mediation

2.2%: why it will take more than product placement to relieve the UK's commercial broadcasters current woes

Krishnan Guru-Murthy interviews Darryl Collins of SeeSaw media on last night's product-placement imagined Channel4 news

so six months after Andy Burnham ruled out the possibility the UK would seem to be on track for product placement after all.  the move - which would see independent broadcasters to take payments for displaying commercial products during shows (excluding news, kids TV and BBC) - will be announced by Ben Bradshaw next week.  shortly after the announcement all hell broke loose.

Metro reported Mediawatch-UK as suggesting that programmers had to be 'very careful' about which products were advertised, and Richard Lindley, of the Voice of the Listener and Viewer (just both of them?) as saying: "we believe that product placement destroys the trust of viewers in the programmes they are watching".  if that were the case trust would have already been destroyed - programmes are already packed full of brands (they're a reflection of the real world), its just that now broadcasters and programme makers will be able to monetise the exposure they give to brands in doing so.

there was an interesting exchange between Krishnan Guru-Murthy and Darryl Collins of SeeSaw media on Channel4 news last night:

CGM: do you think that brands can be trusted with this kind of power?

DC: erm

CGM: you work with them.  you know how cynical they are...

DC: of course.  what they're looking for is the greatest ROI ... so they're going to have a say in what's going on air, then if that helps generate extra revenue or sales ... then yes they will want to get involved

perhaps I'm just the luckiest of planners, but not many if any of the brands that I work or have worked with are that cynical.  most are interested in having a genuine, effective and engaging encounter with the people they are wanting to reach, and if placing products in TV shows allows then to do that then all power to them.  it will be a foolish and ill-advised brand that goes in all guns blazing - pissing off programme makers, broadcasters and ultimately viewers in the process.  no one will win, least of all the brands themselves.

finally a little context.  if, as estimated, ITV see about £30m a year of the £100m or so that's expected to be generated thru the move, its not going to have a huge impact.  about £1.3bn in spot revenues across the network, a good £60m more in sponsorship revenues and say £20 in online totals about £1.38bn.  £30m therefore represents about 2.2% of what ITV are currently generating.  even if ITV was to open the doors as per the below (which they won't), the promise of a few product placements is hardly salvation for the UK's commercial broadcasting sector.

ps thanks Bevvo for the stats and the vid...

More questions than answers: fighting for the future of digital broadcast in Mediatel's playground

yesterday Mediatel held their annual Media Playground and Mediation popped along for the afternoon seminar discussing Digital Broadcast.  it's a broad topic area, covering emerging technologies, content, changing consumer behaviours and rapidly evolving business models.  one thing is clear - we have a lot more questions than we have answers.

it was apparent that we're entering an age of complexity in how content is created, deployed and consumed.  no one solution will predominate.  Bruce Daisley - Agency Leader at YouTube - observed that it's less about the platform, and referred to a 'long tail' of competitors.  that content rules, was echoed by the panel...

Rhys McLachlan - head of implementational TV at MediaCom - noted that this is, ultimately, what consumers will resolutely follow.  this was echoed by Jon Mitchell of Spotify who suggested that Hulu - recently down 3% - is plateauing.  they have (as opposed to Spotify) a limited amount of content, to thrive in a digital content economy you need ubiquity of supply.

and where eyeballs go commercial impacts follow right?  not necessarily.  McLachlan, in one of several soap-box moments, commented that "clients are increasingly risk adverse" and that "it's hard to invest in channels that are unproven.  there's an absence of valid metrics out there ... we are retreating to rather than flighting to quality.  people who want a share of my broadcast budget aren't making a strong enough case for their platforms"

McLachlan went on to comment that "we're complicit in perpetuating a trading model that was created in the 1950s ... we need to move on from this legacy model, a model that's been broken for some time".

