cgm

Is Prime Time Really Prime Time in the Age of Twitter?

Alas, we have another dimension of changing consumer behavior throwing a wrench at yet another (time-tested) dimension of consumer behavior.  Lately I've taken fancy in watching certain TV shows in conjunction with my Twitter and Facebook activity.  Ups the entertainment value.  If a plot twist grabs you, you put your thoughts out there -- however risky!   And others, of course, do likewise...often in huge quantities.  My colleague and CEO, John Burbank, wrote about this in a recent post entitled "Could Social Networking Bolster the 30-Second spot", the logic being that so called "telecommunities" (powered of late by microblogging) are heightening consumer attention around real-time TV programming and advertising. Writes Burbank:

While there is still a lot to learn about the interaction of social networking and TV, it’s clear that there is opportunity for programmers and advertisers to leverage telecommunities to drive audience participation with both the programs and the advertising.  And it doesn’t have to be just live programming such as awards shows and sporting events.  Any show with a deeply loyal fan base could drive live viewing and deeper engagement through these telecommunities

Big idea -- and much needed conversation -- but with every opportunity comes new complexity.  Late last night, after Tweeting a key takeaway about key lessons from Dennis Rodman's failure to deliver on even basic customer service principles on the Apprentice (a comment that immediately got sucked into my Facebook page), I noticed a Facebook comment from my Nielsen colleague, Charlie Buchwalter, who piled on to my comment  "Hey...I'm on the west coast.  Don't give it away!"  

Are you serious?  Are you asking half the world to contain its "impulse to engage" to save the West Coast time slot?  I'm just not sure that's going to work.  Half the fun with TV these days might just be posting Tweets and status updates in real time. We're all going to have to take a step back and figure this one out.  This is especially problematic for programming targeted to increasingly "wired" and "conversational" younger segments.  Will we need to move "Prime time" to an early starting point on the west coast to keep up with what we might dub "Talk Time." 

Women & TV: From Morning Talk Shows to Blog Buzz Flows?

This weekend an article appeared in both the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune quoting me on the topic of "Women Tuning Out Morning Newscasts."   This television season, the article notes, "has seen a significant erosion of the morning shows' demographic sweet spot: 25- to 54-year-old women."  I offered the following hypothesis to the reporter, Matea Gold, and I think there's excellent data to support this:

"The very issues that typically get covered on the morning shows are very robust and alive in the blogosphere. It's safe to say that the Internet is beginning to cannibalize a lot of these conversational topics."

While most media coverage tends to center on the "A-list" bloggers, women are powering so much of the growth of the blogosphere, and the topics they discuss mirror the "conversational" topics you often see on the morning shows, albeit with even greater intimacy. And videos, especially the ones that are easily embedded in blog entries, are further blurring the line between offline and online television, potentially elevating the challenge (and opportunity, if they play it right) for the TV networks.  (Recall my earlier post re the embedding of Dove Evolution content in tens of thousands of female blogs).  A key challenge for the networks is to figure out how to maximize cross-platform synergy between the online conversation and the offline content, and vice-versa.  Some experimentation appears to be underway in the cross-branding of iVillage and NBC morning show content, and my guess is that we'll see lots more experimentation along these lines. 

Of course there may be other factors.  Post-article commentary in the Huffington Post by Glynnis MacNicol points to a study by Nielsen Entertainment suggesting that of the 117 million active gamers in the U.S., 56 percent play games online, and sixty-four percent (64%) of those online gamers are female.  "Is it time for a morning show video game?" MacNicol asks. 

Maybe so!   I frankly wouldn't rule out anything.

CGM, Traditional Ad Agencies, and Video-Inspired Renewal?

As I note in my ClickZ column this morning, it's been "fashionable lately to trash traditional ad agencies for being out-of-touch, out-of-the-loop, out-to-lunch, and missing-in-action on all things relevant to our unmistakable digital and 'conversational' reality."  But maybe, just maybe, that's too simple.  Maybe the advent of online video is represents a fresh opportunity for traditional agencies to reinvent themselves, and in the process, leverage and exploit their core strengths: story-telling, emotional bonding, branding.  And maybe, just maybe, consumer-generated media (CGM) is the best thing that every happened to the traditional agencies because it's demonstrating that long-form story telling has a world of potential and stickiness.   My piece, entitled "Will Video Save the Agency Star," articulates a number of reasons why I think agencies have a fighting chance.  

