BBM Blogalytics

Radio commercial category reports now in RADTracker

We've got great news to share. You now have the ability to dig deeper into the RADTracker data by using the new Category report (example). This lets you identify opportunities for your clients by analyzing trends, identifying growing areas and understanding seasonality in radio advertising categories.  You can also use it to explore categories not represented or underdeveloped on radio in order to maximise revenue.

As we continue to add to the RADTracker experience the ability to uncover relevant information gets easier. The data becomes actionable not just interesting.

For more information on RADTracker please contact your Account Executive.

Les effets secondaires...

Nouvelle station radio sur fond d’élections et de débats de société.

Une période favorable pour les stations de radio à prépondérance verbale?

Nous avons constaté, au printemps dernier, une remontée plus marquée des parts de marchés de la station CHMP FM. Cette station a un format ‘’mix’’ mais ses émissions d’opinions et d’actualités ont certainement contribué à la hausse marquée de ses parts de marchés au printemps dernier. Sans oublier, bien sûr, l’arrivée du segment sport, qui amène son lot de d’exilés de CKAC.  Peut-on déduire, par exemple,  qu’une crise sociale, une élection ou un fait divers hors du commun peuvent changer les habitudes des auditeurs pour une période donnée? Il a été démontré que le médium de la radio offre une spontanéité, une flexibilité qui s’adapte parfaitement à l’actualité du jour. La radio nous a, entre autres, permis de suivre les déplacements des manifestants lors de leurs marches au centre-ville de Montréal. Comme automobilistes, nous pouvions adapter notre trajectoire en conséquence et peut-être éviter de longues minutes d’attente.

En ces temps plus ‘’passionnés’’, notre niveau de tolérance peut être éprouvé, qu’importe le regard ou l’opinion que l’on porte sur l’actualité. Pour ou contre, là n’est pas la question, mais les évènements des derniers mois nous ont permis de réfléchir sur nos valeurs de société, de communauté, et même de culture. Ceci, justifiant sûrement, notre  besoin d’exprimer, de partager, parfois,  haut et fort, notre opinion. Quoi de mieux, qu’une tribune libre, une ligne ouverte aux auditeurs pour exorciser un ras-le-bol.

Alors, imaginons, ce que seront les prochaines semaines, avec les élections maintenant en branle, les associations étudiantes qui doivent se prononcer sur leurs intentions de poursuivre ou non la grève, du moins, pour certaines facultés universitaires. À prévoir des lignes ouvertes chaudement convoitées. À ce sujet, je vous invite à consulter l’article paru dans l’édition électronique d’Infopresse du lundi 20 août 2012, jour du lancement de la nouvelle station CHOI Radio X à Montréal, qui se décrit (sic) : «…comme une radio différente avec des opinions tranchées et pertinentes sur des sujets chauds de l'actualité» : http://bit.ly/PzGw0a

Il sera intéressant d’analyser l’impact de ces prochaines semaines sur les habitudes d’écoute des auditeurs. Si la tendance se maintient, pour utiliser une citation célèbre, le format à prépondérance verbale, profiterait de ce momentum et grugerait probablement quelques parts de marché à ses concurrents de formats différents… à suivre.

Facebook face au défi du mobile

Il y a un mois environ, on s’intéressait à la saga Facebook peu après son entrée en bourse et aux différentes avenues que l’entreprise pourrait emprunter pour rassurer les investisseurs notamment en terme de revenus publicitaires. En lisant un article aujourd’hui dans le journal Les Echos on apprend que le nombre d’utilisateurs du réseau social sur mobile croit beaucoup plus rapidement que la base totale, or leur modèle de  publicité sur mobile n’est pas encore développé… Comme le dit Nicolas Rauline dans son article : « le temps presse… »

Addressable TV advertising

With the recent announcement by Dish and WPP regarding their addressable advertising trials we thought it timely to have a look at what’s been happening in this area so far. 

Addressable advertising is the ability to send different TV commercial messages to different households according to defined segmentation. This could be defined by geography, demographic or interest based ie according to which TV packages the household has subscribed to or even their viewing preferences. There is also the option for the TV company to buy in additional consumer base information from third party data providers in order to more tightly target the audience.

