media landscaping

Internet Math Applied to Video and Social Networks

One of the things I enjoy doing is reverse engineering bogus numbers thrown around by supposed 'experts' or start ups.  Online advertising is so accountable and data is so prevalent that these wild claims are not to hard to call BS on.  It seems that others enjoy this as much as me...here are 2 great examples:

VideoNuze published a very insightful breakdown of instream video advertising revenues on the web and points out some major holes in analyst forecasts.  According to Mugs's math, YouTube (34% of total web video views) can only deliver about $22.6M worth of instream ads this year and the big four broadcast networks won't break $120M combined.  Analysts have predicted up to $1.3B in online video revenue...so where is the rest of the $1.16B coming from?  Conclusion: analysts full of crap.

On another note, Mashable invents the Screw You Coefficient used by social networks to determine if a new feature should be launched or not.

It totally works.  Check out the post for more details.

See you at the Networked Journalism Summit!

I am really psyched to be a part of tomorrow's Networked Journalism Summit at CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.  It is organized by Jeff Jarvis and made possible by a grant from the MacArthur Foundation.  The vision for the event is:

bringing together the best practices and practitioners in collaborative, pro-am journalism

and I was invited to talk about our learnings from the WPNI Blogroll Program.  You can read a summary of my pre-interview with David Cohn here.

I'll post some afterthoughts and maybe even live-blog if possible.  We'll see what happens.

Wanted: Widget Advertising

Brands that are truly embracing todays world of social media are experimenting with widgets because they know that people will evangelize and spread their love of a brand if given the tools to do so.  One good example is the Purina Pet Weather Widget.

The one thing that I am seeing very little of is actual advertising in widgets.  With the popularity of widgets growing like wildfire, I suspect that media companies who are creating these widgets will start selling a portion of the space to advertisers.   Here is the first example that I have found:

Notice the Lenovo Sponsorship at the top.

They also produce some video highlight widgets with ads from Sprite in their Video Blog, but the code didn't work right.  Here is an image of it on the left.

I think that there will be a few challenges for this type of advertising.  First of all is size.  Widgets are small to begin with, so adding advertisements runs the risk of seriously hurting the experience.

The second challenge will be my Theory of Widget Advertising Elasticity and its affect on widget adoption.  As the % of space allocated to advertising  increases, it will decrease the willingness of publishers to place that widget on their site.  This is a very important thing for media properties to consider and I believe it is the main reason we aren't seeing much of it yet.

Due to the fact that the NBA is a very premium content owner and you cannot get this content any other way, I think they have a very high widget ad elasticity.  Therefore, these ads are probably not impacting their adoption by bloggers and other publishers.

If you notice any other widgets with ads like this, let me know.  I want to keep a close eye on this topic. 

More to come...

Rocketbooms New Podcast Ad Model

I was on vacation last week and very busy at work the week before that, so sorry for the long posting drought.  (You'll get over it I'm sure)

Catching up on things I missed while I was at the beach, I noticed that Andrew Baron and the folks at Rocketboom rolled out a new model for advertising in their podcast.  PodcastingNews breaks it down to this:

The show plans to charge $3,000 per episode for sponsorships, which will include:

• Post Roll Sponsorship Gratitude. White text on black background. Company logo and byline. 7 seconds. Travels with all videos to all platforms (incl. web, phone, tv, portables). Quicktime videos online are clickable to open company website in a new browser window.
• Company Name & Link. Travels as metadata to most platforms (inc. RSS feeds). Increases company link value across the web.
• Sponsor Blog Entry. Click here for details.
• Quicktime Chapter Marker. Easy access to sponsor message from chapter drop-down box.

Early sponsors under this format are Twitter and YouTube..coincidently timed with the launch of Rocketboom's own YouTube channel.    I am surprised it took Andrew this long to get on YouTube.

Marie Claire Would Sell Her Soul for an Ad $

Marie Claire, the womens fashion and beauty magazine, launched a video podcast late last year (produced by Podshow).  The show is called "The Masthead" and is sponsored by Unilever.  One thing they seem to ignore though is the healthy line between church and state.  It should always be clear what is an ad and what isn't.

Yesterday, I was on a call with the ad agency for an auto-maker who asked for "video ads beyond pre-roll...I want true integration.  If you can pull that off, we have HUGE dollars to throw at you."  I am sure that all publishers are hearing this, but those who have a division between church and state are going to have a hard time pulling this off. 

If you know of any examples of this being done well, please let me know.  This project from Marie Claire is an example of what I am NOT looking for.

They apparently have no editorial line at all and were able to land a big deal for Unilever by dropping all ethical concerns and taking one for the team.

The very first episode I watched this morning, episode 8 "NY Fashion Week", started off with Editor-at-Large, Joyce Caruso-Corrigan saying, "we are looking for trends and we are looking for the NEWS.  At the end of the day we are a magazine...its JOURNALISM...and we depend on NEWS every season."  OK, so assuming this is news about NY Fashion Week, why do they only cover the fashion show of their sponsor, Diesel?

Womens Wear Daily notes that,

Nearly every one of the eight segments so far has prominently featured Unilever beauty products in scenes with the magazine's editors, and the most recent one included footage of the Diesel New York show, with Marie Claire fashion director Tracy Taylor explaining in the podcast, "What I love about Diesel…."

In episode 4, Paula Knight, Associate Fashion Editor, holds Degree Deodorant in her hand while she tells the viewer that they have to return the garments to the show when done, so the models have to wear clear deodorant so they don't stain the dresses.  They even do a close up on the deodorant to be sure that the viewer can see it is Degree she is holding...a Unilever Brand.