CGM & Media Planning - Slow Down and Listen Harder

My work colleague, Max Kalehoff, just penned an excellent piece in MediaPost entitled "Media Specialists Must Grasp Consumer Generated Media."  Quite to the point, he writes:

"...I fear that too many advertising and media specialists are jumping in head-first with little appreciation or respect for this new world.... Unlike most other media, CGM is generally for, by and all about the consumer. Media departments, both traditional and interactive, should slow down and better understand the world of CGM before applying traditional conventions, which are often rooted in oversimplified constructs of controlled impressions, reach and frequency."

Max then provides a few frameworks for agencies to get it right on the CGM front, including the notion that "CGM Niches Requirer Greater Contextual Acumen."  I could not agree more, and I think the message is extremely timely.  Traditional ad agencies and media planners generally sat on the sidelines during what we might dub WOM/CGM 1.0 era, a period marked by the growth of WOMMA (up to over 300 members, including most of the top PR agencies like Edelman, Ketchum, and Fleishman but very few ad agencies and traditional media planners) and an exploration of largely text-based, offline watercooler, or person-to-person online buzz and conversation.  Now, with the explosion of consumer opinion, creativity, and word-of-mouth in the online video space (arguably the stickiest and most entertaining content on the web today), new players are jumping in the game -- some quite aggressively. The challenge for all of us -- old and new entrants alike -- is that we not screw things up and compromise what's so special about consumer-generated-media (CGM). and fuel consumer cynicism in the process.
As Max notes so well at the end of his piece: "Whether in the context of media planning or active participation, media specialists must respect the consumer like never before."

The Weekly CGM Buzz Report

This just in!  Amanda Congdon's departure from CGM-inspired Rocketboom has generated as much blog buzz as Robert Scoble departing Microsoft for PodTech.  Long before I discovered YouTube, Amanda Congdon's Rocketboom captured my imagination about the possibilities of what I dub CGM2, or consumer-generated multi-media, and her daily dish is one of my favorite Video iPod downloads. I'm not surprised there's buzz.

PayPerPost Postscript: Meanwhile, the PayPerPost.com discusssion continues, with thoughtful commentary by Laurent Flores, Jim Nail, Max Kalehoff, Mike May, and Gary Stein, among others.  As I noted in my last post, this topic deserved extended discussion...and ultimately, resolution. I'm relieved other influencers are jumping in the debate.  For even tougher questions about all these issues, I strongly recommend Kate Kaye's Sales Pitch Society II, an excellent and provocative "pull-no-punches" online mini-book I've been meaning offer commentary on for quite some time (and probably will very soon).

Supernova Highlights: Big Ad Players talk CGM2 & Social Media

Far and away the biggest highlight of my recent West Coast trip was a Supernova workshop panel I co-moderated with my indefatiguable colleague Max Kalehoff.  Our topic for the in-depth 90 minute panel was "Social Multi-Media," another term for CGM2 (Consumer-Generated Multi-Media), and we managed to assemble an excellent and diverse panel of participants representing perspective of big advertisers and key CGM2 enablers.  Panelists included Michael Wiley of GM (initiator of the GM Fastlane blog and fellow WOMMA board member), Curt Hecht of GM Planworks (Starcom/MediaVest), Oliver Lucket of video-upload service Revver, Brian Zeug of Yahoo, and Stan Joosten of P&G.   Pamela Parker captured a few key highlights in a recent article in ClickZ.   ZD-Net also has a good summary. Our key question:

Now that user expression is dialing up to a more emotional and viral level through social multimedia platforms -- including images, audio and video -- how are marketers facing the challenging implications on traditional marketing practices and customer relationships?

