Smart Brands will become publishers of their own content.  Some of them already are (Nike has produced around 10,000 pieces of content so far).  And I don’t mean putting up a page on Facebook and asking consumers to “like” it.  That doesn’t count as publishing, or content, and IMHO, is not worth much as a marketing tool.

What I’m talking about is creating video content which is interesting and engaging, and then publishing it on multiple platforms for the public to enjoy.

Last week I attended the Brand Innovation Summit, which was organized by NATPE, and held in New York.  It’s a rather grandiose name for such a poorly attended affair, but the subject was Branded Content, and at least half of the panels were worth listening to.  The event took place at JWT’s office, so there was a noticeable emphasis on brands that JWT works for and projects that JWT has executed.  Which was fine, because it turns out that they have had some notable success in this space.

The most interesting case study was done for Macy’s, and I confess that I knew nothing about it until the Macy’s CMO was interviewed on the subject by Mike Wiese, who heads up the Branded Content department at JWT.  The idea started with this story about a little girl who wrote into Macy’s asking if there is a Santa Clause (this happened in 1897).  The story has been done for TV once before, but someone came up with the idea of turning the story into a CG-animated TV special for Christmas, and Macy’s agreed to finance it.  Thus was born “Yes, Virginia”, a half-hour special (which looked, from the clips they showed, like a fun, family-friendly Christmas program).

This project is not only a great example of a successful Branded Content effort, but also of transmedia storytelling.  Once the show was completed, they put it on the air (on CBS).  But the story was also rolled out as window displays in stores all over the country, then sold as a DVD for home viewing, and they even made the heroine into a giant balloon for the Thanksgiving Day parade.  And everywhere that the story or character appeared, including a good deal of promotional materials, the Macy’s brand went along to take credit.  Although no numbers were shared during the talk, it sounds like a very good deal for Macy’s, who may have recouped much of the cost of the production from income the program derived in the way all TV programs make money (advertising and DVD sales).  Plus they can run it again year after year.  What a score for Macy’s.

That’s just one example, and I’m sure there will be many more Brands moving into the content business as the ROI is demonstrated.  There are institutional challenges in Client organizations that make selling these types of programs difficult, and those were discussed as well, but I’ll save that discussion for a future post.

Probably my favorite panel was the last one, titled “Gatekeeping in the Digital Age”.  This was a wide-ranging discussion amongst representatives of the big Digital portals (AOL, Yahoo!, MSN, Alloy Media).  I can’t possibly summarize all that was debated over the hour-long session, but I do remember one interesting fact that was brought up.  Spending on online video advertising is now around $2 billion/ year, up 40% from last year.  And the prediction for next year is around $2.7 billion.  No one with knowledge of the media business expects this growth to slow any time soon.  So, although it’s still just a drop in the bucket compared to the $80 billion spent on traditional TV advertising, it’s starting to become a real business.  One that can support original programming, with all the changes that prospect entails.

The next few years should be very interesting for Producers of all types of content.

I’m traveling to New York tomorrow to attend the NATPE- sponsored Brand Innovation Summit.  It’s a day-long conference about Branded Content, held on Thursday the 22nd at JWT.

Should be some interesting panels about this growing segment of the TV business, including some Brand representatives who have had success with this type of program.  It’ll be streamed live on natpe.com if anyone is interested.  Here’s a link to the press release:  Press release

I’ll post some observations from the conference when I’m back next week.

See ‘ya in NYC.

Since a bunch of cool new gear for shooting HD video has come on the market over the past year, I thought I’d publish a short list of my favorite new tools.

For over 20 years we shot everything on film, for good reason.  There was a big discrepancy between the image quality of film and video, not to mention practical issues like light sensitivity.  So even though shooting film was much more expensive (and added time for developing and printing and telecine), that’s what everyone did.  And that included features, commercials, and the better TV series.

Then high-def video came out, and Directors like Lucas and Fincher started using it for features.  So the image quality issue had gone away, but the equipment was still very expensive and came with a lot of technical and lighting issues.  So the bulk of the film world stuck with shooting on film.  When the first RED Camera came out a few years ago, things started to change, and now there are few legitimate reasons to shoot film anymore (although some Directors are still resisting the switch to HD due to long-established habits and preferences).

The Arriflex Alexa:

It took them a few years, but the folks at Arriflex finally put out their answer to the RED camera in 2010, and it’s a great new tool.  (link to specs)

There are actually 4 versions of the camera system, each optimized for a different task, but the most attractive aspect of the gear is that it is user-friendly for DPs who are used to the old film cameras.  It’s controls and ergonomics are layed out in a way that is very similar to the old Arri film equipment, and it uses all of the same rigging equipment, lenses, etc.  So there’s not a lot of retraining involved in using them.