The TV suppliers argue there are multiple benefits to offering this service. Firstly the improved relevance of the commercial will make campaigns more efficient and effective. Indeed in the Baltimore trial conducted by Starcom Media Vest & Comcast Spotlight the results proved quite positive. In this trial, measured by our partner Kantar Media, homes receiving addressable advertising tuned away during the break 32% less of the time than those homes that didn’t receive it. Also the trial was 65% more efficient at reaching the relevant grouping the advertiser wanted to target.
Secondly, the service improves the relevance of campaigns particularly when it is offered within playback viewing therefore of particular benefit to time sensitive advertisers such as retail and film companies.

In the UK Sky have launched an addressable advertising model across their online player system. The race is on, however,  between the major satellite provider and its competitor Virgin Media to expand across their TV platforms. Sky have announced that their rollout will begin across PVR content whereas Virgin Media has opted for VOD as their test bed for this technology. Both companies are
promising to eventually offer the service across linear TV.

In the US various partnerships have formed to test the technology. At the end of 2010 DirectTV
struck a partnership with Starcom Media Vest to rollout addressable advertising to 10 million homes out of its 19.1 million subscribers. Last year Cablevision partnered with GroupM and performed the first addressable campaign across the systems entire footprint of almost 3million households in the New York metropolitan area.  And now Dish & Group M have announced that with their recent trials comprising of nearly a dozen advertisers across more than 7million homes the stage is set to deliver addressable advertising on a large scale.

Here in Canada, Cogeco was the first cable operator to announce an addressable advertising trial last
year on the CHCH network in South-Central Ontario.

However despite Bank of America Merrill Lynch projecting addressable ads to total $11.5 billion in the US by 2015 some argue that this targeting, managed at a platform level, isn’t how the game will
evolve and that as internet connected TVs become more common the model will become more similar to the current online ad system.

TV offerte versus TV consommée

 

 

Je vous propose aujourd’hui que l’on s’arrête quelques instants sur la comparaison entre l’offre et la consommation des émissions de TV selon leur genre durant  l’automne 2011 dans la province du Québec francophone.

 Le principe est simple : les stations de télévision offrent un nombre d’heures de programmes TV qui sont classifiés par genre, tandis que le téléspectateur lui, choisit parmi cet éventail de choix ce qui lui plait de regarder. Dans le meilleur des mondes,  le pourcentage consommé devrait se rapprocher de celui de l’offre mais la réalité est différente, on s’en doute.

 On constate en effet que  la demande des téléspectateurs pour les émissions d’analyse et d’interprétation,  les jeux et les émissions de divertissement général et d’intérêt humain  est proportionnellement plus importante que le temps offert ce qui contraste avec les films de longs métrages et les nouvelles où  l’offre  surpasse nettement la demande.

On ne peut s’empêcher de remarquer que la palme revient sans conteste aux séries dramatiques qui représentent 16.8% de la TV consommée contre 9.8% de la TV offerte, un choix de programmation qui devrait donc demeurer privilégié encore quelques temps par les diffuseurs au Québec.

Quant au genre qui regroupe les sports professionnels, dont la part de l’offre surpasse la consommation (8.6% contre 5.6%), on se demande si l’arrivée durant l’automne de nouveaux joueurs proposant ce genre de programmation ne serait pas une des raisons expliquant cet écart, simple hypothèse…

Facebook Exchange

On le savait pour Google et d’autres compagnies du Web, ce serait maintenant au tour de Facebook avec Facebook Exchange de se lancer dans des appels d’offres en temps réel pour de la publicité sur son réseau. Les prix seront établis selon un coût par mille et le service devrait voir le jour d’ici quelques semaines. Le principe est simple et déjà connu : cibler les consommateurs à partir de leur historique de navigation grâce aux cookies ou autres programmes informatiques.  En gros, si vous avez fait une  recherche sur la destination de votre voyage de cet été, lors de votre prochaine connexion sur Facebook, vous pourriez recevoir des publicités pour une réservation d’hôtel ou une quelconque attraction  dudit endroit.  Actuellement, les publicitaires ciblent les usagers uniquement en fonction de leurs « Likes » et des informations provenant de leurs profils.

Est-ce que Facebook avait déjà prévu d’ajouter une  nouvelle flèche à son arc ou bien cela arrive t-il en réaction aux critiques  dont la compagnie a fait l’objet concernant l’inefficacité de ses publicités sur son réseau ?

