mediation

Twitter's ascent: why the emergence of this best kind of media space means brands have never had it so good

and so to Twitter, which - thanks to, in part, Obama, Ross and Fry - post a 27-fold increase in the last 12 months is now the seventh most popular SN site in the UK.  with such growth has come the inevitable and necessary Campaign article on how brands can capitalise on this particular bit of media evolution.

some sense talked by Robin "have genuine conversations with people ... show your real personality and allow people to connect with you" Grant and Faris "we've got to earn attention by being entertaining, useful and also nice" Yakob. 

but also some craziness bounded about by Dare's Flo "create a fake receptionist" Heiss and internet consultant David "don't anthropomorphise it, what if an inanimate object was to Tweet" Bain.  the question of how much fun a social network would be if inanimate objects Tweeted aside, (although its not entirely mad - my fridge for example; "feeling great today post a thorough defrosting and clean out yesterday, brrrrr - life good" or my Wii "exhausted post Chris playing for sixteen hours non-stop on Super Mario Galaxy - still at least he's completed it now and he and I can get back on with our lives"), the question remains why, when and how should brands enter the Twittersphere?

the debate is picked up in a post on Robin's We Are Social blog, where he makes two important points: (1) a brand's Twitter strategy should be built around the business objectives its trying to achieve, and (2) the hard work only really begins when you're up and out there creating and managing the day after day micro-interactions with real people.

its worth reading down the comments, one by Adriana Lukes struck me as particularly relevant:

"If you think about brand as identity and branding as behaviour lots of the idiotic advice rightly ridiculed in the post just looks absurd. Fictional or inanimate characters' behaviour fools no one and is just another tool in the messaging toolbox. And one-way communication is messaging, two-way communication is behaviour. Twitter is rather supercharged on that front..."

the evolution of media and communications and the fragmentation of channels and empowerment of consumers that has come with it, is not a beast to be grappled with.  rather its a gift to be embraced.

we need to change our collective idea of what 'broadcasting our brand communications' means.  from... a single-minded focus on one-to-many (with things like Twitter playing around the edge), to... having and using a tapestry of touchpoints by which to reach existing and potential customers.

TV ads and Twitter should be part of the same plan, because they come from the same place - the brand, and more specifically the reason for being & idea that sit behind that brand.  understanding and continually and consistently articulating that idea is what will align 'one-to-many' as well as 'many-to-many' touchpoints.

Twitter isn't something 'else'... like so many emerging platforms its the best kind of brand space; a space where you're forced to be relevant, interesting and polite, but most of all a space where the people you're so desperate to talk to, can talk back.  we've never had it so good.

The power of being there: How CNN and Facebook brought the world to Washington

there's something uniquely powerful about being at an event.  being able to say "I was there", "I saw it happen".  events don't come much bigger than what happened yesterday when the USA got its 44th President.  such was the interest in the event that much of the UK broadcast schedules for the day were turned over to rolling coverage of the inauguration.

but if passively watching the event wasn't enough, CNN and Facebook allowed citizens from all over the world to get a bit closer to the action.  the two brands teamed up and co-sponsored a live video stream of the inauguration on a co-branded microsite.  everyone who signed up to the Obama Inauguration Facebook page and changed their status were displayed on this microsite in real time for everyone to see.

what made this so powerful was the combination of the (CNN) broadcast stream in combination with the (Facebook) status frame on the right hand side of the page which automatically updated the many and varied status updates from those around the world watching on.

a gloriously powerful meeting of mainstream and social media, with each making the other more powerful.  mainstream giving a sense of collective action - and arguably belonging - to the social space, with social media bringing a human, personal and individual presence to the broadcast space.

can we watch the event as though we were there?  well thanks to CNN and Facebook, yes, we can.

ps thanks to Mikhail for the heads up on this

Fighting the Future: reaching a rose-tinted concensus at the IPA 44 Club's Future of Advertising in a Networked Society

A short history of marketing from jabi on Vimeo.