I daresay half the excitement revolved around getting to know everyone from the night before over dinner.  During both dinner and the panel, we deeply probed around the impact of the evolving social-media space, especially video.  Stan shared insights around P&G's "future of media" landscape work (which clearly acknowledges a world of consumers as "content creators'), but also suggested (especially during the panel) that not all P&G brands (e.g. Charmin) will find this relevant. He also talked candidly of the challenge of large organizations moving fast in this area.  Michael Wiley of GM spoke candidly of both the excitement and challenges and rewards of initiating and sustaining externally facing blogs at GM.  With the Fastlane's enormous success, he noted, other GM brand are eager to "jump in" and yet there a need to keep it all focused and on-strategy.  Curt of GM-Planworks alluded to new media tools emerging to better harness the CGM and social media work, but noted the rapid, almost humbling, pace of change in this arena. Beyond his excellent comments, what was so interesting about Brian of Yahoo was his position itself. Yahoo is establishing key "category management" vertical in areas like auto and CPG to help better "package" holistic offering for major marketers, and Brian, a former key executive from M&M/Mars (home of the highly participatory "Global Color Vote" initiative in partnership with Grey Interactive) is leading the CPG charge.  Smart move for Yahoo. Big marketers are looking for holistic planning, not sexy "one-offs."  Oliver of Revver impressed me because his business model is not only grounded on an aggressive future vision of CGM2, but from the get-go acknowledges the rights and contributions of content-creators.  Interestingly, there seems to be a timely convergence of major advertisers looking to CGM or CGM2 as the new "secret sauce" of advertising effectiveness, and the rise of "enablers" like Revver and ViTrue who are looking to "source" or "host" CGM creation or ad-integration for major advertisers...and to do so in a highly consumer-centric manner. Anyway, this post hardly does justice to a wonderful gathering consumer-centered leaders/visionaries, and we all vowed to keep the "conversation" alive.  For future learning, I highly encourage the Supernova blog for additional insights. 

Disclosure & Credits: P&G & GM are clients of Nielsen BuzzMetrics.  We have also led projects for Yahoo. Photo caption from top left to right: Curt Hecht, Oliver Luckett, Stan Joosten, Pete Blackshaw (me), Michael Wiley, Max Kalehoff.

Folks...It's Official!!!!

Today we formally announce the finalization -- yes, finito -- of our Intelliseek + BuzzMetrics + VNU-Nielsen deal.  We're now the Nielsen BuzzMetrics service. and it's no small coincidence that my ClickZ article this morning -- "The Gold Medal of Questions: Is the Web TV?" -- further probes the complimentary, symbiotic relationship television programming and web content, including consumer-generated media (CGM).  So much of what we'll be tackling as the "Global Measurement Standard in Consumer-Generated Media" will involve dissecting the relationship brand experiences (e.g. advertising) and consumer engagement (e.g. propensity to speak-out, recommend).  Naturally, this exercise implicates all forms of advertising, especially television. Quite honestly, I could not imagine a more exciting time to be in the center of the exciting, transformative changes in marketing and market research. In some respects, I feel like I'm back at Procter & Gamble when we just started to work through the implications of "new media" on marketing.  Back then my P&G mentor, now friend, Denis Beausejour, kept reminding me of a simple adage as we struggled to make sense of this new environment of consumer power and control.  "The consumer is our teacher -- listen and learn."  And so the journey continues.  I'm pumped!   

Viral Sandbagging & The CGM Paradox

Two trends are headed for a viral clash, and we might as well start talking about them right now. One one hand we have the explosion of word-of-mouth marketing, best reflected in the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association's (WOMMA) fast-growing 250-member strong membership roster, which includes some of the nation's top advertisers.  This constituency is dedicated to the proposition that the fastest-growing, most trusted media is that which consumer share amongst themselves. You love or hate a product, you tell others.  You love a marketing campaign or ad campaign, the network effect you trigger helps build the brand.  In this camp, brands and agencies either high-five themselves or take victory laps when their viral campaigns fly all over the web (even when offline events are the primary catalysts).  In this blog, I often write about the so-called "CGM Multiplier Effect." The more free impressions, the greater the ROI.  Just ask viral darlings Crispin Porter + Bogusky, P&G's Tremor Brand, BzzAgent, M80 Interactive, or most of the water-cooler thirsty brands who advertised in the Super Bowl. 

