BBM Blogalytics

Pros and cons of a Google future

An interesting set of opinions on whether a world increasingly dominated by Google is a good thing or not. Includes this rather surprising quote: "The really interesting question is whether it is really a cult...."

Some headlines from the CRTC report

It's quite a long report, so here are some headlines:

• Private commercial radio revenues increased year on year 6.2% from $1.4 billion to $1.5 billion in 2007

• Television revenues increased 4.3% from $5.0 billion to $5.3 billion

• Compounded revenues for the broadcast industry have increased 6.5% since 2003 (compared to 4.4% for the telecommunications industry)

• During the period 2003-2007, cable companies revenues have increased 60%, from $2.6 billion to $7.1 billion

• 98% of Canadians live within the wireless footprint

• 64% subscribe to high-speed internet (a year on year increase of 12%)

• Canada has the highest proportion of households taking up broadband connections of all the G7 countries

• The combined telecommunications and broadcast industries contribute nearly 4.2% towards Canada's GDP

CRTC 2008 Monitoring Report

The CRTC has just released its 2008 Monitoring Report, which you can access by clicking on the link below.

An interesting and significant twist is that, for the first time, the previous broadcasting and telecommunications reports have been merged into one report.  More evidence of blurry lines?...

The report contains information generated through our InfoSys software, as well as some headline data from our MTM (Media Technology Monitor) survey about the impact of current and future technologies on today's media landscape. The MTM survey itself has a lot more detail on this and other areas than is quoted in the CRTC report.

If you want any more information on InfoSys (which will soon be available for PPM radio data and TV diary data, as well as TV meter data) contact Erica Kim at ekim@bbmanalytics.ca.  For more information on MTM, please contact Michael Abraham at mabraham@bbmanalytics.ca.

For the report, click here!:Download CRTC_Monitoring_Report_2008.pdf

PPM Radio data release schedule for Montreal

BBM Canada has issued a release schedule for PPM radio data from Montreal.  As you'll no doubt be aware, Montreal is the first radio market to move to metered measurement.  The full press release is attached, but here are the headlines:
-first release of data on December 10th.  This will be both summary and respondent-level data
-summary-level data releases every 13 weeks
-respondent-level data releases every month (or more precisely, in a repeating pattern of 4, 4, 5 weeks, to match up with the summary-level data releases).

If you have any questions on how you can analyse the upcoming data, just contact us at BBM Analytics.  Our details are here, or feel free to contact Nini Larsen (Group Account Manager, Radio) at nlarsen@bbmanalytics.ca.
Download bbm_canada_ppm_radio_data_release_schedule.pdf

Blurry lines

One of the fascinating things about the digital future is how blurry the lines get between companies and industries.  Apple, for example, was a computer company. Now it sells music, phones and music players (amongst other things).  BSkyB in the UK was/is a television company.  But today it announced a joint venture with Universal Music to launch a digital music service.

Wonder what blurry lines will appear in the Canadian marketplace in the next few years...

Buy what you see

TiVo and Amazon have just announced that they're teaming up to offer viewers the chance of buying things they've just seen on their televisions. This article in today's New York Times contains a well-balanced quote from Timothy Hanlon, senior vice-president for Denuo:

TiVo’s purchase feature “is a harbinger of what television ultimately should become,” said Timothy Hanlon, senior vice president for Denuo, the media futures division of the Publicis Groupe. “But TiVo is only in around four million plus homes. From a national advertising perspective, if it doesn’t get beyond that base it remains nothing more than a curiosity.”

Read the rest of the article by clicking here.

Bacon flowchart

Mental health break

Sometimes, it's good to give your brain a break.

'The Long Tail' curtailed?

A thought-provoking article in Slate that suggests Chris Anderson's much-vaunted theory of 'the long tail' might actually be wrong.

BBM Canada announces revised radio survey release schedule

BBM Canada announced today a revision of the radio survey release schedule.  The announcement is attached, but here are the headlines:

• S1 (published on April 7th 2009) will now measure the top 9 markets only, with no full coverage

• S2 (published on May 22nd 2009) will be measured earlier and will measure all competitive markets and full coverage.

For more details, please contact your BBM Canada Member Services representative.  Their details can be found by clicking here.

Click on this link for the official announcement: Download bbm_canada_to_revise_200809_radio_survey_schedule.pdf

Did anyone say 'Minority Report'?

OK, so it's not exactly media or broadcast news, but it is at least a screen.  And it is very cool.

Multi-channel planning tool released in UK

The second of the IPA’s Touchpoints Surveys was released in the

UK

today. According to the IPA :

“Its primary objective is to give communication strategists a consumer-centric planning tool which analyses how people are using the increasingly wide range of media available to them and how this usage fits in to their lifestyles. It is designed as a stand-alone survey and a survey which allows other media research currencies and surveys such as BARB, NRS, RAJAR, TGI etc. and proprietary surveys to be integrated onto it.”

The study charts a week in the life of 5,400 adults and is done in 2 parts. Firstly the Hub Survey which is comprised of a comprehensive questionnaire covering the respondents’ opinions on various media, lifestyle issues and some purchasing habits. They also carry a PDA diary in which they record every half hour what they are doing, who they are with, what media they are consuming and how they are feeling.

This Hub Survey provides Media Planners with a tool that gives them great insight into the lives, feelings and media connections of various target audiences at different points in the day. The Integrated Planning Database is the second stage which integrates the Hub Survey with the all the industry currencies to produce a multi-channel planning tool.

