interactive media – Page 7

April 9, 2013

The “Holy Grail” of Advertising

In this social media saturated landscape, word-of-mouth (or word-of-MOUSE as the case may be) advertising carries a lot of clout. Because so many of us are skeptical of traditional advertising pitches, a referral from a trusted friend…yes, even a Facebook friend…is highly valued. In fact, according to Reuters, “Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg was quoted as saying that a trusted referral was the ‘Holy Grail’ of advertising.” And just as money is what advertising is ultimately about, money is also central to a class-action lawsuit that Facebook lost when it was accused of using Facebook users’ “likes”, without their consent, to pitch products to their Facebook friends.

This is not a new story. Most of it transpired in Summer and Fall of 2012, but the lesson is worth reviewing and repeating. The poster-child for this particular violation is Facebook user Nick Bergus. According to Venturebeat.com,

The most egregious example of a user becoming the inadvertent spokesman for a less-than-squeaky-clean brand, of course, is Nick Bergus, who became the leading pitchman for Passion Natural Water personal lubricant — in 55-gallon allotments.

A class-action lawsuit, brought in California court, sought damages from Facebook for their use of “sponsored stories” without paying Facebook users or allowing them to opt out. According to Reuters, “A ‘Sponsored Story’ is an advertisement that appears on a member’s Facebook page and generally consists of another friend’s name, profile picture and an assertion that the person ‘likes’ the advertiser.” In the case of Nick Bergus, his likeness was used to sell 55-gallon drums of personal lubricant.

Now that the lawsuit has been settled, a potential 125 million Facebook users are eligible for a settlement of … wait for it … two cents each, or up to $10 if they apply.

One thing is certain, the advertising business is changing. Native ads, what some are calling the “next wave” of advertising, are replacing traditional banner ads, pop-ups, and pre-rolls. As new media companies attempt to find new ways to monetize their business, too often they step over boundaries intended to protect users’ privacy.

February 2, 2013

The Eight Million Dollar Minute

Companies who want to be a player in this year’s Super Bowl are going to have to pony up some serious cash…somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.8 million dollars for a 30-second spot. That makes the Super Bowl the most expensive advertising venue out there. So why do advertisers continue to line up to get in the game? And what do they get in return for their money?

TV’s largest audience for starters. Nielsen reported 111.3 million Americans watched last year’s game. An advertiser would have to buy a 30-second spot in each of the nine top-rated network TV shows last week (American Idol, NCIS, NCIS Los Angeles, 60 Minutes, Criminal Minds, CSI, Big Bang Theory, 2 Broke Girls, and the NFL Pro Bowl) to get a comparable number of eyeballs. Or, they could buy a 30-second spot in each of the 30 top-rated cable TV shows to get a similar “reach.”

But a Super Bowl spot is about more than raw numbers. There’s a certain prestige that comes along with being part of this American tradition. There’s also an indirect stock market gain for participating companies that is apparently part of the equation, at least according to a study reported in Kiplinger. There’s also the tradition of Super Bowl spots that live on in infamy. The 1984 90-second spot for the Apple Macintosh is still considered by many to be the greatest TV spot of all time.

And here’s another factor that some advertisers (and would-be advertisers) have exploited to their benefit. An ad that is controversial–too racy or racist for example–can ride the coat tails of the Super Bowl buzz at a fraction of the price it would have cost the advertiser to buy the time. These controversial spots can be uploaded to YouTube, or any of several other internet sites, and have a life of their own…even if they never aired! Go Daddy has played this game as well as anyone in recent years.

Mildly controversial spots can also benefit from all the talk…even if some of the talk is critical. Arabs are insulted by this year’s Coke spot…and Jamaicans are (or are not depending on who you ask) offended by the VW spot. I suspect some will be offended by the Kate Upton spot for Mercedes-Benz.

More and more advertisers are pre-releasing their ads to try to generate hype prior to game day…and often to good effect. Two years ago VW’s little Darth Vader spot was seen by more than 17 million viewers before it actually aired. Last year 34 out of 54 spots were released online before the game.

The other big news in Super Bowl ads is interactivity. Coke wants you to pick the ending of their spot. Doritos invited consumer-generated spots to compete, and then asked us to vote for the winner. And YouTube has their AdBlitz channel ready to go…inviting live voting on all the spots as they air. Which means for many of you the Super Bowl will be a two-screen experience. And with two screens, at least you’ll have something to do if the game is a dud.

November 17, 2012

The Future of Modern Warfare?

No, I’m not talking about the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops II this week, and the $500 million that players dropped on the first day. Rather, I’m talking about real conflict with real casualties, and tweets like this…

Some numbers from the last 3 days: 492 rockets fired from #Gaza hit #Israel + 245 Iron Dome interceptions = 737 rockets fired at us. @IDFSpokesperson

And this photo tweeted two days ago…

And this video posted to Youtube…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6U2ZQ0EhN4]
If you watch the IDF YouTube channel you’ll also find a video that alleges to show Palestinian children taunting Israeli soldiers attempting to provoke a response for the cameras.

