Humping The (new) Media Landscape

FOE3 notes: Henry Jenkins opening

I have so many notes from the Futures of Entertainment Conference that I figured I should just start throwing some of them up here in posts for archival purposes. They are fairly raw because, at this point, I am more interested in crafting interesting questions for further exploration than coming up with any definitive answers.

Opening comments from Henry Jenkins:

Viral Media model traps us and doesn't allow for important questions of Consumer Agency to be asked.
The term meme has really fallen into this unfortunate usage as well, and it puts an excessive importance on preservation of original and less on changes tha occur as something gets passed around. These changes, mutations are how content is now developed and given meaning.

Hybrid Spaces where new alliances and collaborations arise between unlikely partners   - Great term, it describes very well the kinds of media I am interested in.

New active children - while much of media wants to focus on male fanboys, social media is clearly showing us that women are just as relevant as an audience, Twilight as example.

Also mentioned was the obsession in the industry with problem of loyalty in a dispersed media landscape. This is something I am confronted with working for a television network. When the entire business model is built around driving to one place to access the content, it is hard to understand the notion that content, to be succesfully distributed in this new media landscape, it needs to be fireworks exploding outward rather than a black hole pulling inward.

Lewis Hyde:  Gift Economy v. Commodity Culture
The difference between these types of exchange, is in the motivation.
Emotional, social, economic properties
Gift Economy = esteem takes place of cash, social transaction - worth more as it circulates?
Commodity Culture =monitary value - worth less as it circulates?
Antiques Road show served as a great example this back and forth between worth and value, money and sentiment and our obsession with it.

Wires are getting crossed because individuals want to participate in CC and corporations using GE to gain esteem of individuals. This is pretty much exactly what I have proposed as a topic for a paper. I think about it a lot in light of the time I spend examining marketing in this space for my job. And as well, it ties into the issues around authenticity which fascinated me in my early online video experiences. 

What happens when worth becomes value and value becomes worth?
Is it possible to create value and generate worth at the same time, how? 

The Myth of Viral Media

I just returned from a weekend of convergence culture convening at MIT's Future's of Entertainment Conference. I am still reeling from all the amazing people and potent conversations. Although a relatively small group attends this event, the variety and level of engagement is remarkable. Just sifting through the pile of business cards I collected over the weekend, from experienced thinkers and do-ers, producers and PHDs alike, I am reminded the importance of this very rare, much needed, opportunity for exchange.

The conference started on a pitch perfect note when Henry Jenkins called out the Myth of Viral media, which got a hearty Amen! from those gathered before him. The point is, we know that the injection theory, is just not true. Consumers are not simply impregnated with ideas, people have agency and contexts as well, are dynamic, and especially so in todays media environment. 'Viral' is clearly the wrong metaphor to rely on, if we really want to understand the complicated things that the internet is teaching us about media and how people (have always) connected to each other through it. Avoiding use of the word became an excellent test for all the panelists, keeping everyone on their feet and avoiding falling back on BS industry terminology.

This conscientiousness with language is one of the important aspects of this conference. Having a dialog about the industry that takes place in an academic context forces more specific articulation, guiding the discussion to the real issue by not overly simplifying with some non-dairy whipped topping buzzwords.

Last year, the overall sentiment that moved me the most was a sincere desire we all shared to make (promote, distribute etc.) meaningful experiences for people through entertainment.  The this year I would say, the word empathy struck me as a defining theme. In the closing panel Maurício Mota of New Content (Brazil), created a nice bookend when he so passionately advocated for empathizing with audiences - seems so obvious but is the first the to get lost in the frenzy over new technologies and money making schemes around media.

Entertainment which is attempting to broadcast with generic broad stroke demographic information is no longer working (and I think many would agree, has always sucked.) The key is to remember that an audience is still made up of individuals with varying interests and changing needs from moment to moment.

I'll be posting more specific thoughts from various panels in the next few days. I noticed Mike Arauz is also thinking about audiences and fans in particular and I am sure he'll be posting more from FOE3 as are many others. The official Convergence Culture Consortium blog has lots of conference notes posted, as well.

