Television Is More Real

I have noticed something about broadcast television—it is more real.  With all the talk of broadcast going away, primetime is relatively strong with more than 200 million viewers.  But according to Nielsen Co., broadcast is changing.

Of the top 10 broadcast TV shows, 56% are reality TV; 20% are sports, another form of reality TV show; and 24% are dramas.  No sitcoms cracked the top 10 shows.

One of the reasons for this switch from sitcoms and drama to live programming and reality shows is DVR technology.  Nielsen says that, “news and sports genres received relatively little lift from playback…since viewers generally prefer to watch these types of shows live.”

DVRs were feared to destroy broadcast television, but in fact, the recording units are increasing overall ratings from prime programming and the ads that are contained in the shows.

According to the Nielsen Co., here are some facts about DVR usage that may surprise you:

• Viewers do watch commercials on their DVRs.  Playback lifted commercial ratings by 44% for 18-49 year olds.
• 50% of time-shifted programming is played back the same day.
• DVR households watch more primetime programming than non-DVR households.
• 38% of U.S. households have DVRs.

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Multitasking Consumers

Some things just go together.  Glazed donuts and a cup of coffee.  A glass of Cabernet Sauvignon and a New York strip steak.  Television and surfing the Internet. 

Nielsen estimates that 60% of TV viewers watch television and surf the Internet during a month.  Sitting on the couch, watching TV with a laptop open and running (in fact I’m writing this blog watching “Criminal Minds”) just seems so natural.

What also seems natural is that with the computer open, you are open to messages with drive-to-web strategies.  You can track traffic on your website by tracking your traffic by time and comparing it to when you aired ads in particular programs.  Sure, you test if TV works for your messaging, but also which particular programs draw the most interest.

You can also test different messages in the same programming to see which draws the most eyeballs.

TV and the Internet:  Now add a glass of red wine and a donut and you’ve really got something.

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Silent Movies Are Back

I’ve noticed something about my own video viewing that I think is worth noting. Usually I like to back up my blog posts with research, but this is first-hand, first-person qualitative research.  I notice I’m watching more video content with the sound off.

In the office, I keep my computer muted.  At home, I have a mute button on the remote, and the DVR (or TiVo) shows the commercials in fast motion without sound.  During lunch the other day, with my family, I was watching some TV in a sports bar/restaurant, yet I couldn’t hear the audio.  At the YMCA, I listen to music while I’m on the exercise bike and watching the TVs.

More and more video screens are popping up in various locations, without sound.  So what does this all mean?  The next time you produce a commercial, watch it with the sound turned off.  Does it still sell?  Does it communicate?  Will it silently speak to your audience?  For sure, ask if your TV station will support closed captioning for your commercial.  I’m not there yet, but closed captioning is for the deaf and hard-of-hearing audience (which is growing) and those at the Y without a TV-radio tuner.

The one thing you should ensure is that your logo is on enough times for people to know who the communication is from and what it means to the audience.  The silent selling technique will not work for every ad or video, but you need to be aware that people may be watching your message in silence, yet you still need to speak to the audience.

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Smell Like a Marketer

Have you watched any Old Spice commercials on YouTube?  Only 17 million people have watched the one I’ve included here.  It has aired on traditional media, but these ads are gaining a broad social marketing boost.

There are contradicting reports on the success of this campaign: Time magazine says no increase in sales; Nielsen says sales are up 55%; and some bloggers are reporting sales up 107%.  What has happened is that this campaign has lathered up the buzz enough to get people to think about body wash.  No matter the actual results, this campaign is considered a clean sweep.

Old Spice has spent millions of dollars on this campaign mix of social media and traditional media.  One blogger wrote about why you should not mimic the Old Spice campaign because of the small campaign budget and the difficulty of controlling spokespeople.

I think we can learn a few key ideas from this campaign.   Here is what I think you can take away:

• Humanize your product, service or organization.
• Do a campaign, not just one approach.
• Invest in production quality.
• Extend your campaign into some surprising and highly personalized ways. (The Old Spice man proposed to a woman. It was fun not only for the couple, but for everyone.)

Personalization is something everyone can do.  The next time you are recording your spokesperson, record some personal messages to your best clients, your top contributors, your important stakeholders and then post them on YouTube.  You can then easily send the URL to the targeted people and have some key impact.