In a world where public support is necessary for democratic societies to engage in armed conflict, propaganda is a necessary and essential part of the campaign. According to an editorial in the Washington Post,

The @IDFSpokesperson Twitter account, encouraging followers to show support for the strikes, tweeted Wednesday: “More than 12,000 rockets hit Israel in the past 12 years. RT if you think #Israel has the right to defend itself.” More than 5,500 people have retweeted it.

The social media campaign being waged by the Israeli Defense Force is part PR campaign, part political posturing, part warning intended to minimize civilian casualties, and part intimidation, e.g. “We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead.”

Hamas, the pro-Palestinian group responsible for the rocket attacks on Israel, has responded with their own campaign, including the twitter hashtag #GazaUnderAttack. Civilians, especially children, killed by Israeli retaliatory strikes are put on display for the TV cameras as mourners wail in the street.

The Middle East, post Arab Spring, is still a fractious place where opposing forces battle on a daily basis. While some of the conflict is physical, much of it takes place in the media where the battle is fought for the hearts and minds of both regional and global witnesses. And more and more of it is happening in near-real-time.

August 17, 2012

An Olympic-sized Effort by NBC

The Summer Olympic games have come to a close and the 10,000+ athletes and their fans have returned to their 200+ home countries. NBC Sports production personnel will be dismantling their enormous production facilities and shipping tons of equipment back to the US. I was fortunate to be part of the NBC Sports production team in 1988 at the Seoul Summer Olympics. It was a massive undertaking then, but every four years the US Olympics broadcasting team outdoes the previous effort.

NBCUniversal paid dearly for the rights to broadcast the XXX Games to a US audience…somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.18B. They spent hundreds of millions more bringing hours and hours of programming to your TV screen, laptop, tablet and cell phone.

Over a period of 17 days, NBC Universal provided 5,535 hours of coverage spread across NBC, NBC Sports Network, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, Telemundo, NBCOlympics.com, two specialty channels, and the first-ever 3D platform. While athletes were setting records in the pool and on the track, NBCUniversal set records of its own. Working with Panasonic, the games in London marked the first time that Olympic sports were broadcast in 3D in the US. To appreciate the size and scope of the Summer Olympic games, this is what their media guide said about the size of the audience:

To deliver the same number of gross household impressions NBC delivered during the 17 days of its primetime Beijing Olympics coverage, one network would have to own the rights and broadcast the Super Bowl, the Academy Awards, the Grammy Awards, the Golden Globes, the AFC Division playoffs, the NFC Championship Game and six games of the World Series all within a 17-day span.

Also from their media guide…

May 4, 2012

Caution: 3-D Action Movies May be Harmful to Your Health

I saw The Avengers in 3D this afternoon and it made me wonder if I wasn’t doing incremental harm to my finely tuned survival instincts. You and I were born with some amazing skills at recognizing, and avoiding, danger. Think about it…in a split second we can see, and react, to something that is headed our way. We duck or swerve to avoid a flying object that might otherwise take us out. So, here’s what I’m thinking. Every time we have a virtual 3D experience with a flying object that DOESN’T do us harm, that part of our brain that is well trained to react in a split second registers a direct hit with no consequences. In other words, it has been fooled by the visual artistry that makes 3D action films so much fun. You may have heard the old saying, “fool me once, shame on you…fool me twice, shame on me.” Every technology comes with hidden consequences. Consider the loss of penmanship since keyboarding took its place. Others have argued that ready access to the internet and Google is reducing our capacity to remember. I can imagine a future where we are a nanosecond or two slower to react because of the de-evolution of our highly-refined reaction instinct. Something to think about the next time you are standing in line to see the latest 3D blockbuster.

March 7, 2012

The Beginning of the End for Joseph Kony

If you’ve ever wanted to see an internet meme take off…here’s your chance. If you’ve ever wanted to get on the ground floor of a global movement that has great potential to do good…here’s your chance. If you’ve ever wanted to see what it takes to harness social media to motivate millions of people to get up off the couch and take action…here’s your chance.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/37119711 w=398&h=224]

A friend of mine posted a link to this video in facebook yesterday (March 6th) around noon MST. When I started to watch the video I had no idea that it was 30-minutes long…but I was quickly caught up in the story of a madman doing terrible things to children in the interior of Africa. Thirty minutes later I knew several things: 1) this filmmaker knew how to use video effectively to tell a story, and 2) the story was one that would compel anyone who watched to care about this terrible situation. If you read just a few of the many comments on the Vimeo page you’ll see people who have been genuinely moved to action.

I shared the link on fb and twitter and began to see others doing the same. When I watched the video yesterday, it had been viewed by several hundred thousand people. As I write this on the morning of March 7th it has been viewed 5.3 million times! I’ve never seen something take off this quickly. This is big folks, and is only going to get bigger. A couple of days ago the number of people who knew about Kony was a fraction of those who recognize the names Kobe or Kim Kardashian…but that will change. And that is a good thing.

