“People want content when they want it and wherever they are,” affirmed Jonathan Miller, the former chairman/CEO of AOL who is now a founding partner in new media firm Velocity Interactive Group. For example, Miller noted that if a person initially caught a video on a cell phone, he or she expects to be able to see it again on the big screen if they so desire once they get home. “The companies who can accommodate that kind of expectation are the ones who will be rewarded,” he said.
In this cross-platform era where viewers are flitting from one medium toanother, reward enough for Patrick Keane, VP/chief marketing officer for CBS Interactive, would be aggregate ratings that combine TV audience with online video viewership. This, he contended, would give a more accurate measure of content’s reach. He cited as an example the CBS primetime series Jericho. For one recent episode, when accounting for the online audience, Jericho saw its TV ratings go up a nearly a point from 4.2 to 5.1. For a fledgling show like this, that one point could mean the difference between cancellation and survival
Both Miller’s and Keane’s remarks came during the course of the Online Media, Marketing & Advertising (OMMA) Conference & Expo held earlier this week in Hollywood.
Just as ratings need to keep up with emerging marketplace realities, so too does advertising and marketing. For instance, while branded entertainment is all the buzz, the fact is that viewers are savvy to so-called seamless integration of brands into long-form content. OMMA event speaker Chuck Porter, co-chairman of Crispin Porter+Bogusky, Miami and Boulder, Colo., observed, “Audiences are way more sophisticated than advertisers and agencies give them credit for. You can’t trick them.” He noted that viewers can see right through glorified product placement and don’t much care for it. They want entertaining, engaging and relevant stories, affirmed Porter.
And with audience fragmentation, stories don’t always have to live up to high Nielsen expectations in order to thrive. OMMA panelist Larry Kramer, senior adviser, Polaris Venture Partners, explained that the old norm was that a show reaching just a three million viewer threshold would be doomed by major network television standards. But that kind of following on the web today would be more than enough to maintain that show for its viewership.
Indeed opportunities abound in the new media landscape, even in areas one wouldn’t regard as holding all that much promise. Velocity’s Miller cited as an example ring tone sales. He said that a few years ago if someone had told him that cell phone ring tone sales would generate more revenue than CD singles, he would have thought that prognosticator was deluded. But sure enough, that’s the reality today as ring tones represent a significant source of business. In the ever changing new media world, noted Miller, it’s risky to predict how things will shake out.
For more observations from the OMMA confab, see next week’s SHOOT, which will include Porter’s take on the rising value of creativity in a multi-platform world.
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More