The specs are great (good light sensitivity, handling highlights well, multiple output formats, etc.).  I won’t go into the technical details here, but suffice it to say that a prominent colorist who has seen footage from both this camera and the RED, (shot on the same day and set), told me that the Arri camera had a better look and needed less finessing in the transfer.

The RED Epic:

And speaking of the RED camera.  The RED One camera has made a huge dent in the 35MM film production market for high-end image capture (features, commercials, videos), but it’s not the easiest equipment to learn or use.  That company introduced a smaller version of it’s camera system at last year’s CES, which is aimed at the expanding documentary / reality / 3D production market.  It’s called the Epic (link to specs).

Since they have created a totally modular system, the camera has too many potential uses to list, depending on how it is configured.  It can shoot nearly anything one might want to shoot, as long as the equipment is configured for that use.  You can shoot anything from HD up to 5K, export into any common post-production file format, use all sorts of lenses (again depending on the lens mount), and even use it as a hand-held autofocus camera for “run and gun” shoots.  Epic is a flexible and powerful system that promises greater ease of use than their bigger camera.  I think it’s going to be a popular new tool for smaller-budget productions.

The Go Pro Hero HD:

And finally, this small HD camera, which is going to provide great footage for action shots and go places where a traditional camera can’t go.  Want to mount a camera on something that’s moving (helmet, bike, ski, car, kayak, etc)?  That’s where this little baby will be a great new option.  (link to specs)

It’s inexpensive (around $300), comes in a variety of configurations, depending on the intended use, and has great technical specs.   It’s small, lightweight, shockproof, waterproof, and will record up to 4 hours of HD video without reloading.  Pretty cool.  I can see this camera coming in handy for lots of sports and action footage.  Or just a good, inexpensive way to grab a time-lapse sequence from an unusual vantage point.

You gotta love the way new technology keeps make image acquisition easier.

I had to think about the title of this post.  I wanted to talk about new formats, but formats for what?   At first I called it “Advertising”, but that felt dated, then thought about “Marketing”.  But if your marketing content is only “advertising” and doesn’t engage the audience in some way, then it’s of no use.  And as I pointed out in an earlier post, if it’s really lame (and run often enough), you may be creating a negative image of the brand for the audience.  So I settled on “Consumer Engagement”, because that’s what brands should strive to do:  connect and engage the audience.  If your content doesn’t do that, don’t bother running it.  No one’s going to watch it anyway

The broadcast advertising world has been dominated for many decades by two formats, the :30 and :15 second spot.  Although the format for live commercials when the business began in the 1950’s was flexible (and longer), soon the :30 became the norm, and was the standard for media buyers for years.   Occasionally a brand would splurge on a :60, which I considered a huge opportunity the first time I got to produce one.  It felt like an eternity.  But the costs to run :60’s have kept them to a tiny percentage of the media buying spectrum.

I remember :15 spots becoming more popular in the 80’s due to the cost of media, and the media department’s opinion that it created more value because it could achieve greater “reach” for the same investment.  This is a false economy, I believe, because reach without engagement is a waste of money.  And 15 seconds isn’t enough time to tell a story, establish a character, or say much of anything.  :15’s generally don’t impart much of anything to an audience, but they do create an annoying interruption to the program that the audience wants to see.  Sure, someone will point out a :15 spot that works brilliantly (and I have seen a few).  But they are a tiny portion of the form, and rare.  A few years back I did a whole campaign of :15’s for a bread company (that’s all they bought for the whole year), and they weren’t bad, but they always felt like a truncated version of something better.  Often, the :15 is a lift from a :30 and makes little sense unless you’ve already seen the :30.  And the media planners put the bulk of the buy into the :15, so it ends up running forever, while the :30 disappears after the first week.  That’s bad marketing strategy, and produces little in the way of ROI.  In fact, the ROI of traditional TV advertising has been on the decline for some time, and will continue to decline in the future.  What’s to be done?

One of the great things about the web is that it’s practically free as a distribution platform.  Just put up a web site, and load the video, or post it to a portal for free (YouTube).  And it costs no more to show a 2 minute video than is does to show 15 seconds.  So it opens up the possibility of longer formats, which is an enormous opportunity to do something cooler than a traditional :30.  Many people have pointed out that it takes more than just creating good content and loading it up to a web portal to get people to watch it.  This is true.  Marketers will always need to spend some money (paid media) to promote the content and to get people to check it out.  But if it’s really cool and worth watching in some way, then the audience may decide to spread it around on their own (earned media).  When this happens, you get enormous ROI for the investment, and the brand manager will rejoice.

What are these new formats that can accomplish this amazing feat?  A number of notable examples have been done over the last few years, some more successful than others, but they all point to what’s possible.  The car companies have been on the forefront of this trend, and also brands in the fashion/cosmetics business have done notable work of this sort.   Lately it seems that everyone is jumping in.