the rather lovely above video - by jabi - neatly sums up the collective dilemma of how brands, marketers and, specifically, agencies address the challenge of social media.  the issue was the topic of discussion last night at the IPA 44 Club's inaugural event of 2009: The future of advertising in a networked society.  quite the session it was... here's the gist:

part one - report findings

• social media = the online tools and platforms people use to share information, thoughts, opinions, content etc
• problems is that brands are "crashing the party rather than hosting it" (Russell Davies)
• many brands are experimenting but not getting traction in the area
• we need a model of comms that reflects 'ME' as opposed to 'brand'
• a model that's about conversation and participation rather than interruption and engagement
• a model that incorporates David Armano's thinking about 'influence ripples'
• Johnny X by Dare is a cracking example
• which succeeded in concentrating the feeds into and out of it's online space (64% of upstream and 84% of downstream feeds came from 10 sites each)
• planning social media should focus on targeting the few, that demonstrate: (1) expansiveness (propensity to chatter), (2) popularity (propensity to filter and target) and (3) reciprocity (likelihood to act)
• network size is predictable, as is network flow, as is circulation

part two - agency survey

• brands in a socially-networked world are more responsible for creating and disseminating the right information - brands should be more discretionary in what they produce [Mediation found this less than substantiated and at odds with Clay Shirky's comments at the MGEITF this year on filtering in a content-abundant world being after the fact, ie produce then allow the network to filter]
• the way to reward brand advocates is not through financial incentive
• the industry disagrees on two areas: (1) that advertising principles are the same in a networked society and (2) that social media behaves in a fundamentally new way
• it is believed that most revenue is up for grabs in content creation, then data & insight, then market research & insight gathering (amongst others)
• these new revenue streams represent £11bn of additional revenue opportunity, with another £5bn potentially
• ...which would be (exactly!) enough to meet the £16bn shortfall in industry revenues by 2016 predicted by the IPA's Future of Advertising and Agencies report of two years ago (£16bn = the difference between the IPA's 'Central' and 'Consumer' Scenarios)

part three - the discussion

I won't bullet this because it's getting late and you had to be there, but this was the better part of the evening with discussion ranging between philosophy of brands in a social media space to the (inevitable) measurement and accountability of such activity.

for me a kind of rose-tinted consensus was reached; consensus that went along the lines of:

• marketing has always been about great social networking, the challenge is the same - getting the right content in the right place, its just that...
• (1) people power is more potent (we have 500 networked connections not 50 disparate ones) and (2) we need to react to the context our message are in rather than control the context our messages are in
• it's brilliant because we can react to real people in real time in the context of a real conversations
• social media isn't a bolt on, it has to be woven into every brand touchpoint
• brands need to behave differently, and understand that their relationship with consumers is - to consumers - much less important than consumers' relationships with other consumers

so in a nutshell social media is great because it's as old as the hills, better than the disruption model, measurable ...and there's a freak-off big commercial opportunity for the brands and agencies that get it right.

I just don't think that it' that easy.  our industry is woefully unprepared for the future.  there's some brilliant thinking and debate going on, but the commercial models, joined-up industry measurement systems, and marketing best practice principles - from a 'what works' as opposed to a 'self-regulatory' point of view - just aren't moving fast enough.

most importantly, not enough consideration was given to the integration of broadcast and social media.  they're not going to exist in isolation and broadcast media is going nowhere. iTunes didn't kill CDs and Amazon didn't kill Waterstones.  social media certainly won't kill mainstream broadcast media; the same mainstream broadcast media that in the vast majority of instances provides social media users with the content they comment on, pass on, or reappropriate for their own ends.

the other interesting question is how the behaviour of digital natives will evolve...  we're familiar with the media 'hubs' that are the current crop of adolescent's bedrooms; they're multi-tasking away across ten devices and infinite bits of content.  but what happens when they grow-up?  how much of their social media behaviour will they take with them into adulthood and how much will they replace with the aggregated broadcast consumption of their parents?

we live in interesting times; and I guess we wouldn't have it any other way.

one last word, I urge you to read JVW's post about the event and specifically his debate on how the IPA can use social media to get their social media report into more people's hands whilst not impacting on revenues.  a pleasure and a joy.