On se rappelle en effet que la compagnie, même si elle a amorcé une remontée sur les marchés, sa valeur demeure encore près 14% en dessous de celle lors son introduction en bourse. Le réseau qui devrait atteindre 1 milliard d’usagers bientôt et qui a généré un chiffre d’affaires de plus de 3 milliards en publicité l'année dernière n’a peut-être pas  le choix d’utiliser cette nouvelle avenue pour justifier son efficacité auprès des annonceurs et sa valeur auprès de ses actionnaires.  À suivre…

Parle, parle, jase, jase...

La crise étudiante a-t-elle changé le portrait de la radio depuis ses débuts en février?

 

ÉCARTS	Jan 2012	Fév 2012	Mars 2012	Avril 2012	Mai 2012
98,5FM - Rythme FM	2.4	4.6	5.6	3.9	5.1

On peut constater depuis février dernier que les parts % des heures d’écoute du 98,5FM augmentent, tout en creusant un écart avec son plus proche concurrent, Rythme FM. La crise a-t-elle eu une incidence sur l’augmentation des  parts% de marché du 98,5FM? Les formats de ces radios sont-ils un indice qui justifierait la hausse d’une station de format parlé versus une de format adulte contemporain. Mais  le format peut-il,  à lui seul, en être la cause? On se souviendra que la naissance de cette crise est survenue au mois de février, qui était alors concentrée, principalement,  sur les revendications des étudiants. Les humeurs changeantes de ces manifestations rendaient les déplacements des travailleurs du centre-ville plus ardus. Les rues bloquées pendant plusieurs heures, les attroupements parfois spontanés, imprévus suffisaient à paralyser le centre-ville. Force est de constater que ces automobilistes ont su tiré profit du média le mieux adapté dans ces circonstances… la radio.

 

Le format parlé peut s’adapter à la nouvelle de dernière minute et  permet à l’auditeur de connaitre rapidement les moindres déplacements d’une foule. Ces émissions, qui traitent de l’actualité, offrent également des tribunes téléphoniques permettant ainsi aux citoyens d’exprimer le ras-le-bol qui ne cesse de croître depuis le début de la crise.  Sans oublier de mentionner que Paul Arcand, qui n’est pas reconnu pour faire usage de la langue de bois, bénéficie d’une solide crédibilité auprès des auditeurs.

 Toutefois, cette crise a apporté son lot de commentaires de la part des organisateurs de festivals, d’évènements majeurs, tel que le Grand Prix, des restaurateurs et commerçants des rues du centre-ville.

Ici, une entrevue diffusée à la Première Chaîne avec M. Paul Arseneau de l’institut du tourisme. Il y fait mention, entre autres, que les touristes les plus sujets à annuler leurs vacances ou déplacements à Montréal viennent des villes environnantes du grand Montréal ,par exemple,  Québec, Trois-Rivières, Sherbrooke…etc. Ces derniers représentent 35% des gens qui nous visitent. Et qu’en est-il des 65% restant?

http://www.radio-canada.ca/audio-video/pop.shtml#urlMedia=http://www.radio-canada.ca/Medianet/2012/CBF/LapresmidiPorteConseil201206011408_4.asx

FUSIONS À PROFUSION

Les agences ou diffuseurs n’ayant pas faits l’objet d’une fusion, sont une denrée rare au Québec par les temps qui courent. Que l’on pense à Cogeco qui a acquis les stations québécoises de Corus, Allard acquis par KBS+P, plus récemment Astral par Bell (BCE) et BOS par Dentsu, pour n’en nommer que quelques-uns.

Mais que pensez de ces fusions et l’impact que celles-ci aura sur le marché de la publicité québécoise. Que ce soit en passant par les stratèges de la planification aux créateurs de publicité de nos filiales. Une centralisation des pouvoirs décisionnels sur le contenu publicitaire pourrait-elle être possible? Et si oui, serait-elle cohérente avec la réalité du marché québécois vs le marché du reste du Canada. Voici quelques articles glanés au fil des mois, dans différentes publications.

Article publié sur le site de Touché ! PHD. au sujet de l’acquisition d’Astral par Bell 

http://www.touchephd.com/blog/2012/03/reaction-a-la-transaction-bell-astral/#more-4821

 

Christian Quenneville. Nouveau directeur Général chez TAXI acquis par WPP.

 

Q?: Vous avez fait partie du développement international de certaines agences (Nurun, Cossette). Quelle est votre vision de l'avenir de Taxi, récemment achetée par WPP?
R. : J'ai déjà travaillé pour des agences qui faisaient partie d'un réseau avec des clients internationaux. Je vois donc l'acquisition par WPP comme une occasion. Young & Rubicam laisse beaucoup de place aux entreprises qui connaissent du succès. Comme Taxi est déjà une marque forte, je pense que l'intégration permettra à notre talent québécois de rayonner davantage à l'étranger.

