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Cutting the cord

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:17:22 -0600

The end is near.

"If you could only keep one thing out of a list that included your phone, your TV or your computer and Internet connection, what would it be?"

Five years ago, in a study of digitally savvy youth, the answer was "computer + Internet." Now, in a recent study of "digital divas," those "16% of women who are most wired (and) highly viral," according to AdAge, the response is the same.

The end is going mainstream.

We can live without our land lines.

We can live without TV.

We can even live without our mobile phones.

But we can't live without an Internet-enabled computer.

I can attest to the appeal. My home schedule (two kids under 3) makes it almost impossible to see prime time TV in prime time. My 3G iPhone has greater functionality than the land line (but we're still stuck on the idea of "safety" with the home phone, so we'll likely keep it until we embrace VOIP).

This shift also has a lot to do with Chris' recent post. Network video players are fast replacing the network TV interface in terms of quality and functionality. Hulu is just too easy, and looks great in full screen mode running on our 32" Aquos off a Mac Mini. Though, I have to say I dig Fox's custom player--it seems to handle the streaming better than NBC's or Hulu. Go, Fringe!

As a frequent business traveler, I've also noticed a potential downturn in revenue for hotels. With free wifi, I can watch free films and network video content. Why order it off the TV?

The opportunity in this era, it seems, is in following the viewer. How can brands help viewers access content? Owning players, sponsoring skins, and various forms of pre/mid/post roll are worthy--and increasingly necessary and unavoidable--investments.

Don't block (or ignore) the flow, ride it.

Stacked :15's at CWtv.com Shows That Online Video Growing Up

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:05:12 -0600

I was catching up on Supernatural (Guilty as charged, I don't care. Jensen Ackles will be a big star someday, but I digress.) And something happened that I have been expecting for a long time. I witnessed the first online video commercial pod. Two :15's back-to-back.

Now the CW's video player is one of the worst video players out there (TNT, you are worse, but again I digress), and other than the Gossip Girls none of their shows are all that buzzy (they even tried to kill that, but yet again, I digress). And now the CW is trying to mix up the current pre-roll and single :15 pod length formula. Sure, their moves across the board show that they are out of step with premium online video eco-system. But, in a bad-for-the-viewer, good-for-the-industry kind of way this is good news long-term for online video.

In the beginning (and we are still in the beginning, folks) fewer ads were seen as necessary to spur online video viewing, but as people get accustom to watching online and the market matures, expect longer and longer ad pods, until they reach parity with TV. This is expensive content to produce, and CPM's aren't high enough to make up the difference between TV and online pod lengths.

Enjoy the relative lack of advertising for premium content online while it last, because today's environment is not a sustainable business model. In 2008 nearly 80% of internet users watched video online. The Wall Street Journal states that 90% of broadcast shows and 20% of cable show are available online. When the Wall Street Journal says it is socially acceptable to cancel cable for Netflix and online alternatives, hold on to your butts.

Simply put, more than anywhere, balance sheets abhor a vacuum. When Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC says, "We can't trade analog dollars for digital pennies", he isn't kidding. Enjoy the relative ad free world of online video, cuz it ain't getting any better moving forward.

Is a tagline a tag?

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:41:01 -0600

Coming from a traditional advertising background, I'm always looking for the commonalities with digital advertising rather than the differences. As a group of us were discussing how to brand a new client the other day, it struck me how much search has changed the practice of branding and all the stuff -logos, taglines-that go with it. Brand used to be a purchasing short cut. I like my Chevy car, I bet I'll like a truck with a Chevy logo on it too. Pre-search engine, getting information about product quality was hard. So trust, trust in the brand, was pretty much all you had to start with. Search has changed that. You can type "truck" or "half-ton truck" or even "best half-ton truck" and get a page full of professional and personal reviews on every brand truck available.