Taking the lead: how Doctor Who and Matt Smith prove the potent ability of broadcast TV to amplify a message in the digital age

two established and respected TV programmes.  two significant cast changes.  and that's about where the similarities end.  just before Christmas Channel 4 introduced us to the new cast of Skins, and on Saturday the BBC introduced us to the man who'll play the Doctor post his tenth regeneration in about a years time.

both aim to achieve the same two objectives: one, mitigate against viewer decline when an established lead or leads leave; and two, capitalise on any potential positive PR that results from the casting of the new guy or guys on the block.

but the ways in which each programme went about achieving those aims couldn't have been more different.  the principles undying the BBC's approach to Doctor Who were uber traditional from a commissioning pov.  hold back information (only 6 people knew prior to the announcement in a DW Confidential special on Saturday night), and broadcast to maximum effect.

Skins on the other hand has maintained the approach that has served it so well hereto: establish communities, seed information to them, and allow / use the community to spread the message.  the two approaches could be summarised as:

is one right? ...or at least more right than the other?  well no, each channel is communicating as is right for that programme brand and its audience.  but a comparison of the results of each - as measured on Google Insights for Search - does show a clear benefit, at least in one regard, of one model versus the other.

comparative searches for skins, new skins, doctor who, new doctor who and matt smith as reported on Google Insights for Search application

both Skins terms (light blue and red) stay very consistent, the announcement of the new cast didn't seem to generate any significant interest (as measured by number of Google searches) at the time of release.  compare that with the BBC's broadcast approach...  searches for 'Doctor Who' (yellow) and 'New Doctor Who' (green) increased 5.2 and 7.5-fold respectively between Friday  2nd and Saturday 3rd Jan, the day the announcement was broadcast.

the real winner of course in Matt Smith, searches (shown above in purple) for whom increased one hundred fold (the maximum on the Google index); interest that Mr Smith should probably get used to.

broadcast TV sometimes seems rather under siege.  the dual forces of digital switchover and the evolution of on-demand hardware (including the humble desktop) sometimes paint an incorrect picture of the decline of the power broadcast TV.  but the power to amplify a message remains as potent as ever.  as this blog has argued before, the ability to broadcast a message to millions of people (over six million for Matt Smith according to the Guardian) becomes more rather than less important in a digital world.  TV may be changing in many ways, but it's unique ability to excite and unite around new news remains as powerful as ever.

Contextualising communications for their media home: why the Orange Gold Spot gets Mediation's vote in DCM's ad-off

to celebrate their new on-screen identity, DCM (formerly Carlton Screen Media) are asking the industry to vote on their favourite ever cult cinema ad.  an panel of illustrious experts has narrowed the list down to ten finalists which you can view and then vote for here.

it's quite a list - everything from Kylie's 2001 jaunt on a red velvet rodeo bull for Agent Provocateur to Tony Kaye's surreal effort for Dunlop in 1994.  the best of the Diet Coke break ads is in there, as is Carling's Dam Busters, some Guinness Surfers and a reworked Bullitt chase with Steve McQueen behind the wheel of a Ford Puma.

but for me there can only be one winner.  in a cinema ad-off, the vote has to go to on-screen communications that have become as integral a part of the modern cinema experience as popcorn and Green and Blacks...  communications that have embraced not just the cinema screen but the Hollywood dream sprawling behind it.  comms that took said Hollywood dream and subverted it to within an inch of it's life - much to our collective amusement.

over the last five years Carrie Fisher, Snoop Dogg, Alan Cumming, Steven Seagal, Sean Aston, Daryl Hannah, Spike Lee, John Cleese, Macaulay Culkin and even Darth Vader have had their projects subjected to the interference of Mr Dresden and co.  the result for Orange is credibility in and associations with cinema that go far beyond the mere placement of an ad.  they own this particular bit of media real-estate in a way few other brands have achieved anywhere, let alone on cinema...

in combination with a BAFTA association and Orange Wednesdays, the Orange spot is the result of a determined focus from a marketing team and associated agencies that demonstrate the power of creating content that is contextualised for the channel in which it's appearing.  the Orange spot could only work in cinema, it's what gives it it's power.  and it's why it's getting Mediation's vote.