 

Claude Lessard, président du conseil et chef de la direction de Vision 7 International,  à propos de des multiples divisions inhérentes à Cossette.

 

Au Canada, la marque Cossette fonctionnera dorénavant comme une agence complètement intégrée. Les activités des diverses divisions, incluant Fjord (marketing interactif et technologies), Blitz (marketing relationnel), Fusion (commandite), Identica (branding et design), Nucleus (marketing interactif et recherche) et Cossette Média sont fondues dans Cossette. "Nous offrons maintenant une approche d'intégration totale, ce que les clients demandent de plus en plus, dit Claude Lessard. Nos clients sont très favorables à cette approche. Elle a d'ailleurs été décisive dans le gain du compte d'Aéroplan, remporté récemment. Et notre acquisition du compte de planification et d'achats médias de Telus y a aussi été liée." À noter que Cossette continue de traiter, pour le volet relationnel, avec Bell, qui a cessé d'oeuvrer avec l'agence pour son volet médias à la fin d'août dernier. "Nous continuons cette partie du mandat avec Bell jusqu'en avril 2011, dit Claude Lessard. Nous avons connu d'excellentes années avec Bell, et nous sommes maintenant ravis de travailler avec Telus, pour lequel nous voyons beaucoup de possibilités pour l'avenir."

Cossette sera dirigée par Brett Marchand, qui en devient président et chef de la direction; il était, depuis février 2010, président et chef des opérations globales. Brett Marchand est basé à Toronto, ce qui a évidemment soulevé des questions sur le fait que la direction de Cossette s'était déplacée vers cette ville. "Oui et non, a dit Claude Lessard. La direction du holding est ici, et on annoncera dans les prochaines semaines qui dirigera le bureau de Montréal. Mais il est aussi vrai que de plus en plus de centres de décisions de nos clients sont à Toronto, et il faut en tenir compte." Dominique Lebel, qui assurait la direction des bureaux de Montréal et Québec a en effet quitté l'agence en mars 2010, et son poste, occupé de façon intérimaire reste encore à remplir.

Lien dans Infopresse : http://www2.infopresse.com/blogs/actualites/archive/2010/11/17/article-36125.aspx

The Vancouver riot and its effect on local radio tuning

Following the disappointing Game 6 loss to the Bruins, like all Canucks fans I eagerly anticipated Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final and wondered if after 40 seasons of wishing and hoping this was finally the night the good guys would bring home Lord Stanley’s Holy Grail to the west coast - and I’m not referring to the long-standing NHL tradition of Milan Lucic spending one day with the Cup in East Vancouver this summer.

As the huge crowds continued to grow in the city centre with each passing game during the extended playoff run, I decided to watch Game 7 with a group of friends on the periphery of downtown. The plan was if the Canucks were to prevail, we’d walk (OK, skip would probably be more accurate) over the Cambie Bridge to join the mass celebrations and high five 100,000+ of my fellow ‘Nucks fans. By the time Brad Marchand scored the Bruins 2^nd goal, there was an empty feeling in my stomach, perhaps foreseeing that I would not be journeying across False Creek to party, but would be heading straight home to grieve instead. Sure enough, the Bruins deservedly won the game and hence the series and shortly after Chara’s victory lap hoisting the Cup around Rogers Arena, I left the bar and headed home.

As I ventured outside, I checked my mobile Twitter app to read some post-game analysis only to find out a car was just overturned and set on fire on Georgia Street……the 2011 Vancouver Riot had just begun. During my trip home on the B-Line Express, I was constantly checking Twitter for updates on the mayhem and as soon as I got home rushed to the TV. For the next three hours I was glued to the riveting unscripted reality programming on the local stations. I must admit that for several days afterwards, I spent much more time on-line than usual reading post riot articles and commentaries in both the local and national newspapers, watching on-line video on YouTube.com and staring at photo montages on various sites. I was guilty of being consumed by the appalling behavior of a handful of my fellow Vancouverites rather than celebrating what a great year our Canucks had.

As outlined above, I used social media to find out about the incident, watched television as the events unfolded live and accessed the internet to try to make sense of it all. For those that follow media measurement, the above mediums have metric systems in place that can track their respective audience/usage in a very short period of time. With a little bit of research, this data is readily available.

