Tag Archives: media

May 21, 2013 · 10:06 am

Running Radio On TV

I think I can state without any fear of being contradicted that no one would run a radio ad on TV.

English: A typical "As seen on TV" l...

Giving up the sight, motion, and color of TV to use an existing radio creative is wasteful.  The opposite is true as well – we’re all familiar with TV commercials in which the audio is just music and the video handles the branding and other messaging.  Running one on radio might provide a nice musical interlude but not much in the way of marketing.

I bring this up because a recent study on how publications are presenting themselves on emerging platforms got me thinking about it:

Of the 78 consumer-facing English language publications detailed in the report, 83 percent have at least one app available in the Apple® App Store, Newsstand app or the Google Play™ service. Of these, 65 percent have published iPhone® apps and 40 percent have published apps for the Android™ platform. All 78 publish on the iPad® device. However, only 25 percent of these were optimized for any form of tablet display, with most publishers using scaled-down versions of their desktop sites instead.

That’s from a new report from the Brand Perfect™ initiative by Monotype Imaging Inc.  And it’s not just print publications who are at fault here:

Despite the emergence of responsive Web design, which enables optimal viewing experiences across a wide range of devices, the report identified that publishers are not supporting its use in online advertising. Where device-ready sites are not available, advertisements served are scaled down, often resulting in illegible typography and distorted imagery.

In the broader sense, we’re all content creators, even if that content is labelled “advertising.”  Restating the obvious (one of my specialties ), the TV ad on radio is as ineffective as a scaled-down, illegible banner in mobile.  A publisher who can’t support marketers’ efforts to use proper cross-platform technology is a TV station continuing to broadcast in black and white or only in Standard Definition.  Putting out content in a less than optimal form for new devices is buying a Ferrari to drive to and from the market at 35 MPH.  The technology has moved along, as have your consumers.  You need to catch up!

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May 8, 2013 · 8:58 am

Reading Yesterday’s Papers

As I’ve mentioned before here on the screed, I’m an old-school newspaper reader. Yep – ink on my hands and everything.
From time to time, I get tied up in other activities – work, sports viewing, family activities, whatever – and I can’t get to a particular day’s papers until a day or two later.  Last week was one of those weeks and I spent last night catching up on four days’ reading. As I was doing so, I noticed something that spurred a business thought I’d like to share.

Many of the articles I read were predictive in nature.  Something had happened, the reporter gathered the facts, and based on that looked forward.  Many of the pieces contained quotes from analysts of one sort or another – professionals or just the average person talking about what was going to happen next.  What I noticed, with the benefit of hindsight, was how often they were wrong.  Generally, that wasn’t because they made incorrect assumptions but something else had happened in the interim that changed the circumstances and, therefore, the predictions or suggestions for courses of action were off target.

Given the “right now” demands of media, most which come from the immediate nature of digital reporting, I wasn’t surprised   How often recently have we seen big headlines splashed across the Web that are totally wrong an hour later?  Even the delay built into the print medium (it takes time to get that ink on paper) isn’t quite long enough to improve the analysis dramatically.  Which is the business thought.

Business has been mirroring digital.  Every enterprise seems to have a “do it fast and fix it later” mandate.  Maybe what’s needed is to wait to react to  the reporting – the data we get on a minute by minute basis – until a more clear picture emerges?   Go follow the print editions of a story across a week and see how things change (most print publications make that possible on their sites).  You’ll be surprised   Now imagine if that story was about your business.  What would change each day that would change the actions taken the day before?

I realize we don’t all have the benefit of reading yesterday’s business with that kind of hindsight.  Maybe we ought to work on a way to bring that perspective more front and center?  After all, deciding not to decide is a decision, right?  Many of the deadlines we impose are self-directed.  In my book, a little more perspective with which to frame what we know (or think we know) can’t hurt.  What do you think?

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April 30, 2013 · 9:42 am

The Business And The Binge

The folks at Harris Interactive released some new information about TV consumption and it doesn’t bode well for the traditional business models – not even for the dual revenue model that empowered cable and which traditional broadcast is mimicking these days.  While I think any of us who pay attention to viewing research both via the boob tube and via other platforms are aware that things have changed, these numbers show that they’ve done so to a far greater extent than one might think.  Let’s see if you agree.

Harris Interactive

Harris Interactive (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You can read the data from Harris here but in brief what it shows is that younger people stream more stuff and set their own viewing times.  They also tend to “binge” view – they’ll watch all the episodes from a season of a show straight through over several hours.  If you’re over 55, there’s a 2 out of 3 chance you’re being your own program scheduler.  If you’re under 40, that becomes a 9 out of 10 chance.  Most of the way that on-demand viewing is done is NOT via a system controlled by the cable operators among younger demos.  While the older audience tends to use the services the operators make available via their set-top box or DVR, younger people have wandered well off the ranch.

As Harris points out:

Self-scheduled and binge television viewing trends suggest implications for the television industry at large, potentially impacting both advertisers and content producers.  For advertisers, the clearest impact is that some of these viewers will be taking in contact on platforms beyond their reach, such as Netflix and Amazon’s VOD services.

Content producers, meanwhile, have both positive and negative implications to explore. On the upside, the ability to quickly catch up on past seasons of existing shows, particularly ones with complex storylines, could give more viewers the opportunity to jump into new episodes without confusion. On the downside, viewers watching when they choose, not when it airs, can play havoc with ratings.

Taking that to next the step, when the traditional currency of TV – ratings – suffers through a huge deflation, the basic underpinning of the business will follow.  Yikes!

I don’t know that the above research is huge news – look at how your own media habits have changed.  What is surprising is the extent to which these changes are now a way of life.  Let’s see how the business follows the audience – nothing like “interesting” times!

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