The ten tonne zeotrope: how Sony continue to master the art of advertising the advertising

so what do you do when you've done balls, paint, plasticine (and Daniel Craig) in your ads?  you build the world's biggest zeotrope of course.  Sony's next effort was filmed in Italy earlier this month and is set to hit screens in the spring.

but the true success of the Bravia efforts is less the ads, and more the advertising of the ads.  the original balls ad was spontaneously snapped when it was shot on the streets of San Francisco.  since then the back story has been rigorously planned.  for paint - as Faris highlighted in his IPA Excellence Diploma thesis:

"the film was first released online and then screened on television, consciously catering to the differing needs of youth and the Massive Passives. Online, the assets of the film were made available for remixing. The campaign was transmedia, recombinant and collective."

for the zeotrope effort, the above video was shot by Shortlist, loaded by then up on YouTube and written up in editorial on their website and in this morning's edition.  Fallon et al are really starting to master the art of advertising buzz...  now using smart media partnerships to amplify the story.  neat, smart, and of course never forgetting the golden rule - have an engaging enough idea and content to build the model around.  looking forward to the ad already.

Here we go again: why brands should care whether or not viewers trust that their votes will count

the last few weeks have seen the spectre of viewer trust raise its head again, but unlike last year's Blue Peter name-the-cat debacle and Ant and Dec's Jiggygate affairs, recent events are far more opaque.

last time round, the cheating was obvious.  judgments were delivered and calls were made that clearly ignored the voice of viewers.  sanctions were duty handed out and much hand-wringing ensued.  everyone learned their lesson, got it off their collective chests at Edinburgh, and everything was OK again, right?

well no actually.  because the last few weeks have seen the voting viewer confidence undermined once more, again in the arena that is Saturday night event reality TV, and by both ITV and the BBC.

first up we had Dianagate courtesy of the X-factor.  to cut a long story short she let rip at a bonfire party, was ill, the producers gave her a get out of jail free card and Laura went out.  cue a call for the decision to be referred to Ofcom, a massive online petition to get Laura back in, and a mention in Parliament.

up next we had of course Sergeantgate on the BBC.  one of the biggest stories of last week saw the big guy pull out saying "The trouble is that there is now a real danger that I might win the competition. Even for me that would be a joke too far."  Sergeant hinted at the existence of pressure to go (from the BBC / judges / other contestants), The Daily Mail suggested that the reason was a P&O cruise that was beckoning, whilst Richard & Judy writing in the Express blamed his wife.

why does this matter?  why is this getting a post?  why can't we all just accept that it's just a TV show, get over it and all agree to get along?  and most importantly why should brands have any beef with all this?

because it's either reality TV or its not - if Sergeant winning isn't an option (in his or anyone else's mind) he shouldn't be taking part in the first place; if we're going to ask the time and money of viewers to participate then they have to believe that their contribution will count.

because the principles of viewer interaction and contribution are too important to allow rules to be broken.  because the principle of 'have your say and the majority will determine the outcome' has got to be seen to be upheld.  and most of all because the difference between voting-viewer and contributer / co-creator is in name only...

in both the above cases we're asking people to engage with branded content.  similarly in both cases the decision of producers - to allow Diana to stay and to allow John to go - took the ability to control the outcome out of the hands of viewers and into the hands of producers.

brands should tread carefully where Saturday night producers seemingly don't fear to tread.  in a digital age that demands engagement and co-creation with brands thru media, brands (1) have to remain transparent and (2) have to be content for power - once devolved - to lie and remain with their consumers.

this is the reward for engagement; the quid pro quo for the time and energy of getting involved; consumer ROI if you like.  time will tell what the fall-out is for X-Factor and Strictly - but brands that fail to learn the lessons will find it less easy to waltz off in to the sunset with their credibility intact.

From theory to practice: the challenge of planning Transmedia

Keith Arem's graphic novel Ascend, for which a game is currently in development

it's now been over two years since Faris bought transmedia planning to our attention in his post of the same name on TIGS.  the theory has been well expounded in the period since then; with a post by Jason Oke at Leo Burnett Toronto which explored the TP concept within the context of a single ad quickly kicking things off.