That got me thinking about radio. Due to industry policies, radio is one medium that may have had an impact on how the public followed the events but was unable to quantitatively track its impact until July 7^{th '}s PPM release. So as the riot unfolded, did the public turn to radio as a means to stay informed?

To find out, click here (client registration required)

JGC

It's all relative

Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman Ogilvy Group UK, explains his "theory of everything", how context and perception determine value and shape the decision making process. He uses excellent examples to support the arguement including the Canadian Shreddies campaign.

 

Kantar Video global video summit

Selected highlights from May 3rd 2011, NYC.

Bill Lederer, CEO Kantar Video There is an opportunity to see digital as a distinct medium, as opposed to repurposed TV or display ads. Pure reach and frequency undervalues the medium.  Need to factor in paid, earned and owned.  Also need to incorporate an effectiveness metric. Digital video is set up perfectly for addressability, accountability and optimization. Video is a perfect petri dish for experimentation. Rob Davies, (Worldwide Interactive Marketing Director & Director, Advanced Video Practice), Ogilvy “The web is not TV 2.0” “The internet is not killing TV”.  They are not the same. Ogilvy is focused on looking to use the unique capabilities of video. Views alone are not important. Ogilvy usually designs videos for some kind of engagement or ‘post-click’ activity. Owned is most important, then paid, then earned (clients tend to get this the wrong way round).  Ogilvy stresses earned the least because it can be influenced, but not controlled. Key goal is to “win the unbranded search”.  Another key goal is “Post Play Interaction”, some way that the consumer can enter the sales funnel. Comments on viral: ban the use of the word with clients, “viral is not a strategy, it’s a distraction", iit implies that success just sort of happens. Finally clients often mistake viral for ‘free’. “No video earns mass viewing numbers without a trigger”.  That trigger is rarely accidental; they are paid, owned or earned. VSEO (Video Search Engine Optimisation) is crucial but often overlooked (YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine).  VSEO requires well-crafted meta-data, at least until such time as video search evolves.  Putting a brand or client name in the title often hurts in VSEO.   Ogilvy uses video to dominate search.  They ‘pre-optimize’ videos, by finding out what consumers are likely to want before the video is created.  They call this Consumer Intent Modelling (CIM).  According to Ogilvy, CIM increases organic traffic 400-700%.  Russ Axelrod (Director of Brand Strategy – Branded Entertainment and Experiences Team), Microsoft Advertising: Pet peeve is the ‘Facebook phenomenon’, clients wanting ‘likes’ or ‘friends’ without knowing why.  “I could make a video of a girl dancing in a bikini and get you 300,000 friends, but so what?”. People wonder who’s at the top table.  In reality, “everyone’s at a round table and the table spins every 2 minutes”.  In other words, every party should be involved and the best idea wins, regardless of who came up with it.  You need to leave your egos at the door. Ritu Trivedi, (Managing Partner, Media Director) Mindshare: “Just building content without a purpose and without learnings is a waste of time”.  It’s critical to define very specific metrics with regards to branded entertainment; it keeps all parties honest, including the client.

Ross Martin, (Executive Vice President) MTV Scratch:

We all have figured out who we actually report to: the audience.  If they’re happy, we all win.

For Millenials, “it’s all about gaming the system.  It doesn’t matter where you put it [content], they will take it and twist it and do with it what they want to”.  “They don’t fight the power, they are the power.  And they know it”.

Kathryn Friedrich (Head of Display, Media and Entertainment) Google:

Need to move away from GRPs to a metric that factors in engagement.

YouTube’s homepage alone has 22 million views.

Sloan Broderick, (Managing Director) Mediacom Interaction:

[on the issue of multi-screen metrics].  There may be some clients who are given a ‘planning answer’ (e.g. the strategic importance of video), whereas others will want a ‘buying answer’ (i.e. more focused on economic arguments).

Brad Elders, Vice President of Video Sales AOL:

Destination alone is not enough; you need distribution and therefore syndication.

Joe Tartaglia (Senior Partner, Group Media Director), Adam Shlachter (Managing Partner, Digital Investment), MEC Interaction:

5 challenges to get clients to embrace digital video:

1. Consumers (is the audience there?)
2. Cost efficiencies (including cost of production,complexity)
3. Context
4. Creative
5. Complexity

None of these are as bad as they were, and none of them are insurmountable.