So what about that old standby of branding, the tagline? The killer tagline was to ticket to branding success. It seems almost quaint to me now. Why? Because today are people aren't searching for trucks under "The Heartbeat of America." Seems like taglines might have to act more like- tags. Less poetic, more descriptive. Like, " A truck for every job." or "More trucks for more Americans." Yes these are lame, but you get the idea. Copywriters take note.

While we're at it, is there really any reason to put a url. in a TV spot? Do people write them down and run to their computers? No. I think a lot of people just type a whatever fragment of the url. they can recall, into the search box. I do that with urls I do know. Saves me the "http://www." part.

Given the trouble it takes to find a decent url., one that somebody hasn't already squatted on, I'm wondering how long before businesses stop identifying themselves by their url. At some point I'm thinking browsers might let you hide the address box altogether.

Translating the gap

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 15:35:36 -0600

Never before has a willingness to comprehend technology--to understand its implications--been so important for everyone working inside advertising. As Advertising Week 2008 parades 1960s ad man character Don Draper onstage, look back: No one other than, perhaps, a producer had to hold technical experience in order to make an ad "happen." All that writers, art directors or account managers were required to have were ideas, and iron stomachs.

No more. Today, as Adweek's Brian Morrissey notes, "technology companies and agencies will need to get on the same page." The current problem facing Silicon Valley, as Morrissey puts it, is in creating business models, "that seem to think advertising is akin to a spigot that can be turned on." Likewise, Madison Avenue still struggles to comprehend how media (and technology) can be the message, without always favoring or, "insisting on scale when making media buys."

The middle ground is relevancy.

As the audience further fragments, as it becomes easier to entertain yourself in narrower niches, the opportunity for brands grows in having the desire to embrace technology that facilitates speaking in more and more personal (read "human") terms. It's about moving from models of pure mass (reach and frequency); moving away from old methodologies purely focused on making it easier to speak to more people more often. It's about maintaining a continuous fluency in "what's possible."

For Silicon Valley, the challenge lies in thinking about advertising as something fundamentally necessary--something to be naturally engrained--perhaps as content, perhaps as sponsorship allowing access, perhaps as an aid to improving user experience through enhanced relevancy. If accepting advertising is essential to profit, then let's find a way to make it part of the natural environment.

Social Media Council?

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 16:03:56 -0600

Hmmm. Just heard about this. Apparently a group of concerned digital biggies like Digitas, Enfatico, Edelman Digital and the like have formed the Social Media Council. It's stated mission is to bring some standarization for media buying on social networking sites. Here's the press release: http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977451311&grpId=3659174697254768&nav=Groupspace

I thought this quote was interesting:

"Brands are spending more and more of their media dollars on social networks. We now need standard buying units, methods of measurement, and a common understanding of what we mean when we say engagement on sites like Facebook, Myspace and Gather," said Tom Gerace, CEO of Gather & Founding Chairman of SMAC.

The premise seems to be that this is channel just ripe for dropping ads into. I'm sure the definition of "units" is more nuanced than just banners, but it is indicative of an assumption that users of social media will be fine with marketers setting up shop on their pages. Again I say hmmm.

Bob Garfield's opus

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:55:49 -0600

Ad Age which devoted an unprecedented amount of space to Bob Garfield's piece on monetizing social media. http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=130969 It had all of Bob's usual rhetorical flourishes and with a little editing could probably have be half the length but he did reinforce a point we try to make to clients: behavioral data is valuable. What people tell you or what their behavior on your site tells you, that's valuable, sellable (is that a word?) stuff. Garfield basically tells Facebook that the way to monetize the site is to deploy a kick-ass predictive engine that scrapes the site and presents non-adlike "suggestions" that should be dead-on relevant to users. Brands would pay Facebook for every link off Facebook to their sites. Long piece but worth wading through.

Google Chrome and The Era of Constant Change

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 15:17:54 -0600

Google has announced that they are getting into the "browser" game via a product called Chrome. Make no mistake, this is the start of a Cloud-based Operating system that is all about protecting existing search traffic to Google as people change from desktop based OS's like Windows and start living in the cloud.