Enter (Legal) Viral Sandbagging:  Now we are seeing early warning signs that spreading the good word, especially in video format, may not be the appropriate or cool thing to do.  And it might actually be illegal, as popular video-sharing site YouTube learned after NBC requested that it remove clips of what arguably is the most hilarious and frequently viewed viral video of the year: "Lazy Sunday" (otherwise known as the "Chronicles of Narnia Rap").  It's not without irony that this story is breaking less than two months after BlogPulse's "2005 in Review" ranked Volkswagon's Gene Kelley Golf/GTI TV commercial as the #1 shared video of the year in the Blogosphere.  Not surprisingly, there's no complaining from the VW brand or their agency; if anything, they are probably hoping WOMMA will come up with the viral equivalent of the Emmies -- the WOMMIES -- to reward such word-of-mouth success.  Just to put all this in perspective, the SNL Rap garnered far more online buzz than Burger King's $5MM Whopperettes commercial during the Super Bowl.

But Wait, It Gets More Complex:  Of course, it's never that simple.  If you've spent any time on iTunes recently, you'll notice that the archive of TV content for download to the iPod video player is just exploding, especially in the comedy arena, led by Saturday Night Live compilations.  One could potentially argue there's a real opportunity cost of allowing free video sharing of clips when you can charge customers $2 or more per download.  Then again, there's the good old fashioned marketing rules of "trial and awareness" one must consider.

Emerging Dilemmas:   Expect this debate to get messier and more complex before it gets resolved. Here are few question we should be asking:

• TV Ad Restrictions: Will lawyers apply to same content restrictions to television commercials that are shared and spread online?  If networks push too aggressively on such restrictions, will brands perceive less "ROI" in their advertising potential?  Under what circumstances could "repurposed" ad copy be shared?  Are consumers to blame if marketers put "send this to a friend" links all over their web sites?
• TV Copy Remixing: What if the TV copy is tweaked or "remixed" (a term Dave Evans described in a recent ClickZ column)?  We see this with music "sampling" all the time? 
• Favorability Filters:  Will brands go after consumers who create negative "branded" CGM while ignoring those who positively advertise on behalf of the brand?  Will the past muster?
• "Incidental Product Placement":  Will lawyers take issue with the fact that there are millions of instances of what I call "Incidental Product Placement," whereby branded imagery dots the landscape of photos, videos, and other consumer-created content on the web?  And who's to blame...the consumers, or the marketers selling the "capture" devices?

The rap on the rap is this: lots of questions need to be worked up before we can look at this hot-potato on an issues and say..."it's a rap."

Super Bowl Ads, CGM, and Marketing Fusion

"Can a brand maximize ROI (define) on a major product launch or TV ad campaign without the active assistance of cross-platform "echo effect" tools, such as brand Web sites?"   This is the opening question in my most recent ClickZ column entitled "Super Bowl Advertising and Marketing Fusion: Razor's Edge."   The answer, I believe, is a big no, and this year's Super Bowl - an event marketers promote as a "word of mouth event" -- missed the mark in a big way on cross-platform marketing, which is essential for driving and nurturing consumer generated media and word of mouth.  One example I cite is Gillette Fusion, which fell short of fusing very their expensive Super Bowl ads with a meaningful online "engagement" experience.  Note how the website presently reads: "Come Back Soon to Experience It!"  This isn't to suggest Gillette TV spots didn't achieve meaningful TV "reach" levels, but rather, that the brand gave short shrift to what Stuart Elliot described in the New York Times last week as the "echo effect."  But there were other really obvious misses, including brand search engines firing blanks when users query "Super Bowl Ad."    My final takeaway from the ClickZ article is this:

• "TV advertising is hardly dead, but to work in this age of elusive consumer attention, it needs reinforcement, assistance, and, yes, an outlet for engagement. Web sites are a great place to start reengaging and, in the process, drive more fusion with marketing procedures." 

Let me end on a more upbeat note.  The good news for Gillette Fusion is that the product is just starting to get in the hands of consumers, which means it's well primed for conversation and word-of-mouth.  And I'll admit, it's a pretty good product.   Better late than never!

Owen Mack Attack: WOMMA Videos

How can you not like Owen Mack!  This guy loves CGM so much he's created a business dedicated to promoting it: CoBrandIt!  Importantly, uber-video historian Mack and his partner Jesse Buckley. put together a mighty archive of video clips from last week's WOMMA conference in Orlando...all well produced and insightful.  CGM and word-of-mouth expertise at your fingertips:  Bob Garfield, Paul Rand, Mark Kingdon, Jamie Telford, Laurie Weisberg, Douglas Atkin, David Fletcher, Steve Rubel,  John Moore, and more.