Yoni Bloch, Interlude.fm

Interlude is a service that allows users to seamlessly ‘choose their own video’ by offering choices throughout the video.  Users therefore create their own versions of the video, which encourages them to do two very important things:

1. Watch the video more times
2. Share ‘their’ versions with friends

Interlude’s stats show very high levels of engagement and watch-through rates.

Bismarck Lepe, President of Products, Ooyala

“Consumers are the new brand managers and the new programmers”.

Dell has how-to videos on their site.  Customer satisfaction for the products that feature video on the help pages is up 20%.

80% of Vizio TVs can be connected; 70% of Sony TVs, and (by the end of 2011), 100% of Samsung TVs.

This will likely lead to a significant increase in consumers watching ‘the internet’ on their TV sets.

BCAB Conference 2011

 
     
A few of us were lucky enough to spend a few days in Kelowna last week at the BCAB Conference. This year with the theme Welcome to the Jungle Media in the 21^st Century (cue multiple airings of Guns n’ Roses). So what did we take away from this apart from a mild case of sunburn (Jack)?

The general feeling seemed to be much more positive than previous years with regard to the acceptance of new media, particularly social media and how it can work to enhance a station’s current offerings. The sessions, for the most part, gave practical advice on how to communicate with audiences both through social media and directly on air.

Highlights from the two days for us were:

John Parikhal of Joint Communcations Corporation on how to profit from change in the media landscape.

Mari Smith, the ‘Queen of Facebook’, gave tips on how to get the most out of this as a marketing tool.

Anthony Von Mandl, the proprietor of Mission Hill Family Estate winery, for the most captivating talk on how he overcame seemingly insurmountable hurdles in order to realise his dream of establishing the Okanagan Valley as a world class wine region.

BBM Canada Staying Tuned 2011

 Last week we all attended the BBM Canada Staying Tuned Conference in Toronto. Here’s a top line whiz through the presentations with the teams’ favourite snippets.

George Shababb, Kantar Media presented on their research into interactive and addressable advertising using return path data in the US. This second by second analysis is able to distinguish a new metric of “tune away” identifying the holding power of ads which has proved useful in demonstrating how effective addressable advertising can be.

Carol Edwards from Arbitron and Sheryl Feldinger from NBC presented results from their single source multi platform research during the Vancouver Olympics. This showed that those people that watched the event on TV & Online did in fact watch twice as much Olympics on TV than those who watched none online. Thus demonstrating, in this instance, that online didn’t in fact cannibalize TV viewing.

Firm favourites in the room were Peter Niegel and Dennis Chrstensen from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. Their presentation demonstrated beautifully what can be achieved when PPM data and qualitative research are used in tandem (Erica favourite).  With the advent of PPM radio measurement in Denmark they discovered a 20% loss of audience during the news bulletins. The usual qualitative research methods proved useless in understanding this pattern so they employed “secret agents” to snoop on the listening behaviour of their partners and colleagues  (Nini favourite).  The listeners were then interviewed afterwards. This led to some subtle but significant changes in the way their radio presenters were asked to handle the news bulletins which showed immediate results. We also learnt the term “cucumber news” which is apparently a slow news day in Denmark. (Tim favourite)

Next came Alex Petrilli from TiVO who gave a sterling performance despite the interruptions of a very persistent fire alarm. He presented some results from their StopWatch research which measures second by second viewing of the US PVR audience. This has shown the importance of the 1^st in pod position in terms of retaining the audience during the break. Other strategies have proved successful in preventing the audience from hitting the fast forward button, particularly “promercials” such as the recent campaign from American Express using the cast from Glee

This was followed by “Wonderwoman” Stacey Lynn Schulman from Turner Broadcasting System in New York. Turner undertook a project to tag thousands of scenes in their movie catalogue to identify elements that would allow them to strategically place advertising right next to the relevant content of the movie.  These elements included specific brand mentions, strong emotional themes (such as safety or fun) or other elements that could tie in to a brand’s values or offerings.  As an illustration, we were shown a car crash scene from The Bourne Supremacy followed by an OnStar ad that opened with the aftermath of a car crash.(Adam favourite) This innovation is founded on the psychological premise of “priming”, meaning that a person is more receptive to an idea that they have been prepared for beforehand. Despite finding in their research that ad recall was lower in the primed group they did find that with using online surveys and biometric research emotional engagement with the advertising was much higher amongst the primed audience.  Research also showed the intention to purchase was much higher in the primed groups, calling into question the validity of ad recall as a measure of ad effectiveness.  Schulman contended that ad impact was a more meaningful metric to measure than recall, since recall was based in the conscious brain whereas most purchase decisions were driven by the sub-conscious.