Unsurprisingly the results of the second survey show that there has been a huge shift towards digital media in the 2 years since the last survey (internet activity on an average weekday has risen 43%). However it seems that traditional media have held up well – only 8.8% of adults prefer to read their newspaper online and whilst TV viewing during the weekend has dropped 1%, viewing at the weekend has risen by 7%. Details of the survey attached:

Download IPA_TouchPoints2_SuperHub_Launch_Press_Release.pdf

Google AdPlanner

An interesting take from David L. Smith on the "hullaballoo" surrounding the announcement of Google AdPlanner (italics added):

Many of those in the digital advertising trade press jumped on this as "doom and gloom" for researchers comScore, Nielsen NetRatings and even Quantcast's research offerings. I think it important to note that there is a significant different between putting information into the marketplace and providing research tools. Research tools for the advertising community need to have specific aspects: They are expected to be statistically reliable, they need to have a sample that is projectable to the universe they are measuring (or offer a census of all users) and they need to have been vetted by the industry as relevant to the task at hand (an MRC audit is always a good idea).

Is the Internet a threat to TV?

Media Daily News released an article on June 25, 2008 as to why TV will continue to be a flourishing medium. The article refers to comments made by Jeffrey Cole, director of the USC Annenberg Center for the Digital Future where he believes TV will continue to “be a constant companion” due to high speed broadband allowing users to spend less time with the internet and more time with TV compared to when the Internet was only accessible by dial-up.

In an earlier article titled “Think the Internet will replace TV? Think again.” (Mar 18, 2006) Craig Moffet of Bernstein Research is quoted as saying “our telecommunications infrastructure is woefully unprepared for widespread delivery of advanced services, especially video, over the Internet…” and along with other points made in the article it leads me to believe that even if all TV content was available across the web that speed and quality would affect users desire to ditch the TV tube all together.

Another area that should come into play when discussing broadband is its subscription rate. According to an article by Peter Nowak of CBC News dated May 20, 2008 Canada has about 26.6% of the population subscribing to broadband, which is not too bad and has Canada ranked 10^th among 30 developed countries. But where does that leave the remainder of the population – sitting in front of their screens for extended periods of time?

Please feel free to share your thoughts!

Articles:

Media Daily News – Level Playing Field: Internet No Threat to TV, Newspapers

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=85425&Nid=44286&p=259841

Blog Maverick – Think the Internet will replace TV? Think again

http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/03/18/think-the-internet-will-replace-tv-think-again/

CBC News.ca – Canada’s global edge in broadband dwindling

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/05/20/tech-broadband.html

Ad agency leaders on threat from online

An interesting article in the New York Times about how ad industry leaders feel about online companies' apparent desire to move onto their turf.  It talks of Microsoft's recent acquisition of Navic Networks, a company that specialises in addressable advertising, and notes that Microsoft sent 550 people to Cannes...

The article also includes an interesting quote from Cindy Gallop, a former chief executive of the New York office of BBH:

Google “clearly wants to replace the advertising industry in its totality,” said Cindy Gallop, a former chief executive of the New York office of the ad agency BBH. She added, however, that she thought Google would be “fundamentally undermined” by what she saw as its antipathy toward traditional advertising.

Interesting times....

Cannes award winners

Click here for a gallery showing some of the winners from the Cannes ad awards, including some work for Mini from Canada's very own Taxi2!

More icon quotes! Erwin Ephron on fusion

The research guru Erwin Ephron recently penned an interesting article on data fusion.  The entire piece is available here - Download blast_06_08.pdf - but here are some choice excerpts for your delectation and delight:

"The usual question [fusion] raises is, "how good is fusion?" is the wrong question. We should be asking "is using fusion better than what we're currently doing?". It probably is."

Zogby on polls

Some interesting comments on the use of political polling in the media by "polling icon" John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International.  A selection below:

""I don't place too much stock into polls as predictive, anyway," he said. "They're more like a snapshot, a photograph of a moment. And it's possible to get two different camera angles [at the same moment] because there is that volatility. I try to make up for it by stabilizing my sample through weights. But that's a whole methadological thing. Quite frankly, we all get 'em wrong."

 Asked about what would need to happen in order to correct the media's coverage of polls, Zogby said it wouldn't necessarily require a Herculean effort. "Let's assume the worst, which is broadcast news in particular. They're not going to have the time to issue the long disclaimers. But I don't think it has to turn into a Zoloft ad: 10 seconds of product and 50 seconds of 'it can cause death in farm animals'. On the other hand, the screens are loaded with information. I don't think it's a bad thing to say: 'Obama leads by six, and that's within the margin of error. And also understand, this is a snapshot of a moment in time. There are factors that can cause errors. It's early.'"

Until that happens, however, Zogby said he would simply advise voters to read several polls and try to capture the trends. "Be a good consumer," he said. "As with everything else."

From www.huffingtonpost.com

 

Balloonacy

You may be wondering why there's a small inflatable animal on the bottom of the screen.  Don't worry, it's not a virus (or, maybe that should be "it doesn't have a virus").  It's part of an ingenious bit of digital marketing from the UK for the phone company Orange. Basically, it's the "world's first internet balloon race". More explanations should you want them by clicking here: http://www.crackunit.com/2008/06/02/the-orange-balloon-race-playballoonacycom/

Breaking the rules

One of the few 'rules' of company blogs is to update it frequently, otherwise it gets annoying for people who turn up to the site because nothing new's been added.

Ah. 

Sorry.