I have a few questions.

Is this really journalism as Ms Caruso-Corrigan claims?

Is this what ad agencies want when they ask for "Integration"? 

Do advertisers really want to do business with a property who is so desperate for ad dollars that they will cross these lines?

I think it is fine for Podshow to produce these and it is a great idea for Marie Claire to be playing in this new media realm.  However, you can't call this journalism.  Its a 9 minute ad that comes out every two weeks, disguised as editorial.  Lets hope that dying magazines don't continue to sell their souls like this just to survive a little longer.   

A nod to BrandBrains for the link.

AOL Becomes a TV Network

On Tuesday, AOL performed a TV Network-like Upfront presentation that officially launches them into the world of broadcasting.  They will be creating some new shows that will be unlike anything we have ever experienced.  Not sure if they will be good...but they will be different.

Many of the programs skirt the line between interactive gaming and nonscripted programming; they can be categorized as either reality television with consumer participation or an online game with video components. (Via Variety)

One of the most ambitious TV-style programs is "iLand," an online community in which players compete for dominance of a group.

Series, which is produced by Endemol USA and set to air in the second quarter of 2008, will eventually spill into the real world as contestants move to an island and try to assert power there; those competitions, hosted by thesp Brooke Burns, will be broadcast online.

Sounds like an "Un-Survivor"...very cool.

Now that devices like Apple's iTV are bringing web video into the living room easily, the TV landscape is becoming very foggy and AOL is clearly setting themselves up to take the early lead in this race.

Can Site Engagement be a Negative?

Read a mediaweek article this morning about the problems that social media sites are having with advertisers.  Digg, Slashdot and others attract readers in droves, but are struggling to get ad revenue. 

The very last paragraph brings up a very good question: Can a sites engagement be so high that it actually damages ad performance?

“These are very, very heavy Internet users,” [refering to readers of digg etc] said Justin Curtis, interactive director, San Francisco-based Maiden Lane, who works with brands such as Michelin and Del Monte. “They may not always be the right users. As an advertiser, you ask yourself, ‘how am I going to get these people to leave this environment, when they love it so much?’”

Justin seems to be saying that these sites have such high engagement that it actually takes away from their ad performance, rather than improving it.  Could this be true? 

I disagree, but I would love to hear what you think.

Chaos Scenario

I finally got through reading Bob Garfield's latest installment of his Chaos Scenario series.  I know I'm a week late, but cut me some slack...its been busy around here.

You should know the story by now.  Mass media and the shotgun marketing strategies that it has enabled for years are both dying on the vine.  In steps disaggregated media consumption, forcing marketers to stop all of the yelling and actually build relationships with consumers...all powered by the web.  Its not happening overnight, but the winds of change are blowing and you ad agencies better prepare or find yourselves one day without a paycheck.

If you haven't read it, you should, as he has laid out tons of evidence of this change. 

I particularly like the story he tells of Jan Leth, executive creative director of OgilvyInteractive North America.  Its about an assignment they had for Six Flags.

"They had a promotion for their 45th anniversary. They wanted to give away 45,000 tickets for opening day to drive traffic. So we got a brief to do whatever: ads, microsite, whatever. But our interactive creative director just went off and posted it on Craigslist. Five hours later, 45,000 tickets were spoken for.

"No photo shoot. No after-shoot drinks at Shutters," he adds, with faux regret. Then, with somewhat less irony: "Now, the trick is, how do you get paid?"

Thats a good question.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should

My old boss, Deb C, use to say this a lot and 99% of the time she was right.  There are so many amazing things that you can do with technology on the web but just because something is possible doesn't mean it should end up in a marketing plan.

View this ad execution

This campaign created by Eyewonder for Infiniti. It is really "cool" to be able to offer consumers a virtual test drive in an ad unit.  However, in execution this is awful and in my opinion will not positively impact the Infiniti brand.  The car is impossible to drive and anyone focused on driving the car misses all of the copy that points out the cars features.  If you read the features you end up off the road in the trees!

Sometimes cool is not the same as smart.

Via A Media Circ.us

UPDATE: Greg Verdino posted on a very similar subject.

 

Buzz Marketing Smack-Down at AlwaysOn

The AlwaysOn Conference was running super late yesterday and a lot of attendees left for the bar and missed what turned out to be the best panel of the entire first day.  A Jeff Jarvis moderated panel with Rick Murray (edelman), Gordon Gould (ThisNext), David Weinberger (All around guru, Cluetrain Manefesto co-author), Barry Reicherter (porter novelli) and Bill Cleary (Cleary Partners).

Jarvis, Murray and Gould.  Murray's quote of the event:

Its not Advertising vs PR, its messaging vs conversation.

Reicherter, Weinberger and Cleary.  Cleary's quote of the day #1:

Advertising is the lubricant for capitalism.

Cleary's quote of the day #2:

Jelly is the lubricant for peanutbutter.

Much of the discussion here was around Buzz Marketing, is it good or bad, can you or should you even attempt it as a marketer.  It was full of all the expected mantra's:  transparency, authenticity and creativity.

Obviously, the easy example for poor buzz marketing is PayPerPost and the trashing of PPP started off right away and continued throughout.  Finally, having enough of it, Ted Murphy, CEO of PayPerPost  chimes in from the back of the room.  I wish I could find the video of it because it was a great debate.  Ted was in over his head...you can't out debate Jarvis and Weinberger on this topic. 

Ted tried to make it better by saying that they require disclosure now...Jarvis gives him credit for finally coming around but what took so long?  The damage has already been done.

More coverage on this panel here and some on some other panels here, here and here.