advertising – Page 6 – Media Matters

February 10, 2010

Doritos Ads Win Viewer and Recall Metrics

If you watched the Superbowl last weekend you probably saw a few ads for Doritos. According to Nielsen, the most watched TV ad of all time, (with 116.2 million viewers), featured a Samurai attack with a Dorito chip. Doritos ads also took the top three slots for most-recalled spots and four spots in the top-ten most-liked category.

What you may also have heard is that the Doritos ads were consumer-generated spots. CGM (Consumer Generated Media) has been generating buzz for several years…all the while the Media Emperor’s cloths have begun to look a little thread-bare. The idea behind CGM is that individual consumers often possess great talent and expertise, and if you can just give them an opening, they may deliver the goods. Now, mind you, TV spot production is a big-budget undertaking requiring exceptional creative and technical expertise and should not be attempted by amateurs. In the case of the Doritos ads, the ideas, not the execution, were consumer-generated.

But according to MIT’s Ad Lab blog, the proverbial “average Joe” behind the winning spots is not as average as we might first believe. According to Ad Lab, this year’s winners, and winners from previous years, have come from the ranks of creative professions very near to the TV advertising business. Some of them have been film makers, producers, musicians, and even creative directors. For now, at least, the storybook ending where the little guy finally bests the Madison Avenue advertising machine remains, well, a fairytale.

January 12, 2010

Idol’s New Season Starts Tonight

American Idol has been a huge success for the Fox TV network. Year after year at first place in the ratings, AI continues to dominate prime time TV. That kind of success yields substantial revenue. A 30-second spot on Idol nets Fox over $600,000. That and product placement deals with Coke, Ford, AT&T, iTunes and others makes this franchise a gold mine.

Earlier today I asked my Media & Society students why they think American Idol is such a hit with viewers and they offered up several very insightful responses.

Viewers are able to participate in the potential rags-to-riches story line of contestants…seeing themselves as potentially rich and famous if they were just given an opportunity to compete.
We enjoy seeing people make fools of themselves on TV. The Germans have a word for it…schadenfreude, which is translated as pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.
The large contestant pool means that our social network may allow us to know someone who knows someone who is a contestant. The old six-degrees-of-separation meme strikes again!
And, the interactivity and audience participation provided by the text voting gives viewers/voters a sense of ownership.

I think the students came up with some very compelling explanations for the success of American Idol. It will be interesting to see if that success continues. In case you haven’t heard, the big news this season is the planned departure of the acerbic Simon Cowell. Cowell reportedly turned down $144 million per year to stay. Time will tell just how much Simon’s biting commentaries will be missed by fans of the show. What do you think? Is this the beginning of the end for American Idol?

December 4, 2009

Tiger’s Public Transgressions

Many of us wish this story would just go away, but it won’t…so here are a few lessons for students of the media.

#1: ALL celebrity endorsement deals come with some risk. If you had asked executives at Nike, Gatorade, etc. whether there was risk associated with hiring Tiger Woods as a celebrity spokesperson, they likely would have replied that the risk was minimal. But if they thought it was zero, they were wrong. Will it do long-term damage to their brands and to the Tiger Woods brand? It is too soon to tell, but there will be fall out for Tiger and every other celebrity that has a “squeaky clean” image.

#2: Crisis Management PR has changed dramatically in the age of cable news, the blogosphere, and the twitterverse. PR agents have got to get ahead of the story and be much more transparent than in the past. Remember, the media (both traditional and new media) exist to uncover and distribute “dirt” and attempts to stonewall will only compound the problem.

#3: As we’ve been reminded recently by the parents of balloon boy and the White House party crashing Salahi’s, reality TV culture makes people do crazy things for their 15 minutes of fame/notoriety. Anyone remotely “connected” to the Tiger Woods drama will see opportunity to cash in by playing the tabloid media. Releasing cell phone messages and scheduling press conferences strings along the media and extends their window of opportunity.

#4: <editorial warning>There is no such thing as a private “transgression.”</editorial warning>

April 12, 2009

The State of the News Media

According to The State of the News Media, a report by the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism, audiences for news are shrinking and advertising revenue is falling. News magazines and newspapers have lost the most readers, followed by local and network news. On a positive note, internet and cable TV news are attracting new viewers. The down side is that internet news users are still difficult to sell to advertisers.

The other problem with internet news is that many online news outlets don’t do much if any news reporting…they simply aggregate news from various sources, e.g. Associated Press and Reuters, and bundle them for visitors to their websites. This model is unsustainable if the ones actually doing the reporting are not sharing in the revenue generated by the online advertising. As newspapers fold and reporters are laid off, there will be fewer stories available to the online portals such as Yahoo! and Google news. In some ways it mimics the change that our country has seen over recent decades. We have moved from manufacturing to a service economy. No one wants to make things anymore, and it seems that no one wants to “produce” news content. Without reporters in the field making calls, conducting interviews, showing up at events, and keeping their ears to the ground, the future of journalism looks bleak…and news organizations are scared.

