iMedia Panel: Myth vs. Reality: What’s Real and Actionable?

by Brian Reich | 28 Mar 2006, 2:00am

The main panel this morning was titled: Myth vs. Reality: What’s Real and Actionable?   Here are my notes:

Moderator: Doug Weaver, Upstream Group
Participants: Kate Everett Thorpe - Venture Partner at Walden VC, David Adelman - Media Director in Johnson & Johnson, Adam Gerber - VP of Ad Products and Strategy, BrightCove

Doug: There is no problem spotting breakthroughs, there are breakthroughs all the time. The challenge is figuring out which ones are important and where they will go.

Four things we will talk about:

Alternate delivery of video to the home
Small screen applications (iPods, etc.)
Mobile
Gaming

Three Questions:

1) How big is it?   Are consumers really using this application?
2) How important is it?   Is it something that is going to help us deliver marketing value?
3) How soon will it happen?   You want to be about 15 minutes ahead of the pack.

Q: What is your checklist for determining what is important?

Kate: Focus on whether users will actually use it.   Advertisers are not going to put budget, investors aren’t going to back it - unless there is distribution.   Example: The thought that nobody would watch TV on their mobile was a US-centric view, but the rest of the world was using their mobile for more than a phone for a long time.

David: Its not about technologies — or even individual technology companies.   Creative is the question, how are all the ways that it can be used.   Does it allow me to tell a great story or reach a consumer?   If yes, we can use it. If we just look at audience, or distribution, we might miss the real reason for adopting it.   We are really thinking hard about content and finding alternative ways to get it out.   Need to conceive of brand stories that can live in these spaces - short form, long form, interactive, etc.

Adam: We are moving into a fragrmented world that is multi-dimensional.   The number of channels they can enage, in different platforms, at different times.   Three basic things — simple, scalable, and solution oriented.   If I can envision an opportunity has the potential to scale, can be easily delivered and managed, and can meet a client need, then I will pursue it.

Q: What is the future of the agency?   Is there something fundamentally broken in the model that prevents an agency (or client organization) from responding?

Kate: There will be a fundamental change in the agency relationship.   Media is being focused on search model and arbitrage instead of strategic (top down/bottom up) model.   Content also.   Agencies need to be set up to create content.   You have to have one piece of content that can be altered for a variety of venues.   TV advertising in these spaces will be the lazy man’s advertising, the popup all over again.

David: Re-integration of communications strategy and creative development - its really hard to get it done with these huge agencies and separate media buying groups.   Medium size, fast moving agencies are able to move into these new spaces with a lot of fresh work.   We need to try and create structures where marketers feel comfortable taking risks - that creates some new innovations, opportunities to learn, etc.

Adam: I think Agencies are set up to success - the media services companies are far better positioned to deal with communications planning and unbiased selection of media investments.   The large creative shops are in danger of becoming dinosaurs.   They are not positioned well to succeed.   Generally their creative talent has a limited view, they approach things in a linear way - don’t understand how consumers are engaging new platforms.   Will see a lot of work moving away from large creative shops in favor of boutiques.   They will invest in analytics and data and they will become the ones that can figure out what is working and not.

Q: What is overhyped/? What phenomena that is getting too much press?

David: Video on mobile phones is a little bit of a push right now.   I think there is a lot you can do on the mobile platform, and its exciting to see video getting distributed.   But as an advertising vehicle, we still have a lot to figure out.  

Adam: Need to separate overhyped into two buckets - consumer behavior and marketing value.   Consumer generated media is overhyped with respect to its value from a marketing standpoint.   A big wake up call will be when major brands are integrated into controversial citizen generated stories.

Kate: Bright Cove! (laughter).   The hype around consumer generated media is too much, because we don’t know how to use it yet.   But the people are there, the audience is doing it, so we have to figure it out.   There have already been some disasters where people tried to fake consumer generated media.   We need to find a way to communicate with our audience through social networks and consumer generated media if that’s how they want to communicate with us.

Q: What happens when the big brands try to use these tools?

Kate: Authenticity is king.   If you are not authentic, you will be called out, ,whipped and beaten in public, and then they will hold you up as a prize.   If you allowed the audience to create a dedicated page, helped them, or made tools available to them, then you would have something good.  

Q: Alternative methods of delivering video… what’s important?

Adam: There are major issues with the ad model that are causing friction.   TV shows generate between $0.30 and $0.60 in revenue per viewer.   When distributed online, the networks are making close to $1.00.   You can’t have an ‘ad-pod’ with a 6-10 ads in it.   They might accept an ad at the beginning, or at the end, but they don’t want to be interrupted.   So the numbers don’t work.   The financial model doesn’t work.   That’s why there is friction.

David: I’m board with pre-rolls.   When you factor in that the consumer is in control, and this media can be very personal, it doesn’t work for me.   There is a lot more demand for this inventory then there is supply - which can mask a bad model.   The big question is, can brands create and own really compelling content that people want?

Kate: You are funneling more viewers off a broadcast model where they get to choose whether they see your ad or not.   The ad model has to be worked out still.   A ‘paid for by’ model could work.  

Adam: Advertisers are used to talking in big groups, with unspecific ratings data.   In the new area, engagement models are going to be the measurement. But you can’t compare these different models.   Marketers can’t figure out how to make the change.   And until they do, these different models will not evolve quickly.  

Question from the audience: What do you see as a VOD ad model?  

Adam: There are marketers who have content, interesting content, that they can deliver direct to consumers — auto, travel, movie, music.   Build a virtual channel and build access direct to consumer for marketers.   Model for VOD will be more about invitation that gets them hooked and telescopes them into larger interaction.

Question from the audience:   Are you creating new metrics?   How are you getting people not on the bandwagon to jump on?

David: How do we justify a long engagement with a small audience?   The marketing research industry needs to step up.   We are looking for new ideas for how to measure and communicate this stuff?

Question from the audience:   What is the threshold for overall engagement?   How do you divide it up?

Adam: I think marketers need to do a much better job setting their communications goals and charging their agencies to execute.   They do not need to reach everyone on everything.   Understanding who the 10-15% of the consuming target it as that will truly cause an influence change, and then planning around that, are the critical inputs that your agencies should be hearing from you.   Agencies can only do as good as the input they get.

Kate: Have we ever heard the word ‘engagement’ in talking about offline/traditional media (my note: yes, in politics).   We need a reality check.

Q: Small Screen Applications.   How important?

Kate: How many people have ipods?   How many are accessing video?   That’s when it gets exciting.   People are getting mugged in New York for their iPods - there is obviously something there.   But not all VOD is created equal - Tivo and iPod video are totally different.

Q: Gaming.   Worth the hype?

Adam: Its something a lot of people do so it’s a huge opportunity.   The challenge is understanding how you use gaming.   But all ‘gaming’ is not the same.   Just as mobile is three or four different things and you have to understand the differences.   Console based, network based, mobile platform — the ad opportunities and engagement opportunities are different through each of those platforms.   Simply sticking branded icons or other simplistic messaging units won’t do much.   Does it actually engage the consumer or drive intent?  

Kate: The development cycles for games are very slow.

[The panel ended, somewhat abruptly, when  the fire alarm went off. No, I'm not kidding.]

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