Next came Ed Keller via Skype to discuss the power of word of mouth. His first bombshell was that only 10% of WOM actually takes place online (Judy favourite). Ed’s company, Kellor Fay Group, has developed the TalkTrack system as a way of measuring the brand impressions that are generated in the US by word of mouth every day (a figure they estimate to be 3.3 billion). Coca-Cola is the number one brand mentioned in the US and has been since they began monitoring in 2006. The top 10 list for social media is completely different with iPhone coming in at number one and Coca-Cola only managing 9^th place. Ed then discussed how powerful media properties are when it comes to word of mouth, both as subjects of discussion and also as drivers of conversation.  He concluded by showing how different stations can rank in terms of reaching key conversation drivers in different categories – an interesting element to throw into the media plan.

Next up wasKimberley Lafleur from BBM Canada. She showed us in depth research into the fluctuations in tuning to radio during the Christmas period. One of the conclusions that she drew was that the shifts in tuning of those stations who changed format during this period to Christmas music were mainly driven by women with kids. (Jack favourite)

Jo’s favourite would have to be Daren Benton and his examples of innovation in TV advertising from Channel 4 in the UK. From the live ad-break takeover promoting Honda, to the Jimmy Carr hijacking of the ad break, to  Microsoft “themed” ad breaks – these examples of creativity in advertising are designed to keep the viewer engaged in the break.  Most importantly, they are showing results, with some viewers quoted as saying they set the PVR to record the break!

Jay Guyther from ROI Media Solutions, Baltimore was the next to present on radio PPM findings in the US. He reiterated previous learning on radio that under PPM, relative to diary, people listen to twice as many stations, there are more listening occasions but less listening per occasion and schedules delivered greater reach but less frequency. He observed the lower frequency was a result of additional reach against light listeners while noting the limitations of analysis software which has not yet adjusted for new PPM reach and TSL relationships. While possibly true for the U.S., as an audience member stated after the presentation, in Canada – which uses AMA rather than the AQH currency in effect in the U.S. – analysis software uses entirely different modeling for reach and frequency in PPM versus diary. Another interesting nugget was the concept of measuring engagement via a comparison of how much time a station’s listeners spent with it relative to their total time with all stations in a daypart compared to the average for the daypart for all stations/listeners.

Finally Jian Ghomeshi came to talk about his thoughts on the importance of pop culture and how it can cross boundaries. But also how perhaps pop culture as a term is redundant; we should break down elitist confines in order to embrace a widening range of cultural topics.

The future of TV is TV.

Much has been said about the death of TV but here at BBM Analytics we are noticing the opposite is true.

Last year saw a significant increase in TV viewing levels obviously boosted by the Winter Olympics and the World Cup. This viewing increase continued into the Fall season with Canadians watching almost an extra hour of TV per week compared to the previous year.[1]

PVRs were first touted as the end for the 30” spot when viewers were given the ability to skip ads. What we are seeing is firstly that PVR household penetration in Canada is nowhere near as high as the US, currently around 23% according to BBM Canada[2]. Secondly, live viewing still prevails.  Out of the 4 hours per day that Canadians view on average only 10 minutes is playback viewing  and about a quarter of this should be attributed to the good old video recorder. What we are seeing is significant differences in the amount of playback viewing to different shows where playback can account for up to 40% of the total viewing. This can of course be easily analysed in our InfoSys+ software. But how much of a worry should this be for advertisers? Studies have shown significant ad recall for spots viewed in fast forward mode. There is also an argument that as the PVR moves away from the early adopters and becomes more of a mainstream product we could see this playback viewing actually decrease.

Canadians value the viewing experience with 53% of households owning a HDTV. (Admittedly only 23% of households actually have a HD set top box). This viewing experience will continue to be enhanced with the growth of 3DTV. We should expect the take up of 3DTV to increase as the available content (both TV and gaming) expands and the price of both the set and the funky glasses drops.

Obviously the current hot topic is internet connectable TV. Sears recently announced that 85% of the TVs carried in its stores this year would have this capability. The proliferation of set top boxes that offer this service not to mention the launch of Netflix in Canada with its ability to stream content through video consoles have also been stated as the death of the linear schedule. However according to Deloitte Touch in their recent Canadian TMT Predictions this shouldn’t really be a concern – not just because of the extra cost involved but mainly due to a lack of need as, for most people, television remains a passive experience.