I'm sure that the idea of TP has cropped up in most media, comms and ad agencies by now...  it certainly has in Mediation's.  but we've yet to see - as far as I can make out - a significant campaign emerge based on TP principles.  the same is actually true of the entertainment industry; in an interview with Games TM magazine(edition 75), Henry Jenkins - the Godfather of TP - concedes that truly persuasive examples have yet to arrive.

they're doing better than us though.  transmedia planning should be everywhere by now.  the theory is familiar and is not only relatively unchallenged, but is offers the very solution to some of the biggest marketing challenges of the moment.  of its many advantages, the primary benefit has to be the extent to which it pays back on the time taken to consume it.  Jenkins goes on to observe that "regardless of the commercial motives behind it, transmedia entertainment done well also provides rewards for fans".

so why is getting the theory working in practice so difficult?  here's some starters for ten...

firstly, the financial investment required.  the reason the best examples of TM largely remain in the entertainment arena (the Matrix, Cloverfield, Heroes, Lost etc) because it takes a significant chunk of investment to develop and then create the content often required.  the commercial models for Fox or Paramount are set up to do this, the commercial models for marketeers often aren't.

but this is a bit of a cop out.  for the cost of making three 30 second ads you can certainly afford to make an episodic drama for online distribution.  and no it doesn't matter if it's not going to go on broadcast TV because those people who consume AV content online are exactly those people most likely to 'get' transmedia narratives...  this means of course that the media budgeting has to evolve just as much as the production pot.

no, the real issues in making TP happen lie much closer to home than 'we don't have the budget' territory.  they are twofold, the first of which is we're bound to the conventions of the media spaces we use.  in the Games TM article mentioned above, Keith Arem discusses the TM principles behind his graphic novel Ascend (the image above).  he observes that:

"if a project requires a 30-minute budget introduction, games can do that, but the medium could just as easily offer six high-budget five-hour episodes to revolutionise the story.  film and television are still limited by rigid series structures and minimum lengths".

advertisers on those channels are bound by those same conventions; conventions we as an industry - planners, buyers and media-owners (and indeed Ofcom) alike need to start challenging.  it's the limitations of the spot model that in many cases is preventing transmedia's breakthrough into broadcast channels; and as long as transmedia only exists online, it's unlikely to capture the imagination of marketeers or the budgets of FDs.

but the final barrier to making TM happen in brand comms is the closet to home of all.  Jenkins notes that TM experiences can "be a source of ... frustration [for consumers] if it's inconsistent, undermines the coherence of the work, or promises insights it never delivers".  Arem's solution is simple: "have a good team of like-minded individuals around you ... my philosophy for all of our projects is to have a core team to supervise all creative and technical aspects of the production.  the main focus of that team is to keep the story and assets consistent, and integrate them with the entire franchise".

I think you know where I'm going with this.  agency structures are lucky if they can do this internally let alone with other agencies, resulting in the presention of a joined up and unified transmedia solution to a client.  not only might different creative agencies have to work to one vision, but that vision has to be molded by the space planned by its media agency, and of course vice versa.

the reality is that as long as the conversation with a client only gets as far as "how big is the pack shot?", both agencies and clients will be bound to a dynamic that not only acts as a barrier to transmedia planning, but actively works against it emerging into the mainstream where it so surely deserves to belong.

'Together we're stronger' is the message as ITV takes an optimistic tone at the 2009 upfronts

as optimistic as it gets: ITV's Britannia High

'together we're stronger' was the message to media agencies at last week's 2009 upfronts presentation on the Southbank.  and strong is indeed what ITV is going to need us all to be.  with Tesco now openly talking about Q1 2009 being an 'Ice Age' in consumer spending, all media owners are bracing themselves for tough conditions ahead.  the message from ITV is simple: TV is the most effective channel for brand building and behaviour change, commercial TV is more popular than ever, and in real terms the cost of airtime is the same as it was in 1992.  that and a billion pound commitment to the programming budget to boot.

it's all compelling stuff and ITV has plenty to be pleased about; ITV2 and ITV3 are the top two MC channels, over 80% of the schedule is UK original programming, and (with Kangaroo still in the pipeline) itv.com is starting to make some strides in online for the corporation - we were informed that three alternate endings to the Liam storyline generated 650k views in one weekend.  who knew.

upcoming programming looks good (you can view the reel here) and includes the remake of The Prisoner with Sir Ian McKellen, and Demons (an early Saturday night partner for Primeval).  ITV have also recently locked down a deal which will see Sage ad-fund the return of the Krypton Factor, with Julian Smith, Planning Account Director at ITV, commenting that it marked "the biggest ad-funded and multi-platform programme ITV has commissioned and the first one to appear in ITV1’s prime time schedule".

