is estimated to account for 35-40% of all TV advertising. Based on 2009 Neilson figures that would put the value at between £1.2 and £1.35 billion!
But let me forget my grumpiness for a minute. A study being done by a reputable trade body such as the DMA backing up what we have been saying for quite a while now is fantastic.
At MC&C, we have numerous case studies showing that TV uplifts other activity – DRTV, inserts, doordrops, search etc. And it's nice to have someone back it up.
Anything that gets brands back to spending on TV has to be good for everyone in the media and advertising industry. This might help the TV stations get back the nearly £1/2 billion revenue lost from 2008!
Nicky Legg, Broadcast Director
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Is L’Oreal wrecking your magazine recruitment strategy?
The Daily Mail is re-launching its highly successful Weekend Magazine on the 30th January. MC&C have seen the dummy and, as you might expect from the deep pockets of Associated, it looks great!
Further refined focus on the female readership with celebrity photo shoots & interviews, fashion, shopping and food, with the usual support in the back half from the weekly TV review, gardening and travel. All in the best possible taste – Darlings!
Issue sizes will increase from 72 to 80 pages and advertising pages will also increase by 3 or 4 an issue. It will benefit from a national marketing re-launch and we would expect the magazine to have traction with the readership and deliver strong numbers.
So what’s the problem? Well if you are a direct response advertiser, then advertising will be restricted to a minimum 4 page “classified” section at the back of the title, with no opportunity to book covers or opposite display editorial pages. As a result, this stalwart of the mail order sector will reduce in its ability to deliver volume, optimum ROI efficiency, as well as brand traction.
So why have The Daily Mail done it? You guessed it – revenue! The national press supplement market has been traditionally reliant on DR revenues for its income. As traditional media channels have diversified and online grown spectacularly, DR advertisers have been spending less.
So who did they turn to? L’Oreal and the other brand fashionistas! But they won’t book into low quality editorial or a editorial environment that contains any DR advertising whatsoever. So media owners have had to fundamentally change their product in order to chase the money.
But Hey! How difficult is this decision really? It’s a no brainer! You Magazine blazed the trail almost 10 years ago, morphing into a quasi Marie Claire / She magazine and banishing all but the blandest of brand/DR ads from the magazine altogether. Live followed – they similarly upgraded their male focussed content two weekends ago – but have not taken DR for over 3 years.
The real “sit up and smell the coffee” moment has been News Group’s Fabulous. On the 3rd February 2008 they scrapped Sunday Magazine , relaunched as a female magazine and banished DR altogether. Sources indicate that this magazine actually saw a double digit revenue increase year on year in very challenging times. This has not gone unnoticed by other publishers.
So how long can Mirror Group & Express resist this move? Even the likes of the weekly magazine groups like IPC and Bauer have done very nicely thank you last year on reduced pagination and FMCG advertising – pushing DR advertisers out because they pay less!
So what to do about it? Yes re-negotiate your rates. But this does not address the fundamental issues of replacing volumes and growing quality customer bases.
So if you thought online was just PPC – think again. Are you engaging with the even larger number of online readers that traditional media owners often reach? Partnerships, video, cost per acquisition deals. No? Colour classified in newspapers? You have never got DRTV to work? And what about pre-rolls and VOD?
MC&C think ahead for our clients and look to manage the risk of evolving recruitment strategies proactively as the marketplace evolves. Remember: the next time you see a lipstick advert in a national press supplement – you are probably kissing a frog!
John Willacy, Trading Director
Further refined focus on the female readership with celebrity photo shoots & interviews, fashion, shopping and food, with the usual support in the back half from the weekly TV review, gardening and travel. All in the best possible taste – Darlings!
Issue sizes will increase from 72 to 80 pages and advertising pages will also increase by 3 or 4 an issue. It will benefit from a national marketing re-launch and we would expect the magazine to have traction with the readership and deliver strong numbers.
So what’s the problem? Well if you are a direct response advertiser, then advertising will be restricted to a minimum 4 page “classified” section at the back of the title, with no opportunity to book covers or opposite display editorial pages. As a result, this stalwart of the mail order sector will reduce in its ability to deliver volume, optimum ROI efficiency, as well as brand traction.
