Leo Burnett - Cultural Fuel

Saw a video by Hubble Innovations, via Florian Geiger today.

The video outlines the well-know problem of traditional media’s slowly but surely failing business models and claims to be able to solve it.

The Future of media brands - Case Study from Hubble Innovations on Vimeo.

The solution isn’t exactly new: it’s a super-aggregator idea that totally personalized to me, my location, my social network and content/event preferences. Even though they claim rights to the idea, it’s preposterous. This idea already exists in partial solutions already in existing synching and SM integrator solutions. In fact, some could argue: “Isn’t this what Facebook is slowly becoming anyway?”

My take on this is: The concept is a fairly logical and tempting conclusion based on the insight that people would like to have everything in one place and like location awareness. Apart from the title of the video being a misnomer (it doesn’t address the future of media brands but rather paints a picture of a desired user behavior), it will still take quite a while to build its proof of concept.

1. First of all, as we have seen with previous aggregator solutions, it takes a while for people to completely disband their existing behaviors of going to single source. For example, even though RockMelt had a pretty good start through social buzz, actual usage after initial sign-up have dropped. People tend to go back to their fragmented user behaviors until the user experience has matured. For complete adoption of an aggregator idea, the individual moving parts AND their respective user behaviors have to be quite mature. I don’t think this is the case just yet for this concept.  But it probably will in the future, after some other ideas have trailblazed these behaviors, failed on the way, and generated learnings that will ultimately benefit some 20-something entrepreneur who will become a billionaire, again.
2. Apart from the fact that the idea remains quite abstract and hidden behind a fancy animation, it also fails to address how exactly this is supposed to save traditional media, or at least revolutionize or evolve the media and publishing space. Who in fact would be a qualified media partner to build and propel this concept?  The concept does mention how people will pay for this experience, but not who gets paid for it and how. Assuming that the concept can repeat an Apple-like success of starting to pay for content (which is lofty enough), I still think this is the key point in terms of business maturity that will make or break this concept. Which content producers (old media or new) will come together how, produce how, and get paid how. In fact, since so much of news, information and entertainment is based on actual people (users) sharing and producing content without getting paid for it, wouldn’t you have to find a way to have them get a share for their content production and dissemination activities (see flattr) as well? So much of their behavior is about sharing (old) media content that the benefit of doing it just in one place might not be enough (ironically, in a way they are actually responsible for keeping those traditional publishers in business through their activities). In fact, this important social sharing aspect would probably have to be addressed as part of the business model, otherwise it will just remain one more aggregator solution. A solution that until now has no user base (such as Facebook) or no real competence in traditional content creation (such as NYT) and no competence in new content creation (such as Gizmodo or Mashable), and which is my point: no real strategy on HOW to pull it together. It’s a user experience vision, not a business idea, is my point. And, unlike other aggregator and synching solutions such as Read It Later, Instapaper, Dropbox and others which very defined user goals they serve, this solution would have to solve for it all. And we know how many attempts it takes for even the big players (think of Google’s long list of abandoned Betas) to pull it off and how many product ideas need to fail before maturity sets in. So keep trucking, but prepare to wait a while.
3. Also, the concepts just assumes people will behave this way. But when you look at those early adopters who are responsible for initial successes of of new web offerings, you can quickly see that they are quite different from those who come in when a certain maturity has set in. In fact, early adopter behavior is (to some extent) one of not managing and aggregating their experiences, but rather seeking new ones, so that those become trends that then lead to being reaggregated in new experiences again. Therefore, the game facebook plays is a type of tug of war of those users that they need to innovate, while maturing an experience for the large mass to keep them happy while also making sure the innovator group doesn’t get bored.  Facebook has, by and large, played the game the best in comparison to for example local market solutions in Germany and other places. The point is, aggregation happens after innovation. And they are different things to different types of users at different maturity levels. The concept fails to address this (at least in the video). There seems to be no go-to-market strategy.

So, in conclusion: thanks for the video, but a) aggregation itself is not an idea, it’s about how you aggregate, with who and when, and b) the big players have been working on it for a quite a while anyhow and c) you can’t pull it off if you don’t have some background at being expert in at least one area that is key to business success: i.e., producing worthwhile content, or making people pay for content, or innovative payment technology, or maturing a user experience for disparate user behavior profiles.

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The buzz surrounding Social Media is deafening in marketing today and every marketer is under pressure to deliver smart, powerful campaigns that utilize Social in relevant and effective ways.