March 8 Update: As promised, here are links to a critique of Koni2012 and Invisible Children’s rebuttal. Remember, as traditional mass media editors and gatekeepers become less important, individual media consumers must become adept at evaluating media messages using a full-range of critical thinking skills. The challenge is to become a critical thinker without becoming overly cynical.

February 6, 2012

Pink Ribbons and PR Missteps

The social media buzz machine turned into a buzz saw late last week for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. If you’ve been anywhere near this social media maelstrom you know that the Komen Foundation has taken a major hit for its decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, and then reversing the decision, all within a 72-hour period. According to Advertising Age, the incident “showed how a brand can boomerang from one of the most loved into one of the most reviled in a head-snapping two days.’’

First a little background. Over the years the Komen Foundation, and their Race for the Cure, has raised billions of dollars for diagnosis, treatment and research of a disease that kills about 110 women every day in this country. The foundation gives away tens of millions of dollars every year and some of that money, about $700,000, had been going to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood was using that money to provide screenings and mammogram referrals to women who might not otherwise be able to pay for these services. But Planned Parenthood is also the largest provider of abortions in the US, and that has resulted in close scrutiny by members of congress who want to ensure that government funds are not being used to provide abortions. Planned Parenthood is currently under investigation by congress with regard to its financial dealings and that was the initial reason cited by the Komen Foundation as to why they were withdrawing funding from Planned Parenthood. However, as negative responses mounted the story began to change. The Foundation countered that Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms, only referrals, and that this change in funding was about being more responsible stewards of precious resources. You can see their initial response in this YouTube video.

Proponents and opponents have taken sides, sometimes determined by their view on the always-contentious topic of abortion. Critics of the Komen Foundation’s decision to halt funding to Planned Parenthood saw the decision as knuckling under to political pressure from the pro-life lobby. As you might guess, the reversal fired up the pro-life crowd who had been pleased with the earlier decision.

This blog is not a forum to debate the relative merits of either side in the culture war raging around abortion, but this case-study provides an opportunity to observe how a non-profit, known for years of service in the battle against breast cancer, could so quickly find itself under attack by many of the people that it claims to serve. The power of social media to aggregate discussions and dissent is once again center stage. Reaction to SOPA and PIPA last month, and now this…demonstrates the raw energy that can be focused by the impassioned use of these modern-day megaphones. There’s another angle that students of media should consider. How you learned about this event may also be shaping your understanding of the issues at stake. According to an op-ed in the NYT, the media’s coverage of the story has been biased by the media’s failure to understand the perspective of those on the pro-life side of the issue.

Part of the problem facing Komen is that they appear to be giving in to political pressure…first from pro-life, then pro-choice, political operatives. Even after issuing an apology for their earlier decision plenty of anger remains. Some of their funding sources are now saying that they will stop giving to the Komen Foundation and only time will tell if the Foundation can bounce back from this misstep. Somewhat ironically, both the Komen foundation and Planned Parenthood are reporting increased giving in the wake of the scandal. Planned Parenthood reported that it had raised $3 million in a 72-hour period, including a $250,000 pledge from NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Additional Resources: Kaiser Health News has collected summaries of news organizations’ reports on the debate.

NOTE: if you respond to this post please do your best to keep your comments focused on the media issues related to the story.

January 18, 2012

Think Twice about SOPA and PIPA

If you plan to work in the media industries as a professional content creator, you need to pay close attention to the current debate over SOPA and PIPA. The two bills being debated in congress are designed, with substantial input from lobbyists representing “old media” interests, to shut down global websites that profit from the illegal distribution of copyrighted material: music, films and TV shows primarily. The issue is being framed by internet and new media companies (largely located in Silicon Valley) as a battle for internet freedom of expression and the rights of end users. Several major internet sites have gone black today or have modified their home page to express solidarity with the protest movement. But what about the rights of individuals and companies (largely located in NY & LA) that create media content?

Much of the early discussion that I’ve seen on Facebook and Twitter has bought into the new media companies’ arguments that this attempt to curtail copyright infringement will stifle creativity and growth on the internet. Others argue that the regulatory oversight will amount to censorship of creative expression. This is completely understandable from the perspective of those who are end users of content rather than creators. For the average consumer, more access to free content seems like a good thing. However, if you’re thinking that you’d like to work in the media industry as a content creator, you might want to consider what the future holds for you if creativity is not rewarded and protected.

Copyright laws exist to protect intellectual property and to reward the creative community for their investment of time and resources in the creative development process. Music, video and film content does not create itself, and those responsible for its creation and distribution deserve legal protection from those who would like to acquire, redistribute, or aggregate that content for their own personal or corporate benefit.

Now, while it may be clear that I am in favor of reasonable protection for copyright holders, I am not convinced that SOPA and PIPA are well-designed legislative tools to accomplish that goal. The video below points out some of the weaknesses of these bills and raises serious questions about their practical application.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/31100268 w=398&h=224]

So, what do you think about SOPA and PIPA? Bad idea? Good idea? Good idea poorly executed?