So why have The Daily Mail done it? You guessed it – revenue! The national press supplement market has been traditionally reliant on DR revenues for its income. As traditional media channels have diversified and online grown spectacularly, DR advertisers have been spending less.
So who did they turn to? L’Oreal and the other brand fashionistas! But they won’t book into low quality editorial or a editorial environment that contains any DR advertising whatsoever. So media owners have had to fundamentally change their product in order to chase the money.
But Hey! How difficult is this decision really? It’s a no brainer! You Magazine blazed the trail almost 10 years ago, morphing into a quasi Marie Claire / She magazine and banishing all but the blandest of brand/DR ads from the magazine altogether. Live followed – they similarly upgraded their male focussed content two weekends ago – but have not taken DR for over 3 years.
The real “sit up and smell the coffee” moment has been News Group’s Fabulous. On the 3rd February 2008 they scrapped Sunday Magazine , relaunched as a female magazine and banished DR altogether. Sources indicate that this magazine actually saw a double digit revenue increase year on year in very challenging times. This has not gone unnoticed by other publishers.
So how long can Mirror Group & Express resist this move? Even the likes of the weekly magazine groups like IPC and Bauer have done very nicely thank you last year on reduced pagination and FMCG advertising – pushing DR advertisers out because they pay less!
So what to do about it? Yes re-negotiate your rates. But this does not address the fundamental issues of replacing volumes and growing quality customer bases.
So if you thought online was just PPC – think again. Are you engaging with the even larger number of online readers that traditional media owners often reach? Partnerships, video, cost per acquisition deals. No? Colour classified in newspapers? You have never got DRTV to work? And what about pre-rolls and VOD?
MC&C think ahead for our clients and look to manage the risk of evolving recruitment strategies proactively as the marketplace evolves. Remember: the next time you see a lipstick advert in a national press supplement – you are probably kissing a frog!
John Willacy, Trading Director
Thursday 21 January 2010
3D: the future of advertising?
Took myself and the boys off to see Avatar at the weekend. OK Sci Fi story but the 3D special effects were magnificent.
It has to be the future of video – and video advertising. Cars would leap out of the screen at you; well-honed bodies would thrust beauty and grooming products at you; and you’d positively want to reach into the screen to help those poor freezing meercats.
But is this realistic? Whether or not film studios decide that 3D is the future of block-buster movies, the future of TV is far more uncertain. It isn’t that 3D-capable TVs would be massively expensive to manufacture. Or that home audiences would be reluctant to wear 3D glasses.
There just isn’t a lot of money around in TV studios at the moment. Sky (buoyed up by subscription revenues) is planning a 3D TV channel later this year. But it is unlikely that many other commercial broadcasters will be spending a lot of money on creating 3D programming. Even with the benefits of Moore’s Law, this would require an unrealistically large investment in new equipment for several years yet, as well as the development of new skill sets within TV production and artistic staff.
Nonetheless 3D advertising does have an allure that perhaps advertisers will find hard to resist. So if they cannot find an outlet in TV, where will they look?
Well, cinema of course is one place. Wrigley launched a 3D cinema ad last summer. And more recently brands like Royal Caribbean have created ads that do make good use of 3D technology. But cinema, although a fine place to display high quality advertising, is limited in terms of reach and frequency.
Perhaps the future lies elsewhere. Increasingly TVs come ready for connection to the internet. And “watching” the internet on TV – whether it’s for catch up TV, looking at Youtube videos or simply communicating via Facebook – is increasingly common. Is there an opportunity then for TV-delivered internet to be the place that 3D advertising comes alive?
Hmm – I can’t see many people donning those 3D glasses to just to watch advertising! So if 3D advertising is to succeed it will have to be placed in a context where people are already wearing their specs. Where could that be? Well, some might argue that 3D effects make more sense in a video game than in a movie. And certainly 3D video games are going to be big business in the next months…
Could “in-game” or “advergaming” be the future of 3D advertising? The medium has beeen around for years (remember the Peperami animal game?). But it’s never really taken off. Perhaps this time round it will.
Jeremy Swinfen Green
Digital Director
It has to be the future of video – and video advertising. Cars would leap out of the screen at you; well-honed bodies would thrust beauty and grooming products at you; and you’d positively want to reach into the screen to help those poor freezing meercats.
