Social networking consequences. Reuters reports that McCain staffer Soren Dayton’s job was suspended for forwarding a video of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Obama’s preacher.
The article says that Dayton “sent out the video via a device used for online social networking.”
While busy attending and covering the world of online video at this week’s OMMA Conference, I missed one of the most important political speeches given this season, and probably one of the most important speeches about race relations in this country since “I Have a Dream.”
Fortunately for all of us, the online video industry has advanced enough to deliver largely on its promise right now. I was easily able to find Sen. Obama’s speech from Tuesday night on MSNBC.com, and using my laptop to control my HTPC, play it on my TV. Just a few short months ago, this may not have been possible, at certainly not with the quality that the professional broadcasters and leading video sites have been able to deliver.
For bloggers of all types, it is becoming easier and easier for them to embed content from various sources, and bring not just opinions, but the content those opinions are based on, directly to readers. How many political bloggers will be embedding the full speech by Sen. Obama along with their commentary? After two days of digesting nothing but online video, it was nice to be able to come home and relish the idea that its not just hype.
Alan Cohen, President of Initiative West and Innovation Worldwide, explains how the overall marketing game has changed, and how to Make Magic out of Moments. They created a 24 hour online TV channel for the movie Saw 3, which is loaded with content previously reserved for DVD extras. They also took over “Comedy Time,” and got comedians to do jokes based around the movie, driving awareness across all of the user-generated video sites, including a Jack Black knock off singing “Saw 3, I love you and my girlfriend (in that order.)
Alan also showed how they promoted Keane’s new album in print magazines, putting tiny usb drives into the print ads, distributing Keane’s new single, similar to how Prince introduced his new album in the UK. He also showed how they distributed CBS content on a similar promotion with a usb stick.
His overall theme - the new world order - is taking the big marketing ideas to clients, not just the media buy. Agencies need to be trend experts and hire people that are in the core demo to identify those trends as they emerge.
What to do? Hire fresh thinkers, inject creativity, leave “digital breadcrumbs” and capitalize on whats next. Remember, media IS marketing.
From the Pitch Your Niche panel….
FoxSports is producing 4 hours of web-only video per day. Ed Bunnell said that video is their top priority. Peter Tyrrell from The Enthusiast Network represents about 30 sites for automotive enthusiasts. He sees video as the top demand for the audience. National Banana was founded by panelist Patrick Panzarella and the creators of the Airplane movies.
How do you create content that is appealing to advertisers and to audiences alike? Patrick is looking for advertisers and marketers to be smarter about racey content. Is Elliot Spitzer content ad friendly? Need to figure out innovative ways to incorporate a brand.
TEN Mags gets their content ideas from their audience. They are focused on evergreen content that appeals to auto enthusiasts at all stages of enthusiasm, from “how to” content to event driven content around auto shows. When developing a niche market, you have to listen to your audience.
FoxSports reaches males 18-35 and is news cycle driven, but they try to create more evergreen content as well. “Every day is a pre-game show.” As sports producers, they are also sports fans, so they are able to ask themselves “what do we want to watch,” and then create it.
AP is also (obviously) news driven. They look at their affiliates first, and compliment that experience. Newspapers lack the same content as TV news. They recently created a Citizen Journalists Network to cover politics, bringing the local flavor to similar content.
One of the challenges is helping people find the actual content. Tagging content isn’t as effective as people may think. As convergence continues to happen, we’ll lose the distinction between TV and IP based content.
National Banana doesn’t consider themselves a destination site yet. They produce content and super-syndicate it across multiple video distributors. One challenge is creating content that people are already searching for. Marketers aren’t sure what they want right now. When they want ‘celebrity content’ do they mean Brad Pitt or Elliot Spitzer’s hooker, who is a much bigger celebrity online right now.
Building an appropriate strategy is also a challenge. Joost has been struggling with traffic, and Hulu hasn’t become mainstream yet. FoxSports syndicates some pieces of content, but has a partnership with MSN to deliver sports content to their homepage. TEN Mags uses syndication of content as a promotional tool, rather than trying to monetize “the third screen.” TEN wants to play nicely with the big boys. AP is experimenting with a few different relationship models beyond their content licensing.
For third party content, National Banana will hire 3rd party writers, but doesn’t buy third party content. TEN Mags works with freelances to create spec content, but is rare that they pick up a finished piece and always maintains final cut approval. FoxSports works in conjunction with the major leagues for live events, but is primarily the sole content provider for their site. They allow advertisers to “own” a show, surrounding the content in whatever way the advertiser wants, and syndication interferes with the control of the user experience.