Mediation asked Peter Fincham - ITV's new Director of Television - why it had taken so long for an AFP to make it into primetime.  he noted that commissioning lead times are often very different to those of brands, and that keeping an audience and a brand happy aren't always the same thing.  but the main barrier seemed to be cost - with a Q&A panel adding that brands often baulk at the price tag that comes with making your own show.  this is probably fair and true, and a new approach that starts with what the schedule needs rather than what advertisers dictate is a good starting point - no brand wants to invest in a programme that is simply not going to rate no matter how on-brand it is.

one of the stars of the show was Sunday nights new effort Britannia High (above) which despite buying pretty much every 6 sheet on the underground was severely trounced in the ratings by Antiques roadshow on BBC1 (its viewers may be - according to Fincham - a "coach load of old people", but that there quite a big coach).

part of the problem with Britannia High has been the marketing.  not sure that a 6 sheet campaign really cuts it - especially with a show like this.  my guess is a lot of people just didn't know what to expect, that's not a position a new peak-time show on ITV wants to be in.  it would have been so easy to run some kind of audition-concept format in the run up to TX that would have also explained what to expect.  suspect that it will have momentum but it's an opportunity missed for the channel.  you only get to launch once.

one other gripe is that ITV do rather want to seem to have their cake and eat it...  they're very happy to deliver mass audiences (and so they should), but their targeting ability was demonstrated at a channel level (see below), with ITV1 equaling optimism and ITV2 fun and younger etc.  solid positionings but in a multichannel world you can get more precise targeting elsewhere for less.

stronger targeting delivering effectiveness (source: ITV upfronts presentation)

the case study for targeting was Harveys' sponsorship of Coronation Street which has generated 3.5m red button interactions with the brand.  a great result but hardly the best example of a targeted proposition.

all in all though a confident performance from the corporation.  here's to the optimism holding as the chill of an economic ice-age starts to bite.

Getting more out of the ad break: how ITV prove the extent to which content affinity is transferred to advertising

some new research from ITV attaches some numbers to what we all - should - intuitively know.  the network's Event TV research, which can be viewed here, quantitates the simple theory that "compelling content generates higher levels of interest and awareness" in advertising.

the research looked at 'event TV' - programming that is anticipated, time-sensitive (ie less likely to be time-shifted), and which often involves ritual behaviour (getting the pizzas in for example).  what most defines such programming however is the extent to which it is a shared experience. 'true fans' - those more likely to seek-out additional programme content and talk about it - are also those most likely watch in groups.  the shared experience doesn't of course stop there - they are very much aware that the same broadcast is being watched by millions of others at that very moment.

watch with other (source: ITV)

the research goes on to quantify the extent to which such fans are less likely to flick over when the ads come on, and therefore more likely to watch the commerciality that is the break (eg true soap fans are 97% more likely to watch the ads during their shows than their non-fan equivalents).  finally, it demonstrates the extent to which affinity for programmes seems to be transferred to ads, with fans of TV shows having more positive opinions of the advertising in breaks throughout the show.

it must be said I find myself asking what this actually tangibly means for planning and buying.  the benefit for ITV is clear; this research makes the case for the justification of investment in event (and therefore often peak-time) programming.  but this airtime is oversubscribed as is - further encouraging agencies to plan into this space will only lead to further premiumisation (I know that's not a word btw) of said airtime.

that quibble aside, this is not only a solid bit of research to add to our collective canon, but is research brilliantly presented in the form of a video-diary of a day ('sofa-Saturday') in the life of a household from the perspective of the TV.  you can view it from the above link, I recommend it.

it also highlights the extent to which viewers will track desired content across platforms; there's an interesting multi-platform (transmedia) opportunity for a campaign that wanted to acknowledge and capitalise on the multi-platform relationship true fans have thru their content.