But is this realistic? Whether or not film studios decide that 3D is the future of block-buster movies, the future of TV is far more uncertain. It isn’t that 3D-capable TVs would be massively expensive to manufacture. Or that home audiences would be reluctant to wear 3D glasses.
There just isn’t a lot of money around in TV studios at the moment. Sky (buoyed up by subscription revenues) is planning a 3D TV channel later this year. But it is unlikely that many other commercial broadcasters will be spending a lot of money on creating 3D programming. Even with the benefits of Moore’s Law, this would require an unrealistically large investment in new equipment for several years yet, as well as the development of new skill sets within TV production and artistic staff.
Nonetheless 3D advertising does have an allure that perhaps advertisers will find hard to resist. So if they cannot find an outlet in TV, where will they look?
Well, cinema of course is one place. Wrigley launched a 3D cinema ad last summer. And more recently brands like Royal Caribbean have created ads that do make good use of 3D technology. But cinema, although a fine place to display high quality advertising, is limited in terms of reach and frequency.
Perhaps the future lies elsewhere. Increasingly TVs come ready for connection to the internet. And “watching” the internet on TV – whether it’s for catch up TV, looking at Youtube videos or simply communicating via Facebook – is increasingly common. Is there an opportunity then for TV-delivered internet to be the place that 3D advertising comes alive?
Hmm – I can’t see many people donning those 3D glasses to just to watch advertising! So if 3D advertising is to succeed it will have to be placed in a context where people are already wearing their specs. Where could that be? Well, some might argue that 3D effects make more sense in a video game than in a movie. And certainly 3D video games are going to be big business in the next months…
Could “in-game” or “advergaming” be the future of 3D advertising? The medium has beeen around for years (remember the Peperami animal game?). But it’s never really taken off. Perhaps this time round it will.
Jeremy Swinfen Green
Digital Director
Tuesday 19 January 2010
India: A massive emerging DR opportunity
I have just had four of the most energetic and enervating days that I have had for a long time. One of our clients asked me to join them for a trip to Mumbai to review the media scene there, and the opportunities for recruiting subscribers to their organisation.
Before I went I guess my understanding of India was hazy to say the least - major inputs being Slumdog Millionaire and EM Forster.
What I found was a group of bright, creative, motivated entrepreneurs. And that applied across the board from the smaller organisations right up to big corporates.
We met with a bunch of media owners, clients and agencies. What we found was a media scene of extremes. Fewer than 10 million broadband internet connections. More than 350 million mobile phones. The largest circulation newspaper at just 5 million copies, but pay TV penetration at nearly 100 million homes.
Direct marketing as a discipline is still fairly immature. It is used mostly for CRM (airline loyalty programmes, financial services cross selling). There is little direct mail for acquisition as data sets are small and of dubious quality.
But the DRTV scene is alive and flourishing. The suburban Indian housewife has discovered the delights of slow cookers, teeth whiteners and exercise equipment in the same way middle America did. And DRTV is beginning to creep into the mainstream marketers lexicon, with financial services and charities conducting campaigns that we would recognise in the UK.
It's potentially a very interesting opportunity for DM acquisition. A growing market of affluent middle class (numbers vary but think more middle class Indians than Americans in the next 10 years), very low media rates (say 10%-20% of UK rates) and a sophisticated call centre infrastructure.
I’m going back. I don’t know how yet, but I am sure India represents volume and value opportunities for our clients and ourselves.
Mike Colling, Managing Director
Before I went I guess my understanding of India was hazy to say the least - major inputs being Slumdog Millionaire and EM Forster.
What I found was a group of bright, creative, motivated entrepreneurs. And that applied across the board from the smaller organisations right up to big corporates.
We met with a bunch of media owners, clients and agencies. What we found was a media scene of extremes. Fewer than 10 million broadband internet connections. More than 350 million mobile phones. The largest circulation newspaper at just 5 million copies, but pay TV penetration at nearly 100 million homes.
Direct marketing as a discipline is still fairly immature. It is used mostly for CRM (airline loyalty programmes, financial services cross selling). There is little direct mail for acquisition as data sets are small and of dubious quality.