However, a lack of benchmarks, combined with a massive amount of data possible to capture has made the actual choice of what to measure no easier for most Brands.  Some experts offer suggestions in the form of lists of possible individual metrics, but I’m not sure this is as helpful as it could be for the people struggling to decide how to invest. What marketers need are strategies that help them craft objectives that can be measured in ways that make sense to the marketing organization.

Garrett Ira (guest blogging here on Kylelacy.com) has collected some great examples of key metrics to track, but the real secret is how to set up objectives for your campaigns (and I do mean campaigns, not just social actions) that include social objectives which can then be measured by actions that the user takes, like clicks, likes, shares, check-ins and tweets.

Some campaigns are about getting the word out about a product, service, activity or cause, so those should have key metrics around both impressions/reach of the campaign message, as well as the viral aspect of how much the message was shared onward from the initial share.  These metrics feel a lot like media numbers, and can be better understood by stakeholders if they are presented as purely that - “Here’s your awareness.”

Some campaigns or actions, however, are aimed at involving the consumer in something - getting them to participate in meaningful ways - and these actions should be measured using brand and impact studies, since you want to know if the people have changed their relationship to the brand in some way, due to the interaction.  Tracking the interactions themselves without examining the underlying impact to building meaningful connections is a quick way to confuse senior management - “Are that many downloads a good thing?”

Lastly, if the campaign is about sales, then don’t be shy - use a panel and find out what your campaign in social did to impact their purchase behavior.  Using proxies for purchase intent is always tempting here, but keep in mind that there really is a difference between a purchase and signing up for coupons/email (or asking for more information).  Be firm and decisive here, and if only a panel will deliver it, then get a panel together - “What means a ‘win’ for me in terms of sales?”

Naturally, some situations and organizations will pressure people to avoid picking a focus (we all want it all, right?), but asking the team to consider “What are we REALLY doing with our consumers?” can help to guide the right choice of metrics for social, and ensure that the team aligns behind a cogent, clear goal.

Photo: D Sharon Pruitt

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Intelligence reports have it that Germany is long overdue for a terrorist attack, police count and media coverage have skyrocketed. Fear-mongering could get its chance in Germany. As a result a group has started a blog that supports any sentiment of calming down in a situation that could lead to hysteria. Via Santiago Campillo.

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One of my sort-of-ex-collegues Jeff Greenspan is known for his attention getting creative mind, but recently also for his media savvy and social web hacking.

After causing a ruckus in New York where he chalked sidewalks in order to segregate New Yorkers from Tourists, he now blitzed well-known right wing media outlets and politician facebook pages with what he calls letter bombing. To see how it works check out the video below or go to http://letterbombing.com/.

Brilliant idea that definitely got people to take note!

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Saw a great video from the folks at IDEO about the future of the book:

… and it got me thinking - why wouldn’t I want this kind of expansion of capability with TV shows, films, and online videos?  I’d like to be able to explore character motivations, background, and products and services the characters use. I’d like to be able to ask questions to the actors, hosts, directors and other participants or other viewers.

I posted this question to my network, and Stephen Riley sent me this link from ABC, showing how they are already starting down this path with an app that uses the iPad mic to sync up content with the program playing on your TV set.

Why not for commercials?  Why not for websites and search engines?  Why not the restaurant or bar that I’m sitting in?

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Most of you have probably seen the recent Steve Jobs presentation which included a few minutes on their planned iAds platform. (watch it here, starts at 44:00).

Now, apart from this being a pretty cool thing for everyone involved who wants to make ad money (marketers, developers, agencies) there are three things which come to mind:

1. Do conventional online ads experiences really deliver no emotion and won’t iPhone ads have the same problems with click through?

Okay, first off all, unlike Steve says, I believe there have been many examples of emotional ad experiences in online ads. The real question, though, has always been: are they all relevant in the user’s context? As always, people hate being interrupted in what they are doing when they go to an online portal. So how will this be different on iPhones?

Sure, click-throughs will improve because there is now a seamless transition in the app to ad and back to app. However, let’s not muddy the issue: this is just fixing a problem apps have while online portals really don’t so much (You can easily go back to the portal from an ad). Still, the human behavior of not wanting to interrupted in my task flow by advertising will probably stay the same. And apart from the fact that you always have your phone with you and it’s location-aware, it’s not like iPhones ads (and the examples he showed) are much more interactive or interesting than stuff you used to get on a Microsite anno 2000. This is solely a function of how creative the brand or their agency wants to make their app (or in old days, microsite) experience.

