OMMA Panel: What is Conent?
Doug Scott, President, Ogilvy Entertainment
Albert Chang, EVP, Digital Media, ABC
Jeff Berman, Preisdent, Sales & Marketing, MySpace
Jason Klar, Hulu
Mark Goodman, CurrentTV
Moderator: Diane Mermigas, Editor, Mediapost
Cheng: Looking at interactivity as being the key to keeping users engaged and allowing them to get deeper into a product. Some advertisers aren’t prepared for that. Still seeing too many :30s. Also looking at making ads more relevant by using more targeting tools.
The interactivity is going to focus on online, but the mobile space doesn’t have the infrastructure to make it efficient yet. But we’ll see more sequential ads that tell a story over the course of the programming. One example ABC had was a traditional pre-roll for the first pod, the second ad was an advergame, and the third was offering more interactivity about the benefits of the product. Overall, we need to focus on delivering more ROI for the advertiser. Can we get people farther down the funnel. Need to measure the click through to the very last click.
Doug Scott: Madison avenue needs to figure out how to engage the consumer given the shift in consumption. Even though we’ve created more touch points, advertising is still interruptive. (Doug cites “the value exchange covenenant.” “There was a deal that we watched ads in exchange for free content.) Targeting will also play a key role in helping cut away the fat from advertising. There will be a higher value placed on the audience. Overall, there will be a single interface that the consumer will be able to establish their own preferences that define how advertisers can reach them and what type of ads they are interested in.
Berman: This is about choice. Its about the consumer’s choice. But it is beyond video. Content is music, content is photos. When you put the tools in the hands of the consumers, you reach the most influential people in the universe. Letting users create content for your brand, relaunch a product, create a new logo, is where a lot of this is going. The convergence of the web and TV is increadibly important, but is further off than people thing. Maybe 3-6 years. But leveraging the data points across mediums is tremendously important. MySpace has more NASCAR enthusiasts than Nascar.com. The ROI is there for advertisers. Right now, its about moving product, selling Ravioli. Online is a relatively inexpensive bet, and pays off. People are effectively maxed out on search, so the brand play is massive. MySpace is bigger every day than American Idol is on any given night.
Goodman: Traditional media is becoming less effective. Social media is having a bigger impact, but people haven’t figured out how to take advantage of it. Gore’s vision in founding CurrentTV was to create a new kind of media company, that wasn’t traditional, but was about social media and creating a conversation through media. Let those conversations bubble up, and create a TV network that broadcasts the biggest, most popular stories. For advertisers Current provides a place for them to play with this new model, this wave of social media and conversation, rather than interrupting it. The community creates the ads as well as the content. They found that viewer created advertising is favored 9-to-1 over agency created ads. Magid study showed that young adults are consuming 20 hours of media in 7 hours.
Diane: Google content network with Media Rights Capital is a very interesting, new model, bringing them into the content space. Are they a competitor? Will they move the needle?
Cheng: Google is an enabler for us. They can help us be more efficient in managing our inventory. What they haven’t figured out is how to create a consumer experience that helps brands move product. Cross media, creative engines that reach the consumer has proven to help move product. But Google is lacking an environment that spurs people to buy product. Search helps reach people that are already looking to buy a product. But at the top of the funnel, they are still lacking.
Doug Scott: Google is definitely part at every digital media plan, and they are a great search tool. Their move into content with MRC and the media arbitrage game is interesting, especially with the A-list talent. The economics of the biz are changing dramatically. The data they bring to a brand is critical, and over the next 18 months we’ll be in a data driven marketing game, with layers of info to create highly targeted messages. What is the context to the content? How do you connect to the consumer who is “media meshing” (consuming 20 in 7). Whether they can develop the strength of a brand franchise remains to be seen.
Diane: re metrics getting in the way?
Berman: online has always been held to a higher standard because we can actually measure. Now TV and radio are being held to a higher standard. It may not be apples to apples, but its not “apples to ducks” either.
Klar: The most important thing is to not be prescriptive about it. It would be a disaster if we thought we were smarter than our users, or if long form content is better than short form content. Our content strategy is to offer as much as possible and let the users decide – not collectively, but individually – what they want to consume and how. YouTube has been great for short form content, but that doesn’t mean users don’t like a 22 minute comedy online either. On Hulu, long form content is much more dominant than short form. It is bunk that people don’t have the attention span for long form content.
Cheng: When we have more options for devices, we can make better decisions for our brands, not just online, but cross-platform. We sell across all touchpoints, across all platforms. Billing the ABC brand as a content brand works not only in a fragmented world, but in a cross platform world. People will consistently know and migrate to ABC across all platforms.
Jeff: Hyper-fragmentation creates only a handful if places that offer the reach and frequency that advertisers need.
Goodman: Brand become even more important in this environment. You need to syndicate across all platforms. But we’re already seeing a pushback from advertises about where your content shows up. Advertisers want to make sure their brand are only appearing in specific environments.