(image credit - Factoryjoe )

Attack of Futures of Entertainment aka FOE3

Isn't the 3rd one is always called "attack of" followed by "bride of" and then, I guess, "son of" ???

Whatever you call it, I am looking forward to this year's Future's of Entertainment conference.

This annual event is organized by the MIT comparative media studies and Henry Jenkins' Convergence Culture Consortium which brings academics and practitioners together to address some of the most pressing subjects related to  convergence in popular entertainment.

This was by far the most useful and stimulating conferences I attended last year. It was definitely the only one where I was with others engaged as deeply as I am in this area and thus facing similar questions and issues as myself. The panelists and attendees are all immersed in new media entertainment development, production, distribution, marketing and analysis creating a unique environment where critical thinking media makers and pragmatic media theorists converge. In addition, there are only a few panels each day forcing topics to move way beyond buzz words and basics.

This years topics include issues around global distribution, audience engagement, franchiesing, comics, the intersection of academia and industry and more.

Battle at National Geographic: liveblogging OMMA Global

KeyNote: Rob Covey, SVP of Content Development and Design - National Geographic Digital Media

National Geographic is doing a lot to extend their content across platforms. Rob is showing some of the ways they have opened up their site to user generated content in a way that doesn't devalue the National Geo brand. They have been working with this longer than many content companies.

I wonder if the reason why this came more hmmm... shall we say, naturally, to them is because they are concerned with getting out an overall message to the public. This presentation even began with a video of employees explaining that they are passionate about these efforts because it helps with their goal of getting people to see and care about the natural environment. They have a clear goal as to why they are doing these things that is, of course tempered by $$, but is ultimately larger. I can see why that would  keep a team excited and focused on creating these kinds of campaigns.

Nice to hear someone talking about meaningful experiences with content.

He made a point to express that they are making efforts to monitize all of this especialy since they now have a sweet TV/Print/Web package to offer. Also that all of this is not without the many challenges that everyone faces in this area.

We just watched a video about the elusive Snow Leopard ( Note that ngm site I linked to is built on Typepad!). I want to be a Snow Leopard.

Video: Hyper-Distribution or Hype?:liveblogging OMMA Global

liveblogging OMMA Global Moderator:
Gary Gannaway, CEO, WorldNow
Speakers:
Chris Allen, VP, Director of Video Innovation, Starcom
Mike Henry, SVP, Veoh
Eric Hadley, CMO, Heavy.com
Patrick Keane, Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, CBS Interactive
Rebecca Paoletti, Director, Video Strategy, Yahoo

In the past Interactive agencies lead the buying for online video but now working more with TV buyers. But its a lot of education  - rebecca: I tell them that if they can put 1% of their TV budget to work in online video they can drastically

Impediments,Challenges,Solutions - to bringing advertisers and agencies to these platforms:

Education - what is in this space and how will my content/brand be represented there?

Measurement - TV people are all CPM but interactive/online CPE is becoming more relevant (cost per engagement - time spent and quality of it not just impressions)

Scale

Understanding what works in a video rich environment - you have to think differently to engage in marketing in this space. Reminding buyers that this is a different experience and different mentality for end user  - you don't have complete share of voice you have a small player and complex context. Re purposing commercials isn't typically going to cut it.

Users will go where they can get the broadest range of content and best experience with it. We need much better navigation and discovery engines in order to really get going with video - it's just not there yet. Large portals get where they are because of the search - people go where they think they will find what they are looking for so untill search develops better its about perception.

In five years everything will be dramaticallly different in this space (all agree) Mobile will be the big thing, video search will be better, devices for getting content will all be linked changing how people find and use it in their lives. Generation that is coming of age in the next 5 years is already very different.

People buy TV for reach and until there is an easy way to replicate that reach they will still prefer to buy TV.

Any categories that have not been able to spend on TV that are a good opportunity for Online: Alcohol, Digital.