it occurred to me that it's not the only model that's broken.  what so often get's lost in the maelstrom of how to aggregate and commercialise impacts in the new world of digital broadcast are the opportunities to engage audiences beyond the spot.  the spot is important and will not vanish into history anytime soon, indeed Daisley noted that YouTube's best performing ad (Gorilla of course) out-viewed their best performing piece of longer-form content (Wallace and Gromit if you're interested) by a ratio of forty toone "YouTube", he said, "is empirical evidence that great ads work".

but the spot ad no longer sits alone in the communications toolbox, and to approach commercialising long-form on-demand content by interrupting with ads really does defy belief.  interruption in a on-demand world is at best a contradiction in terms and at worst a failure to grasp the brilliant opportunities that on-demand offers the brands (and for that matter agencies) willing to embrace it...

because if anything is true as we negotiate the future of media and communications it is this; that brands and brand communications have - like everything else - to be in demand.

Opening up the store: how Sainsbury's gave us an authentic and balanced window into their world

brilliant bit of PR from Sainsbury's last night in the form of I'm Running Sainsbury's on Channel 4.  in the first of four episodes, Becky Craze aimed to prove that her idea of bagging a meal would not only deliver on Sainsbury's feed your family for a fiver efforts, but would help the coffers of the supermarket giant, which we were reliably informed are to the tune of £30k per minute.

described by C4 head of factual entertainment Andrew Mackenzie as "a look at the psychology of shopping and an opportunity to understand the institutions where we spend our money" the show - made by Silver River - was a genuinely balanced view of life working at the retailer.

overnights are reasonable - pulling in 1.6 million viewers and an 8% share, with a further 284,000 watching on catchup service Channel 4+1 an hour later (source MediaGuardian).  and the show seems to be generating a fair amount of chatter online.

positives were the genuine support that colleagues seemed to give each other (especially in the stores) and the enthusiasm of Becky to make a real difference to the company for which she works.  negatives were the patronising looks and comments from more senior figures within the company.  but with such negatives came credibility, the programme had an authenticity which I suspect will do well for the retailer.

but the real insight for me was the growth of own label.  Sainsbury's products in Sainsbury's now number 15,000 lines and account for half of all the sales in the supermarket.  one in every two items sold in Sainsbury's is own label.  and they're clearly holding their margin - the own label reportedly count for - nearly - half of all revenues).  enough to make any doubters of the continued rise of the retailer think twice.

next week should be fun, the show will feature an enthusiastic employee who takes the store to the customer - "it's not really stalking" she observes, "it's targeting".

One email chain about Whedon's Doll House: Two great hopes from Mediation about marketing TV shows

there follows a genuine email chain from my inbox today, names have been initialised to protect the innocent:

OB: "Dollhouse, the new Joss Whedon show, has started in the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollhouse_(TV_series)  Hopefully over here soon…
CS: has had a lot of critical slating but lovely premise, can't wait to see it.  Cx
AK:Oh how very exciting.  I like Dushku.  Can't wait to see it.  Ax
JG: I saw the ads whilst out in Ottawa earlier this year. I do hope it gets picked up here. The likes of Battle Star Galactica (great show) were part funded by Sky... they’d do well to get behind some of Whedon’s stuff too.
OB: We stopped watched BSG half-way thru second series, just didn’t grab us. May try again.
JG:You’ll have to catch repeats then as it finished last night!  It didn’t really change style or quality through the series so I’m not optimistic you’ll enjoy it much more if you go back to it.
HDL: I really enjoyed the first series of BSG and then it all got a bit a silly.  V exciting re Dollhouse though sounds weird even for JW.  I miss Firefly...
JG: Dollhouse is coming here very soon, maybe on FX I caught the tail end of an advert for it yesterday – hope it’s good J
OB: In my efforts to find a date for Dollhouse in the UK I noticed that Knight Rider has been re-made too. Will def. be watching that!
JG: Not found an exact date – it’s going to be on the Sci-fi channel in May (Dollhouse that is) Sci-fi have got Knight Rider too.
OB: Thanks, will keep an eye out for it. It’s great that US TV comes over here so quickly these days rather than having to wait ages...