I think Steve just pulled the “more emotional” trick to make iAds look more interesting to brand managers, who are driven by the notion that Advertising has to be emotional and creative. Also, he is attaching this promise to an amazing track record in creating new platforms for brands to which no brand manager can say no, especially because there is a lot of frustration in the online marketer community on online metrics and really understanding what to do. So, if he can make his community happy through delivery of a simple to use platform,  he will make a lot of money. (see point 3).

2. Do people really not use search on iPhones when they really want to find something?

There is no doubt that when you have a content and subject matter related need that is covered by one of your apps, the chances are high you are going to use Yelp, Qype and the like to “search”. For that to be true though, those apps have to be highly embedded into your lifestyle. How many apps do you have on your iPhone that you don’t even use? On my iPhone it’s 80% of my apps I don’t regularly use. It’s like this: you liked the idea of them, downloaded them but you haven’t made part of your daily behavior. So, yes, for apps you use regularly use this works well. But for free apps (mainly games) getting people to branded content is still just advertising (see point 1).

So I really don’t know how that argument even helps with Steve’s case. I doubt people who search stuff in a topic area that is not embedded in their lifestyle that will first try to find a matching app in the Appstore, make the purchase decision, evaluate the app and then use it to search.  Therefore, for everything else people will use Google Maps on the go. Rest assured, we are going to do some UX research to check this out.

And to be absolutely blunt: aren’t apps just like web portals and iAds just like online advertising? Think about it. When you go to your few favorite news, sports, and topic of interest portals it’s like your few favorite often used apps on the iPhone. And Ads? Well, there’s ads that try to interrupt on those portals you go to. And now, they will be everywhere on the iPhone. Brilliant. Advertising has paid the livelyhood of all mediums so far:  print magazines, radio stations, tv stations, and online portals. In the future it will pay for app development.

Only difference is: this channel is owned only by Apple, the way to create for the channel is owned by Apple, the delivery and distribution platform is owned by Apple, and guess what? The media agency is Apple (see point 3). Well done.

3. Only 60% revenue goes to the application owner?

Imagine you had to pay 40% to your media agency for letting you use their media buying, and imagine that this media agency doesn’t actually have to do anything for you because you will still need to actually still do the stategy, creative and program the frigging ad. Wow. Granted, iPhones users right now still represent are very interesting and affluent target audience. But still, 40% percent?? If anyone can pull this off, it’s Steve Jobs.

So yeah, old wine in new skins, where the new skin is a single platform business and license to print money. Genius.

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This is not new, but I just found this interesting lecture by Henry Jenkins of MIT on the convergence of media, media culture etc. What I find so refreshing about it is that it is, in fact, a bit more academic. That might sound weird, but with all the hype around connections planning and discussion about its future difference to experience planning, media planning and brand planning, and our industry’s tendency to create buzz words and self-congratulatory one-liners, it is nice to have an MIT professor take a crack at it.

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Sixt car rentals demonstrated quick thinking with an impromptu online advertising flight after German politician Ulla Schmitt was accused of racking up a huge bill with her government-paid car while on a personal vacation in Alicante, Spain. The ad reads: why take the company car on your vacation? Sixt also rents cars in Alicante for 29 EUR a day.

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A sponsorship by Y&R Tel Aviv, which was broadcasted in real time when Barcelona’s player was injured.
The ad says: A tough pain? Optalgin (Israel’s leading pain killer) for tough pains.

Nicely played!

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Copying US sites, such as Hulu, the Web Series / Webisodes site 3min.de is gaining popularity in Germany while traditional TV formats for younger people (such as MTV or Viva) are struggling. The site features custom-produced and ad-financed short webisodes in categories such as Fiction, Comedy, Real Life, Sport, Music, Film.

The trend also caught on for music TV with sites such as Putpat, still in beta testing, which caters to young people’s expectations, claiming: “we only have what you really want to see. No ringtone ads, no soap operas, only music. Music you really want to see, because you decide what is on, not a program director”

Based on market trends of a rising digital lifestyle in the younger demographic and their need for interactive TV, the site is targeted at predominantely urban teens and tweens, but is also showing to catch on with older viewers. The trend is aided in Germany by the fact that Tivo-like recording is not commonplace or available, which makes this type of on-demand entertainment attractive.

Looking at demographic data supports the trend. The average age of TV viewers for traditional TV public channels is 60 (!) and established private TV channels only skew somewhat younger (47 years). Looking at this data, it seems as though only older Germans living in rural areas actually seem to consume TV, while the younger, urban demographic expects interaction, influence on programming, specialty niche programs,  on-demand content and participation which will be made possible by integrated partnerships with social networking sites such as Facebook and German equivalent StudiVZ.

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