People want to do business with people they like.  These personalized videos will really make your business or organization seem very appealing—even if you don’t wear a towel.

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Fast Facts on Tech

Have you ever heard someone say they don’t have time to watch TV and then tell you all about the show,movie or game they just watched?  Having worked in TV for nearly 15 years, it was a common occurrence.  People have lots of ideas about technology and TV, but here are some facts from Nielsen to dispel a few myths floating around:

• 63.5% of US households enjoy high-speed broadband service
• 25% of households use ‘smartphones’
• People watch TV and use the Internet at the same time an average of 3 hours and 41 minutues per month
• Adults 18-24 watch 26 hours and 45 minutes of traditional TV per week; adults 50-64 watch 44 hours and 20 minutes per week ; teens 12-17 watch 24 hours and 28 minutes of traditional TV per week.
• Adults 18-24 use the Internet nearly 3 hours per week; adults 50-64 use it 5 hours per week; and teens use it 1 hour per week.
• Half of US households have high-definition television.
• Digital video recorders have a penetration of 36%
• Time-shifted TV accounts for 1 hour and 20 minutes per week for teens 12-17; 1 hour and 31 minutes for  adults 18-24; and 2 hours and 30 minutes for adults 50-64.

Watching video on the Internet was relatively low compared with watching traditional TV, however it is rapidly growing.  Watching TV while using the Internet (a little multitasking) was up nearly 10% from last year. 

It is obvious the convergence is coming, but put the technology aside.  Content is the key.  If there is nothing of value to watch, it doesn’t matter the medium.  The medium is not the message, the content is.

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Screens Are Flat; Content Is Not

I was reading a series of articles in Media (yes, a real, paper magazine) titled, “Screens Are Flat.  The Content Is Not.”   The coming visual age is here to stay.  Screens of all sizes, shapes, abilities (from HD to 3-D) and locations are now possible.  I was even riding in a cab in Vegas that had a video screen in it.

The announcement of Google TV will allow video to become much more interactive.  Every television ad can become an interactive event.  It will also blur the lines between online and watching TV.

So how do you jump in?  Start by placing more video on your website.  Keep it YouTube short (2 minutes max).  Instead of putting another copy block on your site, add a video viewer and tell and show people what you want them to know.

The danger with video is that you can look amateurish—fast eroding your valuable credibility.  Be sure to practice your talking points until you are very relaxed and use a teleprompter (so you can read the copy while looking into the camera),  and ensure the lighting makes you pop.

According to e-Marketer report, “[Retailers] find that videos boost sales-conversion rates and reduce abandoned shopping cart and product return rates.”  The report found that consumers rank other purchase decision-making tools ahead of video in importance.  One of those was customer reviews.  So imagine the double-shock power of a video customer review will have on your website.

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The Internet Is Not Killing Newspapers

My first  job was delivering newspapers.  Today, I’m delivering a much different story.  The Internet isn’t killing newspapers.  News is killing newspapers.  The medium is not the message.  I believe our news appetite has changed and newspapers have not realized the shift in tastes. 

A Pew Research Center study shows that newspaper readership has fallen from 34% in 2006 to 27% today. But even more profound is that 34% (up from 25% in 1998) of people are ”newsless” (people who get no news on a typical day).   And 51% of Americans say they are now “news grazers.”    

The problem is that we are now information-rich and time-poor.  So our sorting skills and news-relevancy sensors are much more sharpened.  We want to ”search” the information that is relevant to us and discard the rest.     

So think about the last time you searched for car accidents?  Did you search for bank robberies in your area?  What about jury selections?  Searched for the city council minutes recently?  People will always need an arbiter of content, but newspapers will need to rethink news if they want to survive.    

What can save newspapers?  The same thing that sells any product:  clear differentiation and targeted benefits. 

So what are newspapers to do?

• Rethink what is news. Target the audience and give it what it wants. 
• Strip out all that is on the Internet (such as stock listings, national sport scores, ag markets).
• Become hyper-local.  No national or international news unless a local hook exists.
• Embrace citizen journalists.  ABC ran a story about the East Coast’s winter storm. It featured Flip camera video stories from citizen journalists.  The citizen stories were much more interesting than the ABC reporter’s, who obviously never got a household ready for a snowstorm. 
• Shorter articles.  More bullets.  More pictures (but not more pictures of the mayor, we all know what he looks like). More easily consumed charts and graphs.   

