OMMA Confab Observations Carry Varied Implications For Ad/Marketing Community
“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.
First-Time Feature Directors Make Major Splash At AFI Fest, Generate Oscar Buzz
Two first-time feature directors who are generating Oscar buzz this awards season were front and center this past weekend at AFI Fest in Hollywood. Rachel Morrison, who made history as the first woman nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar---on the strength of Mudbound in 2018--brought her feature directorial debut, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM Studios), to the festival on Sunday (10/27), and shared insights into the film during a conversation session immediately following the screening. This came a day after William Goldenberg, an Oscar-winning editor for Argo in 2013, had his initial foray into feature directing, Unstoppable (Amazon MGM Studios), showcased at the AFI proceedings. He too spoke after the screening during a panel discussion. The Fire Inside--which made its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival--tells the story of Claressa “T-Rex” Shields (portrayed by Ryan Destiny), a Black boxer from Flint, Mich., who trained to become the first woman in U.S. history to win an Olympic Gold Medal in the sport. She achieved this feat--with the help of coach Jason Crutchfield (Brian Tyree Henry)--only to find that her victory at the Summer Games came with relatively little fanfare and no endorsement deals. So much for the hope that the historic accomplishment would be a ticket out of socioeconomic purgatory for Shields and her family. It seemed like yet another setback in a cycle of adversity throughout Shields’ life but she persevered, going on to win her second Gold Medal at the next Olympics and becoming a champion for gender equality and equitable pay for women in sports. Shields has served as a source of inspiration for woman athletes worldwide--as well as to the community of... Read More