But the DRTV scene is alive and flourishing. The suburban Indian housewife has discovered the delights of slow cookers, teeth whiteners and exercise equipment in the same way middle America did. And DRTV is beginning to creep into the mainstream marketers lexicon, with financial services and charities conducting campaigns that we would recognise in the UK.
It's potentially a very interesting opportunity for DM acquisition. A growing market of affluent middle class (numbers vary but think more middle class Indians than Americans in the next 10 years), very low media rates (say 10%-20% of UK rates) and a sophisticated call centre infrastructure.
I’m going back. I don’t know how yet, but I am sure India represents volume and value opportunities for our clients and ourselves.
Mike Colling, Managing Director
Friday 15 January 2010
Improving measurability between off line and online media
We now understand more about the link between online and offline media. And we know more about the customer journey. But are we using this understanding to measure the journey a consumer takes between offline and online media?
Is it sufficient to say we know that offline media drives consumers online when we can't measure the success our offline media has in driving potential customers online?
How can we identify which of our offline media drives our search? We can monitor the search uplift in and around television adverts, as we know what time the messages are consumed by our audience so any spikes can reasonably be attributed to these spots.
It's trickier where press and out of home are concerned because when the media are consumed is harder to pin-point. And of course increased time shifting behaviour with TV (e.g. PVRs and ITV Player) makes even TV's effect on online harder to measure.
But what if we told our audience what to search for online within the creative copy?
Potentially we could use one word for tube car panels that is relevant and memorable to the campaign, one for our press adverts and a different one for TV. The copy could simply read “to find out more search…….”, or “to take advantage of this offer search……”.
There's another benefit. If the key words or search terms used are different to those your competitors are using then this could mean you to pay less per click to obtain a customer compared to the more expensive generic search terms that are used by people who have not seen an offline advert.
And you are more likely to convert your audience. Sometimes if you are not at the top of search listings you lose a potential sale to one of your competitors (which you really earned because you paid for the offline ad which drove them online in the first place!)
This problem can be alleviated by using the “search for” mechanism as none (or certainly fewer) of your competitors should appear in the search listings.
Measurable, cheaper and more effective. Media-relevant campaign search terms are a powerful tool!
Christopher Bell, Media Assistant
Is it sufficient to say we know that offline media drives consumers online when we can't measure the success our offline media has in driving potential customers online?
How can we identify which of our offline media drives our search? We can monitor the search uplift in and around television adverts, as we know what time the messages are consumed by our audience so any spikes can reasonably be attributed to these spots.
It's trickier where press and out of home are concerned because when the media are consumed is harder to pin-point. And of course increased time shifting behaviour with TV (e.g. PVRs and ITV Player) makes even TV's effect on online harder to measure.
But what if we told our audience what to search for online within the creative copy?
Potentially we could use one word for tube car panels that is relevant and memorable to the campaign, one for our press adverts and a different one for TV. The copy could simply read “to find out more search…….”, or “to take advantage of this offer search……”.
There's another benefit. If the key words or search terms used are different to those your competitors are using then this could mean you to pay less per click to obtain a customer compared to the more expensive generic search terms that are used by people who have not seen an offline advert.
And you are more likely to convert your audience. Sometimes if you are not at the top of search listings you lose a potential sale to one of your competitors (which you really earned because you paid for the offline ad which drove them online in the first place!)
This problem can be alleviated by using the “search for” mechanism as none (or certainly fewer) of your competitors should appear in the search listings.
Measurable, cheaper and more effective. Media-relevant campaign search terms are a powerful tool!
Christopher Bell, Media Assistant
Thursday 7 January 2010
Useful local apps will build real brand engagement
There are seminal moments in the development of any new medium and I think I have just been part of one.
Check out http://uksnow.benmarsh.co.uk/ or see #uksnowmap 2.0 on Twitter.
It’s a Google map of the UK, but with tweet comments on snow fall and uploaded mobile phone photos of the snow where the users are.
Never mind weather reports and AA snap shots, this is real-time real-location weather reporting.
This is a great example of consumers congregating around a brand new but really relevant and useful application.
The first brand to harness this level of local engagement will do so well. I want it to be one of ours!
Mike Colling, Managing Director
Check out http://uksnow.benmarsh.co.uk/ or see #uksnowmap 2.0 on Twitter.