TEN Mags has endemic advertisers that support the network of sites. Tracking the content is key to monetization. When people pick up content, they can easily cut out a pre- or post-roll, but mid-rolls are more challenging to remove. AP is mostly monetized through pre-roll, but is playing around with the other ad formats. FoxSports mostly sells sponsorships of channels and particular content.
In addition to the potential for joining Hulu, CBS’s Chief Marketing Officer Patrick Keane addressed the general session at OMMA, providing an overview of the interactive landscape.
Engagement, cross-platform, flexibility & customization, branding & video, and data are all on the agenda.
Video in 2008 looks like search in 2002. It is small compared to its potential, and still barely measurable. Compared to 2004, video is still being held back by high prices, a lack of assets, and the perception that the audience is still relatively small compared to TV.
The web represents a more efficient video delivery network as well as a completely new medium. It needs to be thought about both ways, simultaneously, in order to maximize its potential. The community element to the web is critical to its success.
Looking at a CBSSports.com case study, TV, online and mobile all saw spikes on Sundays during football. No medium canibalized any of the others.
Analytics will be the new Intellectual Property. CBS looked at its own traffic and saw a trend of users “catching up” on what happened previously ahead of new episodes of Jericho and Survivor.
Building communities around content drives engagement. But content producers need to take a holistic view of what a show is. Its not just 8-9pm. When you consider joining groups on Facebook, catching up on previous episodes, reading blogs, etc., a show has a much longer, broader appeal than just its timeslot.
Still comScore’s keynote. Online video is helping advertisers reach elusive audiences and offers better engagement. Reach and frequency are mandatory metrics for grabbing traditional ad dollars. And a reminder that the click-through is not a branding metric!
Measuring latent conversions and offline impact will show a higher, true ROI to your online marketing investment.
This wasn’t even an online video story, except that MSNBC does a great job of making clips of stories, particularly their news shows, available.
I was catching up on my Sunday morning roundtable shows before the Oscars, and had to hear this??
I just watched the clip and decided to embed it here for the hell of it. Then Ralph Nader joining the race for president became an online video story. Guess how? The second time I watched the clip, I got the same 30-second pre-roll ad for Boeing. But Mr. Nader also promised that his website would be the most interactive of any presidential candidate. He’s got the basics, but he’s just quite there yet. Sign up and donate, or see his whole platform, but as of this writing, the links to Facebook, MySpace and YouTube don’t work. Maybe that’s why he’s advertising for some web development help on the site, too. But we like that he’s looking for some videographers. Dont forget to send those videos our way, Ralph!
In this week’s New Media Minute, Daisy Whitney explores why “How To” online videos are so hot right now. But alas, will anyone pay a decent CPM to learn anything from Joe Blow?
With the primary race on the Democratic side showing no sign of cooling off, now might be a good time to catch up on what you’ve missed, or at least watch a different talking head for a chance.
Hillary dumped her campaign manager yesterday, something Newsweek’s Jon Meacham is sure to touch upon during Newsweek’s Webcast covering the Potomac primaries. Tune in at 7pm tonight to Newsweek.com.
In the meantime, enjoy the latest spoofs of a hot political video. This online video, added Monday, has been streamed nearly half a million times in its first 24 hours. The original, “Yes, We Can,” posted below, is a week old and has been streamed more than 5 million times.
Courtesy of Ian Schafer, via PaidContent (or is it the other way around?), here are the tentative terms to be voted on by the WGA that would put an end to the strike, and bring new TV programming (and web!) back to our screens.
Highlights include:
— Download Rentals: 1.2% of distributor’s gross receipts.
— Download Sales (Electronic Sell-Through): 0.36% of distributor’s gross receipts for the first 100,000 downloads of a television program and the first 50,000 downloads of a feature. After that, residuals are paid at 0.7% of distributor’s gross receipts for television programs and 0.65% for feature films.
— Television Ad-Supported Streaming (New Programs): Ad-supported streaming of television programs is payable at 2% of distributor’s gross receipts one year from the end of an initial streaming window.
— Residual Payment (Network Prime Time): In the first and second years of this contract, after the initial window, for network prime time television programs, a fixed residual of 3% of the residual base. In the third year of this contract, the 2% of distributor’s gross formula is applied immediately after the initial streaming window.
— Residual Payment (All Other Programs): 3% of the residual base is paid for each of up to two 26-week periods in the first two years of this contract. In the third year of this contract, the payment rate rises to 3.5% of the residual base.
Score one again for us (er, just me - Ben disagreed - and Shelly Palmer, too) for suggesting a reasonable contract term that could be revisited as the dynamics of the online video industry mature. Three year deal seems pretty damn reasonable, and they can begin to renegotiate in plenty of time if a true and massive paradigm shift does occur in less time than that.
Off to party for the b-day……