I hope two things.  one, that somewhere out there Sc-Fi is planning some media beyond it's own channel to tell people about this programme.  too many shows languish for too long with too small an audience because of the perceived difficulty - and cost - of promoting them.

this is because in the main, promoting programmes beyond your own channel is expensive and is most likely to pay back in the medium or even long term.  but Doll House is one of those rare exceptions to this rule: its a TV project which, because its from Whedon, is genuinely anticipated by a core fan base.  something on which I hope and pray that Sci-Fi are planning to capitalise on.

secondly I hope that for not too much longer the world doesn't have to live without some software that tracks what I like and tells me when TV shows that I may like are coming my way.  or indeed coming back.  I was on the phone to a lovely lady from Sky yesterday week (part of the flat move trauma) who informed me that Fringe was back on Sky.  if she hadn't have said something I may never have known.

this is an application waiting to be written, first brand to write it wins the prize.  watch this space; I will be...

Doing digital on TV: How lastminute plan to get us all channel-hopping on Saturday night

thanks Emily for the heads up on this brilliant bit of thinking from lastminute.com who - fresh to to TV advertising for the first time in four years - are playing for a media first on Saturday night.  an emailer to their database explains:

"On Saturday 28 February at 9.50pm, watch us on telly and win a big bundle of good stuff.

We're creating a television first - and we want you to be part of it. Tune into ITV on Saturday 28 February at 9.50pm. Three 60 second adverts will be aired, straight after each other, starting on ITV, moving to Channel 4 and then ending on Channel 5.

It's going to be the world's first Mexican wave of thumbs up... spanning the channels and spreading the good stuff, right around the UK. Watch the three adverts and guess the number of thumbs you see.
Come back here and tell us how many thumbs you think you saw. Simple!

You could win a great big bundle of good stuff"

everything is in place here; (1) an dCRM and PR strategy to get this onto people's radars, (2) an innovative bit of media thinking that is consistent with and relevant to the campaign aims and (3) incentive to get involved, in the form of prizes to be won after the event.

but what's most smart is the line of thinking that got them to this idea in the first place.  Simon Thompson, chief marketing officer at lastminute explained in a Guardian article that "because Lastminute.com is a digital-based brand we have to go on to telly with a digital mentality ... To follow this ad consumers need to participate".  a brilliantly simple bit of logic that has gotten them to a very smart place indeed.

so it's all good - unless you're the OMD TV buyer, in which case 9.49pm on Saturday night may be a very nervous moment indeed ;o)

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.

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.

Don't say, do: how HBO's Voyeur showed the world how great a storyteller it is.

Jonny (thanks Jonny) pointed me in the direction of the above describing HBO's 2007 Voyeur activity, a campaign that won the Best Integrated Promotional Campaign at this year's Cannes.  great example of how brands should do rather than say.

advertising so often get's in the way...  we want people to think of us as great storytellers so let's make an ad about storytelling.  this campaign missed that cul-de-sac by a mile and instead created a campaign that immersed viewers in stories on their terms...  this was the objective from the start, this from the info on the above YouTube page:

"the campaign goal was to fortify HBO against increasing competition by strengthening the brand's relationship with super-fans. Incredibly engaged in all forms of media, they seek intelligent, cutting-edge entertainment experiences. Super-fans recognize HBO as one of the few brands that respects their intelligence. They don't just watch HBO programs - they're completely involved and engaged before, during and after a show.The creative task was to ignite this same level of passion around the HBO brand itself"

a website was of course integral, but mobiles, on-demand and blogs took the story much further.  for me though the best bit about this campaign was the outdoor projection.  we too often miss opportunities to use real spaces to bring campaigns to life...  context tells us that as content proliferates consumers prefer and expect real experiences (cost of recorded music coming down whilst live goes up etc)

innovative - digital-led - ways to take campaigns to the streets are too few and far between, but the reward is there for the brands that can integrate the physical and the digital so seamlessly and to the mutual benefit of each.

'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.