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
Wednesday 28 July 2010
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)