Newspapers need to refocus on the readers.  Just like any business needs to focus on its target audience.  It’s time to hone the news menu for the audience’s new tastes.

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Viral Video and the Cowboys

Did you watch the Dallas Cowboys game Saturday night?  Did you see the super-sized HD screens?  Even the players and coaches could be caught watching the big screen TVs from the sidelines.  Today, video is more compelling and video is viral. 

In the new stadium there are 71-foot-high and 160-foot-wide mammoth HD monitors stretching from one 25-yard line to the other.  Surprisingly, there are another 3,000 video screens in the stadium  (1 for every 30 fans).  

That is so, according to Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, you can tell the “whole story” of the game.  Video cameras are everywhere in the stadium so they can show people in the stands or a player going to the locker room for an X-ray during the game.  You see the game and the ‘back stories.’ 

“They can’t turn away, so you can hammer them with your message,” said Mr. Jones.

It is TV’s on-screen movement that keeps you from turning away.   White space leads the eye in print media, but movement directs the eye on a video screen.  And video (or video-like) movement on a Web site makes for a more compelling brand/selling experience.

Video is also the best way to go viral:  A Canadian singer couldn’t get United Airlines to pay for his guitar damaged by baggage handlers.  Finally, United paid $3,000 to the singer’s favorite charity.  Why? He made a music video about the experience, “United Breaks Guitars,” and generated  7 million hits on YouTube.   Now that will get things moving in any company. In fact, United now uses the music video to train service reps, but alas, not baggage handlers. 

Blog Brand Promise:  This blog will energize your marketing in less than 1 minute — unless you are a very slow reader. 

Note:  The idea for today’s blog came from one of my ‘pickets.’  A ‘picket’ is a lookout, a soldier watching for a surprise attack.  Thanks for the photo Dee. 

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Television Obituaries

Recessions change everything.  So how are you surviving?  According to the book, “The Upside of the Downturn” by Geoff Colvin, “…of those that entered [past] recessions as top performers, 47 % had fallen out of that group by the time the downturn ended…13% of the mediocre-or-worse performers climbed up to the top group.”   

The book talks about how managers and employees have no experience in a recession like this.  And, most people are not good crisis decision-makers.  This recession is a crisis: it is deeper and wider than any expected or could predict.  Many companies just won’t survive because of the inability to act — waiting for different results without changing a thing. 

However, innovations do occur:  Here is one that got my marketing senses buzzing.  Television stations are now carrying obituaries in morning newscasts (for $100 a pop) and one billboard company is showing simple obituaries on an electronic board in Des Moines.  Sound silly?  Sound morbid?  Sounds like innovation to me. 

Photo by Rodney White of the Register

When the local newspaper in Saginaw, Michigan reduced issues to a few per week, the TV station stepped in and offered obituaries on air and then more information at  www.ObitMichigan.com .  Look for stations across the country to follow suit in the blink of an eye. 

It’s this kind of thinking that bursts through the status quo.   Extreme challenges can lead to extreme innovation.  As Mr. Colvin found, “Good times are when you’ll experience your greatest success…bad times are your greatest opportunity.”  But not with the same thinking and same actions.  It is not business as usual. 

  http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009910210360

 Note:  The idea for today’s blog came from one of my ‘pickets.’  A ‘picket’ is a lookout, a soldier watching for a surprise attack.  Thanks PJ.   

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Big News

I’m not anti-new media.  However, I am an advocate of using the facts rather than emotion and hype to dictate where marketers should invest funds.  We may be in a time of transition, but for news, and especially local news, the primary source is still TV, newspaper and radio.

I have heard many people say, “I get all my news on the Internet.”  That may be cool to say, but for most people that statement is just not true.    According to the Pew Research Center for People and Press (Sept.09  http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007311 ) television ranks as the top source for news followed by daily newspapers, radio and then online.  TV was ranked by 31% as the source for news; online was 14.6%.  Online showed some slight growth from 2008, but not significant. 

Even more surprising — or not to those who study this stuff — when asked to rate credibility of media the list followed the same ranking as source for news. 

What does it mean?  You can’t believe all you are reading online about traditional media and you can’t believe all you read in traditional media about online.  The truth is in the numbers, not the hype.

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