So if your business model is broken and your source of income is in jeapordy, what do you do? Just last week the Associated Press (AP) announced that they would take legal action against aggregators (such as Yahoo! and Google) who use their headlines and news excerpts without paying copyright premission. While Google pays AP for full articles that it carries on the Google website, the problem pertains to Google’s, and other aggregators’, use of headlines and excerpts. News aggregators have argued Fair Use and say that they drive traffic to the AP website in return for using a short bit of the news copy. In this difficult economic climate, the battle is about power, prestige, and, ultimately, survival.

March 30, 2009

Behavioral Targeting of Gen Y

computer Behavioral targeting (BT) is a strategy that attempts to deliver relevant ads to internet users based on their surfing behavior. The good news for advertisers is that they can target niche audiences with a level of precision only dreamed about in years past. The good news for consumers, if there is good news, is that you should be seeing ads that are relevant to your lifestyle and preferences…and not a lot of ads that are targeting someone else. The idea is brilliant, but the practice does not appear to be living up to expectations for members of Gen Y. New research shows that young consumers notice the ads, but few find them relevant. As a result, about 36% never click on ads, and the remaining 74% click infrequently. If you’re an advertiser running an interactive (read “online”) advertising campaign, those kinds of numbers are very discouraging. But it is also possible that the survey responses don’t capture the whole truth. I suspect that most survey respondents are reluctant to admit that they sometimes respond to online ads. And of course not all online advertising requires a click…some of it is simply designed to create and impression without a call to action.

This is a privacy issue, and it involves children, so naturally the government is getting involved. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is considering recommendation of voluntary industry guidelines that would limit data collection from those under 18 for the purpose of BT.

Some researchers have suggested that Gen Y actually prefers BT and may want to send explicit messages to marketers about what kinds of products and services they would welcome. That doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time…but then I’m just a wee bit older than this demographic. What do you think? Would you welcome advertising messages that were more focused and relevant to your personal interests, or do you just want them all to go away?

February 26, 2009

So Long Rocky

After 150 years of publishing, and four Pulitzer Prizes, the Rocky Moutain News will publish its last paper tomorrow. Denver will become a one-newspaper-town, much like the rest of the nation, after the Rocky closes its doors. While the news of the Rocky’s demise was sudden, it was not surprising. The current economic free-fall has hammered the newspaper business, an industry that was already in severe trouble. The Rocky lost $16 million last year bringing its debt to $130 million. Nearly all advertising is down, with classified ads–an important revenue stream for newspapers–continuing to feel the negative effect of online alternatives such as Craig’s List. It’s a tough time to be in the newspaper business, and even worse for the 200 or so Rocky Mountain News staff who are now without employment.

–30–

September 22, 2008

I’m Sam Ebersole, and I approve this message.

Have you ever wondered why nearly every radio and television political ad contains the line, “I’m so-and-so and I approve this message”? Well, wonder no longer. It is required by law. According to the “Stand By Your Ad” provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA) aka the McCain-Feingold Act, candidates must indicate responsibility for a spot by using this disclaimer. This is intended to cut down on attack ads in general, and outrageous claims in particular. Also, in order for a candidate to receive the lowest-unit-charge when purchasing TV/Cable airtime, an image of the candidate must appear in the commercial spot and a statement of approval must appear on screen and remain for a minimum of four seconds.

The unintended consequence of this legislation has been the raising and spending of soft money by so-called “527 organizations” or PACs (Political Action Committees) who are free to create and distribute political ads that do the candidates’ dirty work while giving the appearance of being independent. These spots are often funded by partisan organizations with such innocuous sounding names as, Colorado First Project, or Democracy for America. Because we live in a “swing state” in the 2008 elections, we’re seeing and hearing more than our fair share of political ads and will continue to do so for about 5 more weeks. But look on the bright side–the political TV spots are crowding out the normal lineup of ads for Frank “the strong arm” Azar and erectile dysfunction medications!