Google knows better than any company that when user behavior changes in one area (from desktop to internet in their case) that it presents an opportunity for fundamental shifts in revenue streams (search from Yellow pages). Chrome is one part of their strategy to navigate the next major shift in user behavior.

Here is a purely defensive innovation to protect existing revenue streams. Google understands that innovation is not always about growth, and is applying one of the lessons of the computer age -- if don't continue to innovate, you get left behind by the times. Isn't that right Control Data, Cray, and IBM? Success breeds a defensive business stance (see Microsoft, General Motors, and Ford). Being overly cautious has lead to disaster down the road in the past, and will continue to do so in the future.

Reinvention has always been risky. The problem is that with the pace of change in the world, not reinventing your business is even riskier. Welcome to the era of constant change.

Content vs. Screen

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:16:00 -0600

Brian Stelter wrote about the "three screen" reports coming out of Nielsen in The New York Times last week. Nielsen's goal is measurement parity across the three screens: TV, computer, mobile. But something seems missing from the data.

"The average American spent 127 hours of time with TV in May, up from 121 hours in May 2007; and 26 hours on the Internet, up from 24 hours last year."

"Two-thirds of Internet users in the United States, 119 million people, watched video in May."

I think what we're watching, in other words, content, isn't properly accounted for.

"The amount of online video viewing is low compared with TV -- 2 hours and 19 minutes a month on average..."

Why do the ad and media industries continue to couch any kind of viewership that's not TV in direct relationship to TV--as if it might somehow be TV?

"...for every hour of online video viewing, consumers spend 57 hours watching TV."

The answer is obviously money.

"...all that (online video) viewing, 7.5 billion streams and 16.4 billion minutes in total, amounts to new advertising time for the taking."

I wonder--is viewing video online (or on an iPhone, or on a screen in an elevator) the exact same experience as watching TV? Of course not. So, how can we truly compare apples to apples here?

I applaud Nielsen for seeking measurement parity. But I hope in the rush to define a holistic platform, we take into account the elements of online video viewing that make it distinct from TV, and thus of potentially greater value to brands and advertisers: Online, the viewer seeks out content, actively controls it, and has the ability to comment, rate and share.

In accounting for those qualities that make online video distinct, I suspect we'll discover some very different "average" Americans and their various approaches to new screens and content. All of which will greatly affect how we price advertising opportunities in and around new screens.

What is advertising?

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:50:59 -0600

I gave a presentation this past Monday to students at the Miami Ad School (Minneapolis outpost). The subject was, "What's the future of advertising?" I rephrased that to "What is advertising?" because honestly, can it be neatly defined any more? I think not.

Advertising could just as easily be defined as triggering relevant information and functionality under an appropriate context, as pushing images and copy out willy-nilly. We're back in the wild west, we're mutating. And as I told the students, that's a good thing, since this evolution carries with it expanded opportunities and inventive risk.

I'm bullish about the ad industry's prospects, especially the most inventive and the most willing to risk/test/optimize among us.

Here's the presentation I gave the students:

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Same rules, different game? Or same game?

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:25:16 -0600

Just got off the phone with an advertising headhunter who told me the advice I gave her two years ago, (start repping interactive people,) is a wave now hitting her beach. Agencies are furiously ramping up only to discover they don't have the management vision in place to deploy the talent they are so rapidly hiring. The top echelon managers made their bones in traditional advertising which focuses on building messages, and have no idea how to re-organize themselves around the creation of consumer solutions. It's so much more painful then they realize. It's not something you can bolt on like an addition to a house. It's a gut renovation.

They would do well to focus on structuring their organizations less around the creating of "product", ads etc. and more about the creation of consumer incentives to do what the client wants them to do. To quote Steven Levitt in "Freakonomics". Incentives are just things that get people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing. If agencies and marketers in general focus on creating incentives for consumers and build organizations with that as core DNA, the rest will follow.