I’ve seen a series of web segments that follow a few characters over a period of time, and chronicle some type of challenge.  Ford did this reality TV type of program for the last Superbowl (http://www.focusrally.com/). 

I’ve seen entertaining short films that feature the brand’s product (Chanel ad with Audrey Tautou). 

I recently saw a series of documentaries that were commissioned by Honda and shown on a custom site, called “Dreams”.  These featured some of their scientists and engineers, as well as others doing interesting things (http://dreams.honda.com/ – /home).

And of course Kraft had a big success with their UGC effort for Philly Cream Cheese (http://www.realwomenofphiladelphia.com/).

One of the ways to promote these efforts is to create a cool short film (say 4 to 8 minutes) and then run a :30 “teaser” spot and print ads that direct the audience to the site where the full-length film can be seen.  This combo of traditional and new media seems to work well.  The traditional media can be purchased for less than a traditional advertising budget (short duration runs), and the distribution of the new media is relatively in-expensive to accomplish (although it does need to be done well).  The marketer is pretty much guaranteed that the folks who choose to watch the film are an interested and engaged audience.  It’s smiles all around, providing of course that the film doesn’t suck.  But that’s another matter, for another day.

I expect smart marketers to do more of this type of work in the future, as evidence for the efficacy of longer-format content comes in.  Which, IMHO, is a good thing for everyone (except possibly for the sellers of traditional media).

I recently watched two “TV shows” over the web, and found the experience equivalent to watching a show on traditional TV in every way.  In some ways it was preferable to traditional TV.

It’s been at least 10 years since the tech evangelists starting predicting that Broadcast entertainment would shift to the internet, and kill the big networks.  And as usual, they turned out to be wildly optimistic.  The big networks and cable companies are doing just fine, and will continue to dominate the entertainment market for some time to come.  But they do have reason to be nervous about the future.

For many years, the shift of content to the web was hampered by technology issues.  The bandwidth that most people had access to was insufficient, and the file formats for video inconsistent.  But recently the market penetration of fast broadband speeds increased dramatically, and a few years ago the Flash plug-in for video became a nearly ubiquitous standard.  Soon HTML5 will become the standard, and then video will be easily accessed without a browser plug-in.  Even Adobe has seen the writing on the wall and is getting aboard that train.  So my earlier attempts to watch long-form video over the web, which were hampered by file format incompatibility, and constant pauses for “buffering”, were transformed into an experience much like watching TV over a cable connection.  But it still wasn’t a business that could compete with the networks.

Hulu came online, and Apple started selling shows, but they were just repeats of content that was produced for, and originally shown on, traditional TV or Theater platforms.  Those views were just an ancillary revenue stream for the established studios and networks.  If you missed a show on TV (and hadn’t recorded it yourself) you could find that content for sale on the web.  But you had to pay extra for it (Apple TV and Hulu plus), or it would be ad-supported.  Sure, there were new networks like Break Media, and Revison 3 that did original programs, but they were aimed at small niche audiences, and had the sort of production values that looked more like YouTube videos than professional programming.  They tended to be unscripted, or documentary style, and were low-budget content that weren’t even an attempt to create a mass audience.  The traditional TV audience was not about to transfer their attention to the web en masse for that.  And the big portals like AOL and Yahoo commissioned programs, but they didn’t attract much of a following.

But now, the type of high-quality programs that the networks and cable companies produce are turning up online.  And they are being made specifically for the web distribution platform.  They have first-rate writing, acting, and production values, and are scripted long-form shows just like we’re used to seeing on TV.  It took a long time to get here, but it’s pretty cool.

The first example I will mention is called “The Booth At The End”.  It was produced in Canada (originally aired on cable, the episodes are around 23 minutes).  Michael Eisner’s company Vuguru bought the US rights and put it out on Hulu.  I watched the first episode just to see what it was like, and I got hooked.  It has a fascinating premise about a guy who can grant miracles, but only in return for taking on some task that he dispenses.  And the tasks are not easy, or morally acceptable.  There are only 5 episodes so far, and it was inexpensive to shoot (just one location for the entire show), but I thought it was really well done.  And I’d watch more.  It’s ad-supported (unless you pay for Hulu plus, a subscription service), but the ad load is about half of what a typical network or cable show would have (4 minutes per episode by my estimate), so the advertising wasn’t too annoying.  The ad breaks were only a minute long so you didn’t feel the need to go off and do something else while they ran.  Check it out if you have a few minutes.