It’s a Google map of the UK, but with tweet comments on snow fall and uploaded mobile phone photos of the snow where the users are.
Never mind weather reports and AA snap shots, this is real-time real-location weather reporting.
This is a great example of consumers congregating around a brand new but really relevant and useful application.
The first brand to harness this level of local engagement will do so well. I want it to be one of ours!
Mike Colling, Managing Director
Tuesday 5 January 2010
Social media etiquette
In the last few weeks I have witnessed a couple of occasions when people who have been asked for “friendship” on social media sites have reacted aggressively.
In one instance a woman on LinkedIn asked for reassurance when someone she had tried to connect with rebuffed her approach and told her not to “misuse” the system. Unsurprisingly she received a lot of support and sympathy from other members.
And then, more recently, I read a vigorous discussion in the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) about the rights and wrongs of someone on the list asking another member for friend status on Facebook. In this case the reactions were far more mixed with as many people decrying this as an intrusion as supporting the attempt at building a network.
So who’s right? What is the etiquette here?
In LinkedIn it seems perfectly in order to ask to connect with someone who is a member of the same professional group that you are a member of. Surely that is what online networking is about.
It’s like being at a party or a business networking event: you may not know someone there but you talk to them because you have friends or colleagues in common. And if the person you approach doesn’t want to connect with you all they have to do is say “no”. There is no need to shout and scream about “misusing” the party!
But is Facebook any different? Well, I suppose Facebook is often more closely aligned to friendships in the physical world. But not always.
Increasingly Facebook is used to set up interest groups (in a similar way to Ning, I guess.) And in the case I am talking about the “victim/criminal” was using Facebook to promote a professional grouping on Ning. So it seems perfectly reasonable for him to get in touch with people asking them to “friend” him and join his new group. And again, if people don’t want to connect, all they need to do is say “no”. (I also got an invitation, which I accepted even though I have never met him.)
My conclusions?
First there are plenty of plonkers in the world and if you ever raise your head above the online parapet you should do so in the expectation that one of them may well have a pop at you. So make sure that your skin is at least reasonably thick.
And second, if you are approached by someone you don’t know, and don’t want to know, in a social networking environment, just say “no thanks” politely. To respond to a social invitation with rudeness implies that you are either bizarrely terrified of other people or massively puffed up with your own importance. Neither says much about you.
Jeremy Swinfen Green
Digital Director
In one instance a woman on LinkedIn asked for reassurance when someone she had tried to connect with rebuffed her approach and told her not to “misuse” the system. Unsurprisingly she received a lot of support and sympathy from other members.
And then, more recently, I read a vigorous discussion in the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) about the rights and wrongs of someone on the list asking another member for friend status on Facebook. In this case the reactions were far more mixed with as many people decrying this as an intrusion as supporting the attempt at building a network.
So who’s right? What is the etiquette here?
In LinkedIn it seems perfectly in order to ask to connect with someone who is a member of the same professional group that you are a member of. Surely that is what online networking is about.
It’s like being at a party or a business networking event: you may not know someone there but you talk to them because you have friends or colleagues in common. And if the person you approach doesn’t want to connect with you all they have to do is say “no”. There is no need to shout and scream about “misusing” the party!
But is Facebook any different? Well, I suppose Facebook is often more closely aligned to friendships in the physical world. But not always.
Increasingly Facebook is used to set up interest groups (in a similar way to Ning, I guess.) And in the case I am talking about the “victim/criminal” was using Facebook to promote a professional grouping on Ning. So it seems perfectly reasonable for him to get in touch with people asking them to “friend” him and join his new group. And again, if people don’t want to connect, all they need to do is say “no”. (I also got an invitation, which I accepted even though I have never met him.)
My conclusions?
First there are plenty of plonkers in the world and if you ever raise your head above the online parapet you should do so in the expectation that one of them may well have a pop at you. So make sure that your skin is at least reasonably thick.
And second, if you are approached by someone you don’t know, and don’t want to know, in a social networking environment, just say “no thanks” politely. To respond to a social invitation with rudeness implies that you are either bizarrely terrified of other people or massively puffed up with your own importance. Neither says much about you.
Jeremy Swinfen Green
Digital Director
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