Sources: The Campaign Finance Guide, Political 101, and Open Secrets

August 21, 2008

Gold medal ratings for NBC

Twenty years ago this month I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with NBC Sports in their coverage of the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea. I, along with the rest of the technical team, worked 32 days straight, between 12-16 hours per day. It was grueling but fun, and exciting to be a part of the biggest broadcast event in history. Every four years the Summer Olympic games are the biggest broadcast event in history…and this year is no exception. Back in 1988 we were excited to be part of the team offering up more than 180 hours of television coverage. This year they will broadcast 3,600 hours of the Olympics on seven networks — NBC, USA Network, MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen, Telemundo and Universal HD, as well as streaming video on the Internet and to mobile devices. Just to put that in perspective, NBC reports that the 2008 coverage will exceed, by more than 1000 hours, the combined coverage of every Summer Olympics from Rome 1960 to Athens 2004.

In addition to the expansion of coverage, this year has seen a big increase in the size of the audience. According to NBC, approximately 157 million people, about half the U.S. population, watched some Olympic action in the first several days. In addition, Nielsen Media Research reports that NBC Universal’s Beijing Olympic coverage was the most-watched event in U.S. television history with more than 214 million total viewers. Starting with the opening ceremonies, TV ratings records have been falling like world records in the Water Cube. Some are calling it the Phelps effect. With 8 gold medals and 7 world records, Michael Phelps is certainly attracting TV, and web, viewers. Visitors to NBCOlympics.com viewed 1.1 million streams of the 400 meter freestyle relay in which the US came from behind to win the gold. (For more audience research on the 2008 games, visit the Nielsen website. See especially the Special Report: The Olympics’ Impact on Advertising and The Media)

NBC is hoping that they can turn those viewers into advertising revenue. After paying nearly $900 million for the rights to broadcast the Beijing Olympics to the American audience, NBC is working overtime to turn sports drama into dollars. And there appears to be no end in sight for rising costs. NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol (no “e” = no relation, I’m sorry to report) has also secured the rights to the 2012 Summer Olympics in London for a reported $1.181 billion. Makes you wonder how they ever hope to recoup that kind of money.

May 19, 2008

Fans Idolize American Idol

American Idol is a cultural phenomenon in nearly every culture in which the franchise has been licensed (about 40 to date). American Idol (AI) came to America from England in 2002, and has spread around the globe at the speed of sound, from Armenia to Vietnam. If AI were a book it would be a best seller– if a movie, a blockbuster–and if a record, it would have gone platinum! Season after season, AI ranks at or near the top of the Nielsen ratings. As we approach the end of season 7, the two Davids are set to take the stage for the final two nights May 20 and 21. But many are left wondering what is the appeal that keeps fans glued to their sets? Can it be the lure of imagining oneself taking the stage and finding fame and fortune? Or perhaps the guilty pleasure of seeing contestants humiliated week after week. Whatever the allure, AI is only beginning to show signs of ratings weakness. While Fox struggles to tweak the show’s format, fan continue to tune in and vote.

Another interesting thing about AI is the way that it so conveniently demonstrates some of the leading trends of TV programming, such as interactivity (phone voting), product placement (Coke, iTunes, Ford, AT&T, and even Kellog’s Pop Tarts!), and spin-offs (programs that are derivatives of the original program concept).

What do you think? What makes the AI franchise so successful, marketable, and universal?

April 5, 2008

Psssst! Wanna buy an energy drink?

Hype energy drink Has anyone every tried to sell you an energy drink as you strolled across campus? Or perhaps a classmate pitched the benefits of a particular brand of energy drink and its positive effects as you were waiting for your 8am class to start. No? Well perhaps you just weren’t AWARE that someone was trying to get you to buy something! Crazy talk, right? Well, what if I told you that I know a University student who earns a commission from an energy drink company, and that he carries an energy drink with him to all of his classes with a goal of “promoting” energy drink consumption on campus. Surprised? Just the visual cue provided by the unopened energy drink can sitting on someone’s desk might be enough to trigger an urge to purchase a can next time you’re near a vending machine. That, my friends, is called viral, word of mouth, or buzz marketing…and it IS a reality on this campus, and across the nation.

This is clearly a growth industry. According to researchers, Americans engage in more than 3 billion brand-related conversations each day. In order to monetize this trend, marketers are looking for ways to buy and sell these conversations. They even have their own association…WOMMA, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.

And if you didn’t already have reasons to be skeptical of the contents of blogs, you should know that PayPerPost.com pays bloggers to promote products and services on their personal blogs…effectively making anyone and everyone an agent dispensing commercial messages. PayPerPost calls it “sponsored content” and says that they require disclosure in order to comply with FTC regulations. But full disclosure and transparency may be the exception rather than the rule since there is little practical oversight.

Want to get in on the action but don’t have a blog? No problem. The PayPerPost application can also be added to your Facebook page. Oh, and when you recommend a friend who adds the PPP application you earn $15.

Wow, who knew that viral marketing could be so…

profitable?
easy?
ubiquitous?
invisible?