Nike - The Second Coming: liveblogging OMMA Global

Catharine P. Taylor, Mediapost's Social Media Insider
Speakers:
Riche Grantham, VP Invention, Sarkissian Mason
Patrick Sarkissian, President, Sarkissian Mason
Mahi De Silva, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Frengo Corporation

I am attending this because it is a case study and it is SO rare at thes conferences to drill down into specifics and pragmatic aspects of getting social marketing campaigns done. Also I ma increasingly involved in developing the kinds of campaigns that agencies are often charged with so the agency take is always of interest.

Slide about the growth of mobile, SMS, social media in market - lots of growth.

What are the areas where Mobile technologies and Social Media intersect?

What are the disruptive changes that are occurring int he mobile ecosystem?

"Freemium" is the future - giving away services/content that was once 'premium' as a taste

iPhone/Android and open source

Part 1) campaign is a spot created by Wieden Kennedy

Part 2) Mashup tools and content made available

Part 3) Standard viral sharing tools for social networks but also allowed downloading so users can put them anywhere AND tool for sending to phones.

1.5 M users in 6 months - 6 min adv visit

Now we frengo is talking about Flirtable - not sure why yet. It let's you send little 'gifts' and look at profiles on a phone - it extends across  many social networks - Facebook, Bebo etc..Provides the same experience on any site on any network.

started to put advertising around this content - 1800flowers and then Love Guru movie "this is crazy but we signed up 40K people per hour to the Love Guru fan club when we first launched this"

created an Icanhascheezburger to go site for mobile.

Meetup.com - applying geotargeting to mobile from personal profile info online - can send users info about events, businesses near them that related to their interests. This is where mobile/social gets really useful.

How did you drive people to the site?

Promoted on Nike properties and media buy within sports enthusiast groups as 'get outtakes' from the commercial.

mobile is getting higher engagement numbers  - clickthrough rate on mobile banner is much greater than standard online banners. Ultimately this targeted engagement is what will convince people to pay more attention/money on it in the future. changing the way people look at mobile as a campaign media.

not all targets are 18-24 - what will it take to reach older demo with mobile campaigns?

behaviors are changing. Content and hardware becoming more tailored to different audiences.

Liveblogging at OMMA Global

I am attending some of the panels at OMMA Global conference today.  Right now sitting in the What is Content? Panel. A subject that is in fore for me as I work on social marketing at Showtime. I always look at anything we put out there as content or else it has no value. Any and all marketing and promotions should be considered content it's one of the positive effects of the flattening nature of the web. All information has equal value. Google changed that because it's efficiency lead to creating a hierarchy of  information that prioritized what indexes well in its search.  Ok, I could follow that  rambling train of thought all day but back to the panel...

WHAT IS CONTENT?

MODERATOR: Diane Mermigas, Editor-at-large, MediaPost's MediaDailyNews

SPEAKERS:
Jason Kilar, CEO, Hulu
Jeff Berman, President of Sales & Marketing, MySpace
Albert Cheng, Executive Vice President of Digital Media, ABC Television Group
Mark Goldman, Chief Operating Officer, Current Media
Douglas Scott, President, OgilvyEntertainment

The day of passive viewership is over.

Despite the absence of a unified cross platform metric - metrics my never develop for this - how are you addressing this? Is it more about setting up and meeting specific goals for each

Digital is always held to a higher standard because more can be measured. Thus

Hulu belives inletting users make decision for themselves, not in aggregate but each individual.

Breaking news - people like both short and longer form content online just depends on presentation and situation. Hulu is proving this by streaming full episodes.

Days of traditional media buying are numbered. It's about how all the parts work together to drive the sale.

These platforms are all looking at themselves as cross platform media distributors - good, don't get yourself stuck in an 'online video' corner.

It is about creating a singular experience across all platforms and media.

There will be standards but it will be continual innovation until we figure out what works... or since the pace of innovation in this area is SO great will it be possible to ever devlop a standard. When innovation is a driving principal behind a company (goal etc) where does standardization even fit??

It's not about creating standards it about continually finding something to meet needs and get audience attention.

OMMA Social notes

Media Post has a live blog from the event on their site:

http://blogs.mediapost.com/raw/

And were Twittering (of course!):

http://twitter.com/OMMASocial

Sink or Swim: The Best and Worst of Social Media Marketing

Moderator: Rohit Bhargava, Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence
Pete Spande, Federated Media
Josh Warner, Feed Company
Michael Nicholas, Carat

I am excited for this panel  - I like Rohit (note to self: pick up his new book.)
and picking apart sucky marketing is fun for everyone!