The other show I’ll mention here just came out and it was the product of a Hollywood production company (AMC Digital Studios), and Hollywood talent.  It’s a comedy called “The Trivial Pursuits of Arthur Banks”, and features some recognizable actors.  Again, I watched it on Hulu.  The ad support is limited to one sponsor (Verizon) and the ads are minimal (just one pre-roll in the first episode).  It’s a contemporary comedy, about a Hollywood playwright and his relationship issues, done in a wry tone, and shot in stylish black & white.  It looks great, is written and acted well, and the characters are interesting.  It’s everything that one would expect from a TV show, only it was made specifically for the web (episodes are around 15 minutes long).

So it’s happened at last:  first-rate TV shows made exclusively for web distribution.  They are just a drop in the bucket so far, but the market will only grow, and perhaps quickly if these shows succeed financially.  The network and cable companies should be nervous now.

If you haven’t seen this new animated piece from Chipotle, you should.  It’s a great example of engaging content, a new format (2.5 minute video), and on-line distribution.  The trifecta of the new advertising paradigm.

Plus they got Willie Nelson to record the track, which is pretty cool.

Check it out on You Tube here: 

People don’t want to watch most of the advertising content that’s put in front of them, and many use technology to avoid it.  Because it doesn’t add anything of value to their lives, and because they are overwhelmed with marketing messages.

For most of the history of TV, the trade-off between free programming and advertising was accepted, if not exactly embraced.  But when VCRs arrived in the 80’s, we figured out that in addition to time-shifting the programming, we could also fast-forward through the ads.  I’ve been recording the network news ever since, which I can watch in 20 minutes when I get home, minus the advertising.

Then DVRs came out in the 90’s and it got even easier to skip the ads (my Panasonic model even had “skip :30” button).  One of my favorite stories is about a guy who was hired to research how folks were using the new DVRs when they arrived.  The researcher asked what the audience members did with the commercials, and was told “we skip them all” by nearly everyone who had gotten used to recording their favorite shows.  But when the researcher sat with the subjects and observed their actual behavior, he saw that they occasionally would rewind to watch a commercial that they were interested in.  Asked why they did that (since they’d told him they didn’t like watching commercials), the subjects replied that those were the “good ones”.  So clearly, some advertising content is considered of value to the audience.  The question is:  how does one produce those types of ads?

I propose 4 broad categories of marketing content that consumers find of value, and will actually watch, and engage with.  They might even seek them out, and share them with friends (the much sought-after “earned media” effect).

1.  Entertain Us

If an ad is entertaining enough, people will seek it out.  There are many recent success stories these days, mostly comedic.  Nearly everyone can use a good laugh, and so entertaining content is accepted, even when it interrupts the entertainment we intended to watch.  But I would also include in this category commercials that touch the audience emotionally and make us feel a bit better about ourselves, or the other creatures that we share the planet with.

2.  Inform Us

If you give me useful information that I don’t already have, then I’ll watch it and learn.  And I’ll be likely to pay attention the next time you put content in front of me.

3. Create Beauty

Some advertising content is so beautifully realized, in design, photography and music, that it will be watched and appreciated for that reason alone, like art.  That is, so long as it is in the service of an idea that is not totally inane.  We’ve all seen commercials that have wonderful production values applied to a ridiculous concept, and no one wants to watch them a second time, no matter how pretty they are.

4. Be Relevant

By this I mean temporally relevant to the specific audience member.  If one is in the market for a particular item, then an ad for something in that category will be of interest.  This is probably not going to include low-interest consumables (like tooth paste).  But content about an item that is in a high-interest category (cars, appliances, vacations, etc.) will be welcomed by the consumer who is trying to decide which to purchase.

It is in this last category that the internet will have an enormous advantage over traditional mass media, because of the ability to target particular consumers.  Nielsen and the like have done what they can to identify the demographic makeup of the audience for specific programs.  But it’s been a black art at best, and possibly a sham much of the time.  Now there are companies that claim to be able to identify consumers online to a frighteningly accurate degree.

Despite the fears of privacy advocates, I suspect that most consumers will be comfortable giving away some basic info about themselves (age, sex, marital status, home ownership, etc).  These are aspects of our lives that we don’t usually try to keep private anyway.  They will do this because it will mean that they will no longer have to sit through ads that are of no interest to them (or spend the time and effort to avoid the ads).  They will only see marketing messages that are relevant to them now.  That’s a game changer.   We’re not quite there yet, but it’s coming soon.  And once that happens we may not be so eager to avoid advertising anymore.

So marketers need to find a way to create content that fulfills one of the 4 categories listed above.  Otherwise they are wasting their money.  And worse, they may be annoying the very consumers that they want to engage with.  Imagine spending millions of dollars to piss off your prospective customers.  I have never heard a marketer admit to achieving a negative ROI with their program, but I suspect it happens now and then.

We will all be better off with less of the stuff no one wants to watch.   The age of “push” marketing is coming to an end.  Marketers need to create content that’s worth being “pulled” by their customers.

(comments, criticisms and witticisms are welcomed)