And we haven’t even stumbled down the slippery path of online video. Numerous studies have highlighted the Canadian love for this medium. A recent survey from Ipsos Reid showed that 80% of Canadians watch some online content with 41% of them watching online video more than once a week. According to ComScore’s 2010 Canada Digital Year in Review Canadians, on average, watched some 267 videos in Q4 which amounts to over 20 hours per month.

Finally no blog post is complete without a passing mention to social media. It too is playing its part in support of the linear TV schedule. Services such as Facebook and Twitter can increase the desire to watch TV as it is happening – you don’t want to be left out of the conversation or indeed have the outcome spoilt by seeing a well meaning post.  The broadcasters themselves are now actively using social media to drive buzz for their shows and are seeing very positive results. And of course there’s an app for that.  Entertainment check-in applications are taking off – GetGlue recently stated that it achieved 16m checkins across facebook & Twitter on Oscars night.

So to quote Deolitte Touche:

The future of TV is TV: PVRs, Internet,TV and other media do not threaten, replace or even compete with traditional TV – they complement it.

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[1] Ind2+ Av Hours Wk(Cap) Wks 3-16

[2] BBM Canada Media Technology Trends

The Future of TV

 
These are exciting times and this panel discussion in the UK between high flyers of youview, WPP Digital, Facebook and Red Bee Media highlights the opportunities and challenges that are around the corner.

Despite the advent of digital TV still lacks true interactivity, an opportunity lost for advertisers.  How will the challenges of connectivity be actually addressed on screen as chances are people won’t want Facebook on their TV. If this is the case how will Social Media work with the content providers to maximize viewer engagement and offer better value to advertisers?

The conversation then moves on to navigation of this vast amount of content provided by IPTV, how will people prioritize what they want to watch? youview seem to be tackling this in  baby steps but there are interesting thoughts expressed on how recommendations from friends on Facebook could set the preferences on your TV.

They all agree that net infrastructure is a major hurdle. The consumer will not accept any drop in service quality – the consensus was that the market should be responsible for upgrading the net but further debate was needed.

Blogging - it's hard work....

We know we haven't put much on the blog of late - could this be the reason why?

Source: eloqua.com

 





 

This video will make you optimistic

Chris Anderson talks of how he believes digital video will make the world a better place (seriously).  As he puts it, "what Gutenberg did for writing, digital video will do for face to face communication".

Trust us.  Take 18 minutes out of your life and watch this:

 

 

So social...

A brief update following a recent flurry of social media related launches.

Firstly, Apple launched Ping. This service, integrated into iTunes allows “Pingers” to follow musicians and friends to see what music they are buying and the concerts they are attending etc.

This was followed by the BBC launching the new version of iPlayer, its online catchup service. This redesign now includes social network elements such as links to Facebook and Twitter which will, according to James Hewines the Head of BBC iPlayer, “allow users to interact with the service and each other around the programmes”

The social network implications for TV viewing are explored in more detail in a recent Advertising Age article. Check-in apps, such as GetGlue are springing up which allow the users to rate various media TV, films, books etc but also offer the media companies an exciting opportunity to cross promote, build brands and reward loyal viewers directly.

The cable cutter debate

Latest results from SNL Kagan tracking the US multichannel market show that the number of pay TV subscribers dropped for the first time in Q2 this year citing the recession and weak housing market as the main causes and not “cord cutting”.

 

The New York Times is quick to share it’s research stating that only 15% of the TV subscribers interviewed would consider replacing their TV service with Internet video services such as Hulu or You Tube.

 

On the flip side is this entertaining article from Fast Company “Debunking the debunking of the Cable Cord Cutters”  

 

Is this the beginning of the end?

Spotify in the US?

 

According to the Daily Telegraph Spotify will be set to launch in the US by the end of the year.

This online music service has been sweeping across Europe over the past few years with the latest Rajar MIDAS report from the UK claiming that 11% of Adults 15+ use an personalized online radio service (POR) and 6% use it at least once a week.

The US service will apparently be similar to the European one with an advertising supported free element as well as monthly subscription options.

But with competitors such as Napster, Mog & Rhapsody already entrenched in the US whether it will enjoy its previous success remains to be seen.