5 posts tagged “media”

MIPTV 2007 - What about this year?

Mar 25, 2007
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Off to MIPTV week of the 16th. Usually very worthwhile when you weigh it all up.

Value - one or two conference sessions that shed real light, meetings that open new doors and introductions to interesting people
Fun - the catching up with friends, drinks late at night and spending time with colleagues over dinner
Pain - most conference sessions (especially those you haven't strategically placed yourself to duck out of), no space to breath, having to be polite 24/7

This year should be interesting as we've recently announced our launch of Digital Outlook Studios and online is generally playing an ever more important part in TV (as we all know). Will be interesting to see whether people get the impact of social media and search, rather than the more obvious YouTube noise. Have a couple of meetings lined up so lets see what comes of it all.

Will report on developments hopefully during (subject to how much time we have) and certainly after the conference.

If any Vox-peeps are going, would love to meet.

Crystal balls, tea leaves and other ways to plan social media campaigns

Feb 7, 2007
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OK… we all know about “social media”, whether you call it community, buzz, viral, 2.0, or word-of-mouth. Some of us believe that embracing it as a marketing channel offers potential and we base this belief on our experience, instinct or, in some cases, blind faith in what others tell us.

We embrace, hold up and shout about the success stories…hallelujah! But what about ALL those social media campaigns, virals or sites that simply didn’t deliver… that bombed, where we expected to hit 10m uniques and… well, we didn’t? I have absolutely no proof to back this up, but I would expect that, if anyone did a survey of campaigns that “failed” (defined as not achieving the original measurable targets) and “succeeded” (defined as having hit or exceeded) across various different disciplines such as PR, media, promotions and social media, social media would come out the worst.

While many companies' forays into social media are driven predominantly by blind faith, fueled by hype and buzzwords like YouTube, UGC or 2.0, more and more companies base their decisions on experience and genuine instinct. While we work with clients that belong to the latter, I worry that the broader social media industry (whether publisher, tech company, agency or consultant) can continue to ride the wave of false euphoria for quite a while. At some point though these blind faith believers will start asking questions and what then? They’ll be absolutely right to do so and who will have the answers? Why should companies invest in a medium they don’t know what to expect from in terms of return, when they have other media such as advertising or PR where they can plan with a lot more accuracy? My concern is that if, as an industry, we don’t tackle this now, all those blind faith believers and faith peddlers riding this social media wave will wash us all ashore.

Don’t get me wrong… I believe that social media will have a significant (and hopefully positive) impact on society as a whole and that it is already a powerful medium for businesses to engage with their customers. I also believe though that this is a very new and rapidly evolving medium which makes it difficult (or nearly impossible) to predict results, but unless we find a way to do it, we're stuck.. Isn't it time to throw out the crystal ball, wash away the tea leaves and tell clients that spending $100k on the next “hot” social media activity is simply a bad idea? It may get them into the trades and, who knows, it may even work, but unless we can say, with reasonable certainty, that it will deliver those 10,000 test drives, why should they do it?

The solution I see is for the industry to learn to work with the unknown, looking elsewhere for planning models that work in ever-changing environments such as the R&D industry. Perhaps we should therefore suggest that our client runs a series of tests at say $10k each, knowing that most will fail and one should work, but all will teach us something? They shouldn’t expect 1,000 test drives from this, they shouldn’t even expect 500… what they should expect is an understanding of how their remaining budget WILL get them their 10,000 test drives and whether a small incremental spend will get them 20,000 more. This is the R&D model where everyone expects failure and plans for it, where investment is incremental, in parallel and itterative, and where major funds only get released once there’s data to justify it.

This may not be the solution we or our clients want, as it is still uncertain and it’s more difficult to sell in internally, but ultimately isn't it a better way to plan for the unknown with a higher chance of delivering great results for everyone?

QotY answered? Great (and fun) predictions for 2007

Dec 29, 2006
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Rex Sorgatz's predictions for 2007 made me chuckle (and think) so I had to post.

Some of my favourites are...

9) Publishing. Your mom is charged with plagiarism. Her book skyrockets to the top of the best-seller list.

17) Second Life. Robots invade and kill everyone. Turns out "everyone" is 5 kids in Tallahassee.

18) Mobile. 2007: the year in mobile. If I keep saying it, eventually it will be true.

Enjoy the read and add.

The professional journalists fight back?

Dec 20, 2006
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What's the future of "professional" media when you can blog your own newspaper, shoot your own film and record your own radio programme for the world to read, see and hear? That seems to be the main question doing the rounds post Time's Person of the Year 2006. Nothing new I hear you say. Absolutely! This question has been bubbling for quite some time. The big difference is that when, on the front cover of Time, you read... PROFESSIONAL MEDIA IS DEAD, a lot of people sit up, listen and react. I'm sure the irony wasn't lost on Rick Stengel.

Two types of response to this seem to dominate the airwaves... the online chatter of bloggers and new media folk revelling in the glory - "we were right all along, old media is dead, long live the amateur!" - and the fightback of traditional journalists such as Marcel Berlins in the Guardian (20.12.06) defending their role in this new media landscape - "people will always want to listen to what we have to say, you can trust our reporting, opinions and reviews, the professional will never die!". Both are wrong I'm afraid.

The new landscape is here. People listen to, and more importantly, trust each other. They check feedback on hotels, restaurants and holiday destinations on the likes of TripAdvisor. They lap up the latest scoops be it news flashes, investigative reports or celebirty gossip. They sift through film reviews, music charts and book ratings. Worryingly for the professional media folk, people often trust these "amateurs" more... because they are amateurs. Readers aren't naive. They know that journalists' salaries are ultimately paid by advertisers; that companies, looking to market the latest movie, restaurant or celebrity endorsement invite them to junkets, food tastings or offer "exclusive" interviews; and that often there's a connection between that nice editorial and that big ad for the same product. How hard it must be for the average journalist or editor to remain truly objective and independent... and my hat goes off to those that do!

Berlins', and other similar fightbacks, are therefore arrogant, feeble and sadly mis-directed - arrogant because they assume that an amateur can't write a good review, feeble because they underestimate the genuine value of review services on the likes of Amazon (star rating, commentary AND a review of the reviewers), and totally mis-directed because old media is NOT dead (if it figures out what's wrong... quick).

We will continue to look to brands we trust (be they publications or individuals), in whatever format, to help us make decisions, form opinions and get information. If those brands offer value, if asked, we will be happy to either pay for that service or accept advertising in the knowledge that, whoever is writing the article, recording the programme or infront of the camera, is getting paid. Some people will chose to write the reviews for free and some will make a professional career out of it, but in either case, in a society where you can get googled at the press of a button, the question will NOT be whether they're a pro or an amateur, but whether they can be trusted.

"Professional" media is therefore not necessarily dead but needs to actually be professional.