Humping The (new) Media Landscape

What She Said!

anything thats possible that makes us change is good

Genesis P-Orridge

Holiday Gifting

Advertising agency Mother decided to give their entire holiday gifting budget to one person. How they went about this will make you laugh but what happens to the money in the end is really quite heart warming.

This is by far the most creative agency holiday card I have ever seen! Nice example of having fun and doing good, all the while creating a great bit of digital marketing for themselves.

And in light of that, I continue my list of organizations which I'll be making donations to with my final paycheck of the year.

I picked the radio station KEXP because in the last year their partnership with WNYE in new york has introduced me to so many great new bands AND has gotten me back in the habit of actually going to see them live. See, I used to go see bands 3-4 nights a week when I lived in Richmond and DC - mostly friends or friends of friends and then you would discover a new band from seeing the opening act and then make friend with them and so on. Since I've been in NYC I found myself just overwhelmed - didn't know a lot of the names of bands on listings so i didn't know what to see and just kind of got out of the habit but I really really missed that connection you get to music when you see it performed live.

Thankfully, KEXP arrived on my dial and now I Wake Up! to great music every morning and since they are committed to live music, most sets feature songs from bands playing in NYC the very same week/month. This is what radio should be! They also feature radio documentaries about music history and exclusive live performances which bring you even closer to amazing new indy musicians in a range of genres.

Be sure to go to their site download some of their excellent podcasts - my ipod is dominated by Music That Matters and Song of The Day - your ears will thank you.

Click here if you also want to make a year end donation to KEXP!

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.

Dexter is grosser in Spain

And Portugal.

It has been very interesting to see the difference in promotional tactics when one of Showtime's series is premieres abroad.
Spain clearly went for the gross out factor for Dexter

 

And then there's this lovely experience Portuguese men were treated to:

 

To think people thought this US promotion for Dexter last year was tasteless - seems so tame now!