Tag Archives: media

June 27, 2008 · 10:03 am

Integrated Measurement

As Emily Litella might have said, “What’s all this about integrated measurement?  Why, all the people measuring media already measure everyone – Black, White, Asian, etc.  What more integration do we need?”

OK, so that’s not as good as “violins on television” but the point is we DO need more integrated measurement of all media.  It’s a big topic right now and I’ve had a number of folks ask me how, or if, I think it happens.

To me, it’s a “when” not an “if” and the “how” is through the one place that seems to be the junction of all media these days – the ISP, and more specifically the cable guys.  A large percentage of folks get their TV and their Internet through the same pipe.  It’s not unreasonable to think that as those providers move into wireless and other places (or in the case of Verizon, if they’re already there), use of mobile devices can be added to the mix.

Good column discussing the topic by Diane Mermigas today.  Add to that what Sony is doing with set top boxes, the growth of companies such as Phorm, Microsoft’s purchase of Navic, and I think you get a sense that this is where we’re heading.  I, for one, am glad.  Having spent many years living and dying with the Nielsen TV ratings, which are estimates and less accurate than what we’ll be getting in a few years, the process of analyzing consumers’ media habits and the most efficient ways to reach them will be a lot easier.

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June 24, 2008 · 3:33 pm

Check It Out

Over the course of my career, I’ve been involved in a lot of press releases.  I’ve also spoken with quite a few reporters.  Most of the time, I worked with the internal PR folks at my place of business.  Most of them were very focused on telling the best story while staying on the right side of the truth.  They and I never knowingly gave out false information.  Sure, we put the best face on whatever information we gave out and maybe we didn’t highlight (OK, or even mention) the not so good stuff.  But that’s it.  No lies.  Nothing made up.

Maybe I’m naive, but I’m surprised how often I read something that clearly has come from a press person, or from an executive who generally works with a press person, and something says to me “check it out.”  Like most folks these days, I have a pretty good grasp on what the “search” bar is for and it generally doesn’t take more than a bit of looking to figure out if there is a disconnect with the facts and the story.  Sometimes I even know someone who does know the real story and, frankly, I’m sad when I find out someone I know and/or respect is outright lying.

There are a number of sites that do this in the political world but not that many in business.  In fact, the New York Times was embarrassed not too long ago by their failures to check out information they’d been fed.  Is the amount of information we get every day making us lazy?  Are we expecting to be spoon-fed everything?  Or are we just overwhelmed and the demands on media to publish RIGHT NOW make careful analysis and commentary impossible?

Next time you hear some fantastic numbers or a great business story, do some checking.  Let’s see if someone didn’t let the facts get in the way of their story.

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Filed under Helpful Hints, Reality checks

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June 23, 2008 · 8:29 am

Reaching the young ones

Nielsen reports that per person, kids aged 2-17 viewed more video streams on the web than those over 18 and spend more time watching video from home (probably because they aren’t away at school nor at work).  The really young kids focus on sites associated with children’s TV shows and toys – no shock there.  Teens tend to focus on chat with Stickam the number 1 video site.

Strangely, they don’t seem to be spending all that much time there – be interesting to see in the numbers change a lot with school ending for the summer.  Teens 12-17 only spend about two and a quarter hours a month watching online video, roughly a minute and a half for every stream they watch.  Kids under 12 watch fewer streams but each one slightly longer – guess their web-induced ADD hasn’t kicked in yet.   Of course, these are just video numbers – Facebook, MySpace, and all the other places kids hang out are on top of this.

And yet, the gap between the 20% of time spent with media (probably even higher with this group) and the 7% of ad dollars spent in these media is still wide (yes, I”m aware that several commentators think this is unimportant – fodder for another post).  Like all of us, marketers fall into the comfort zone of doing what they did before just because they did it before.  Change is hard but when things are changing around you, what else can one do but adapt?  Yes, it’s hard to market to kids on the web, especially those under 13.  Yes, COPPA is a pain.  But you’re missing the boat (and your target) if you think you can ignore this data.  Hopefully the dollars will begin to chase the eyeballs and let’s hope as well that the places where these elusive audiences are hanging out run themselves carefully until the revenue arrives.

NOTE:  I woke up this morning and heard that George Carlin has gone on to his cosmc rewards.  More on him later.

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