Here we go...

Rohit:
SINK - Google search for United Airlines Blog
own top results for your search terms!
SWIM - Google search for Delta Airlines Blog
have a blog weather it gets lots of traffic or not you can combat poor search by simply having one.
This is a great example - simple way to make a point about power of SM.

Peter:
SINK - Sprint puts CEOs email in a TV commercial. initially thought this was super cool so he writes to the CEO and gets a generic response. Boo.
SWIM - Dell's response to Dell Hel. Whipped up IdeaStorm website where users can make suggestions and vote on them and they responded in a rapidly with new products.

Josh:
SWIM - Cardosystems Popping Corn with cell phones video on YouTube.

Tapping into an existing dialog around their product. Yes it's a little irresponsible but they came in with the dialog quickly with the reveal so no one really got pissed. Once the video 'popped' they directed people to a microsite that explained their involvement.  I especially like the 'As Seen On YouTube'  - ha!
SINK - Sprint CEO campaign. Felt fake from the beginning.

Michael:
SINK - WALL-Mart on Facebook (and elsewhere) disingenuous. They disabled the commenting wall on the page so that there is no discourse. WALL Mart cant seem to be honest with the consumers because they are afraid and thus they miss a lot of opportunities to leverage the millions who do support their brand.
SWIM - Obama campaign online. They get group sharing. Everything they have built leverages what really works about social web.

It's not enough to just be authentic - you need to go out and create an experience that feels authentic.
Make sure you take full advantage of the platform you are using.

If you are going to engage in SM you must abide by a higher standard than journalists - you have to be more authentic and NYT. There is a percieved level of truth that is higher in SM is higher than MSM now.

We need to get people thinking about social media campaigns in the long term (again!). This is the ROI that keeps on giving if you are patient, think of it as a garden.

Data Dive: Mining Social Media Behavior to Build Brands

Moderator: David Honig, Co-founder, Media6°
Dr. Joseph Plummer, Adjunct Professor, Columbia School of Business
Matt Jacobs, Vice President & Group Director of Strategy and Analysis, Digitas
Shiv Singh, Vice President, Social Media, Avenue A| Razorfish
Melissa Davies, Research Director, Healthcare, Nielsen Online
Bill Alena, Vice President Advertising/Business Development, myYearbook.com

2:15 There are a lot of women in marketing and women rule the blogosphere so why is this the first panel with a woman included, today?? it's always the same at these things :(

Shiv: Ave A rarely separates out Social Media in a plan. It's about online behaviors.

Prof. Plummer: Emerging media - you have to turn the world upside down and start with the people that you want to be the prospects. The people are already engaged. It's a great learning tool - the term data-mining is a poor term to use in relation to social media.
Social Marketing is people!

Think about circle of influence around your targeted audience.

Melissa: Focused on healthcare  - is more buzz better for our brand?
Clients want to know what people think of them - quantitative and qualitative.

Again back to the idea that they need to tell clients to have Unconventional expectations. Social media may have a halo effect or a decrease in response or conversions.

How does engagement  translate into ROI? Well AGAIN what is the value of a relationship.

Hopefully, Neilsen and other companies will start producing reports that show how sentiment effects purchasing.

If you only have a transactional model in your head you will miss the greater value of a devoted customer over time. If you keep measuring A and not looking at B&C you will miss a lot.

No we dont have something as simple on the table as CPM clickthrough rates etc.. but if we keep poking around there is power in the interactions between people to teach us something. Where does this take people where else can we connect with them. SM has created a new model that is based on advertising to empower customers.

you can't think of SN as places you can place banner ads. People don't click on them because they are there to hang out with their friends. Think more about value of each relationship and each persons network.

The Professor speaks: There are 2 fundamental ways we learn, "the flash" instantaneous neurons connecting, "the creep" takes you brain a while to work on it. "creep" has a bigger effect on long term memory than "flash".