Monthly Archives: December 2013

December 9, 2013 · 10:59 am

Is DWV Dangerous To Your Business?

It’s an epidemic!  I’m talking about DWV – Distracted While Viewing.  While not as physically perilous as texting while driving, if you are in the business of using television to get marketing messages to you audience, or if you’re a content creator who puts content on a TV screen (and remember that almost ANYTHING can be streamed to a TV), you need to understand what’s going on out there in media land.

English: American family watching TV (cropped)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You might have heard some folks in the ad business complaining about web sites whose ads aren’t viewable above the fold.  Let’s put that (specious) argument in the context of a research study released last week from the Multimedia Research Group.  Try this summary on for size:

In general, multitasking while watching TV is a growing trend and that an increasing number of US adults are becoming TV multitaskers. The data show that most TV multitaskers are younger adults between the ages of 18-35.  The 35-44 age group is rapidly adopting mobile device multitasking, but still lags the younger adults in performing TV-related multitasking activities.

In fact, only 40% of folk report they DON’T do anything else with a second screen while watching.  An equal number frequently multitask, but not related to the TV program they are watching.  The final group is TV multitaskers; those who frequently multitask related to the TV program they are watching.  The numbers among younger people in particular (18-24) are representative of how things have changed.  80% are multitasking, split roughly evenly among those doing something related to what they are watching and activities that are not related.  The numbers aren’t much different in the 25-34 group although they seem to do more unrelated to what they’re watching.

So the most attractive demo – 18-34  – has learned to use their tablets and smartphones to view TV differently.  They’re distracted from the main screen although some may be quite engaged with the content on their second screen.  The real question is how are you going to rethink what you’re doing to capture this behavior as part of your engagement with this audience.  Anyone have a good answer?

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December 6, 2013 · 10:49 am

On Being A Sushi Master

Foodie Friday and I have sushi on the brain.  I’m not sure why since I rarely eat it any more, but I found myself immersed in a dream about it last night and thought it might be a good topic for our Foodie Friday Fun.

Many types of sushi ready to eat.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As you know, sushi refers to the vinegared rice which is its heart and not to the fish or vegetables that accompany the rice. Maybe you have learned to make sushi at home. After all, how hard can it be? Rice and sliced fish seem pretty basic. Therein lies the business thought.

Maybe you’ve seen the wonderful Jiro Dreams Of Sushi.  If you haven’t you can find it on most of the streaming services and you should spend the hour and a half watching a master practice his craft.  While Jiro has been at it for many years (OK, decades), the path to becoming a sushi master in Japan hasn’t changed.  You spend a year washing floors and dishes.  Then it’s a year learning how to slice clams and small fish.  A couple of years doing meals for the staff and making the cooked food.  Happy day – you’re five years in and it’s time to learn to make rice.  After that, it’s rolls for takeout only and maybe by year 7 you can actually speak to a customer.  Finally after a decade, you are a sushi chef.

Of course here in the U.S. one can go take a course and in a few months apply for a job saying you’re a sushi chef.  Which is the business point.  Too many of us opt for the quick route as we develop our skill sets.  The notion of “paying dues” is completely foreign to most younger businesspeople and even to a few of us oldsters.  It’s particularly noticeable in evolving fields such as social media.  Think about how many self-proclaimed social media or marketing “gurus”, which is a Sanskrit term for “master”, are under the age of 30.  Really?  I’m sure they know the tools.  The business?  Maybe not so much.

There is no substitute for the ongoing process of learning.  Some things take time and learning to be a master of any sort is one of them.  Much of what I know came from experience, not from books.  We all need to think of Jiro, who continues to learn and to improve his technique.  It takes a year to learn to make rice.  Maybe we should give our businesses at least the respect Jiro shows his?  What do you think?

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December 5, 2013 · 9:41 am

A Place We Can Call Home

Many of the questions I get asked these days revolve around social media.  You know the usual suspects: Facebook and Twitter.  Sometimes clients want to know about Tumblr or Google+ or Pinterest.  From there the discussions move on to “outliers” such as Vine, Instagram, and others.  We spend a lot of time going over the plusses and minuses as well as how to advance the client’s goals using these platforms.  It’s a valuable exercise but it points out something that I think is given short shrift and which is today’s topic.

The Homestead of Captain Alfred

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Every one of the aforementioned proprieties creates next to no content on its own.  Users generate nearly everything.  Unfortunately, everything users – and businesses fall into that category – put out there isn’t presented to the massive user bases these platforms have built.  So, as Facebook said in a New York Times interview:

On any given visit to Facebook, the average user could potentially see about 1,500 items, the company said, from wedding photos posted by a close friend to a mundane notice that an acquaintance is now friends with someone else.  Since no one has time to scroll through that many Facebook posts, items in the feed are ranked to put the most recent and relevant posts near the top.

In fact something like 85% of the people who “like” a page don’t see posts from that page in their news feed on a regular basis.  As a brand, you’re at the mercy of the news feed algorithm which is constantly changing.  So often in the effort to expand our reach to the broadest possible base, we give up control of the distribution in a platform that we don’t control.  We do, however, have something that we can do – and probably are doing – that should, in my opinion, be our tp priority: our own websites.

We own our websites.  They are our home base on the web.  We can control everything on it although as I’ve written before, if you’re permitting comments be judicious in your moderation and be sure you’re behaving in a way that prompts mostly positive user response.  We can be sure that the new visitor’s first encounter works just as well as the long-time fan who checks in every week.  The time and resources to support social are far greater than those required to support home base, and because the number of outlets is expanding, so too are the resources to support them properly.  But even if they were equal to those required for home base and it became an “either/or” choice, I’d advocate quality of encounter along with assured exposure over quantity and less control.

Don’t misunderstand.  I believe strongly that brands (and my clients) need to be in social channels.  Not, however, by letting their web homes get run down while they’re off in cyberspace doing so.  That’s my take – what’s yours?

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