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'Third Screen' Emerging as a Genuine Media Factor

Another insight from my meetings in Europe last week is the growing popularity there of the mobile phone as a video medium, the so-called third screen.  Europeans currently lead the charge in downloading and watching videos on their mobile phones, but use in the US is up 45 percent in the second quarter of 2006 to nearly eight million subscribers.  This from research group Telephia.

What's hot in the US video capture market?  TV shows.  When you consider that television programming is also the leading DVD rental category, an important point can be understood: the new consumers aren't against TV fare, they simply prefer to watch it when they want and without commercial interruptions.

Mobile TV Channels Ranked by Share of Total Audience

Channel	Total Audience
1. ABC News	40%
2. The Weather Channel	32%
3. Fox Sports	31%
4. ESPN	29%
5. Fox News	22%
6. NBC Mobile News	20%
7. Comedy Central	16%
8. Accuweather	15%
8. Discovery Kids	15%
10. Discovery Channel	13%
11. CNN	12%
11. E!	12%

The New Prime Time?

Consider two other data points and you'll see what I mean.  Again from Telephia:

• Mobile video users watch about 22 percent of the time at home, 22 percent of the time while they're commuting, 16 percent of the time when they're shopping and 14 percent of the time when they're at work
• 60 percent of viewers who watch TV on their cell phones and other mobile devices do so between 12 noon and 8:00PM

That means the Bubble Generation is creating a whole new rhythm to watching TV, a whole new prime time.  You can only imagine the implications for marketers and advertisers. You will have to gain all new granular insight in order to traffic spots for maximum impact.  None of the old bromides or rules of thumb will work.  We're all going to have to be fast on our feet to keep apace with the BubbleGen consumer.

AdMob is Proving that Mobile Phone Ads Can Work with the Bubble Generation

It's a conundrum. 

How do you reach the most mobile, connected, optioned, and indifferent consumers in history without interrupting, imposing, or insulting them?   That's the essential riddle of marketing to the Bubble Generation.

As discussed here earlier, the BubbleGen consumer--raised on the Internet, tethered by telephony, and always on the move--is awash in choices, skeptical, and hard to win over.  The last thing they will suffer gladly are advertisements and commercials.  And they have done well to avoid them: they watch little or no TV, don't listen to commercial radio, and are unreached by the dying world of newspapers.  But. they also don't like web-based cacophony either, cleverly eschewing interstitials, pop-ups, pop-unders and fighting vigilantly the evils of spyware.  So, you ask, what advertising will work?

In an effort to look at all the emerging ways to reach the new consumer, I thought it might be interesting to examine a few models within various media.  First up this week, mobile telephone advertising.

While in Europe last week I caught word of a firm having solid success dropping text ads onto mobile phones.  The company, AdMob, is rapidly-growing advertising marketplace for content providers that has already served 250 million mobile phone ads in less than a year since launch.  Wondering how the company was wending its way through the white of BubbleGen rapids, I had a chance to get some smart answers from Russell Buckley, the company's managing director for Europe.

The biggest open question to me was how the company's ads are being received by the testy new consumer.  And the upshot is, pretty well, given the metrics.  AdMob is showing a click-through rate as high as eight percent for some spots, averaging a more than respectable three to four percent.  Why the success given the prevailing advertising animus?

"It's not advertising versus no advertising," says Buckley.  "It's would users like to pay for something, or would they like it free? Since the free model needs to be funded somehow, most kids today are pragmatic enough to realize that advertising, even if not a blessing, is certainly useful when it brings them free stuff."

And that brings up a couple of critical points.  First, free is still the price point of choice for online content, so a non-obtrusive text ad that brings you a fun or useful experience may get a pass.  AdMob has been successful in bringing consumers much desired games, news and information and entertainment funded by the modest ads. 

The second point in AdMob's favor, is that these are the early days of online mobile content, so there is no real order to the content universe, no directory to help the user find new stuff--so the ads effectively do that and that is a real value.  Hooking you up with cool new stuff--for free--is a damn good proposition.  But that won't last.  Looking ahead, the trick for AdMob, and competitors like mFoundry and enpocket, will be to keep ads a friendly presence and a compelling experience.  Remember the mantra--engage. entertain and enlist--the essence of envertising.  As these firms gain pages to feed and the pages gain an audience, the ads could become a nuisance.  It will be vital to provide a new paradigm--something unique to the telephone experience.  Contests tied to geographies.  Freebies linked to specific actions.  You know, clever Burma Shave ads for the information highway.  In the words of Carver Mead, "Listen to the technology," it is trying to tll us something.

Mobile phone advertising well may be the most effective way to reach the Bubble Generation consumer and thus far, AdMob is class of the field.  If they play it right, they have an opportunity to set a high standard for this exciting new industry.

Killagoogle? Count on it

I'm traveling back to the Valley from Stockholm today.  Here is something to chew on over the weekend.

"Yahoo stock peaked the very quarter in 2000 when Google started selling ads. Now Google, with just its mounting stash of cash ($10 billion) and increase in stock value during the past month ($24 billion), would have enough to buy Yahoo-with money left over to swallow another YouTube. (Google's market cap is $141 billion.)

Can Google maintain its dominance? Doubtful, based on the brief history of the net. Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer crushed Netscape, yet Microsoft's MSN remains an also-ran in areas such as search. Yahoo decimated AltaVista, Excite and Infoseek but now is struggling for momentum amid slumping growth and profits; its stock last week fell to its lowest price since 2004."               

Looooooook out...   

Three Ways to Screw Up a Social Media Community

Today's Wall Street Journal reports on the decline in the rate of membership growth at the major social-networking sites like MySpace and Facebook.  From the Journal:

Both MySpace and Facebook lost visitors in September, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, a Web-tracking service. The number of unique U.S. visitors at MySpace fell 4% to 47.2 million from 49.2 million in August, and the number of visitors to Facebook fell 12% to 7.8 million from 8.9 million.

While it may be a seasonal drop due to students going back to school, there may be something important happening here and there are several key points to take away from the data.

First, social networking communities are for real and not about to fade away.  They are likely to morph quite a bit in years to come as the citizens themselves define and redefine the medium.  But, as community membership becomes more common place, and the choices of communities more expansive, citizens will naturally relocate to sites that more narrowly meet their evolving needs and interests.  As communities of interest spring up around just about every whim, or as people travel through different phases of life, there will be a redistribution of the membership rosters at the major sites.  This is a natural part of the cycle of technology adoption.  Parking your profile someplace is a very personal matter, and in some ways a defining act.  You can expect many people to test the waters in the major communities, then settle in at a site that better reflects their personalities and passions.  Sports, hobby, regional and subject matter communities will proliferate.  Their growth will clearly come at the expense of today's leaders.

Second, what is driving many people from, say MySpace, are the same things that are turning them off from other forms of media: imposition marketing and inauthenticity.  Spam is on the rise at many community sites, as are invitations from faux friends.  Members who joined for the social benefits a site provides are very quick to bail if the "hassle taxes" of citizenship get too high.  For MySpace in particular, keeping abusive spamming and advertising in check will be key to citizen loyalty.

As the utility of social network communities becomes fully realized, the major sites will lose members unless:

• they evolve faster than their citizens,
• refrain from turning people off by violating the rules of Bubble Generation etiquette, and
• provide a more compelling forum for individuality than the next site.

 

YouTube Must Clean Up its Act on Cyberhate

I started this blog in Helsinki and am finishing it in Stockholm. Both of these cities are are at the vanguard of mobile telephony in the world today and a good place to see the latest in communication technology and applications.  I am sure to talk more about that in the days ahead. 

But my mind today is not on these two Nordic capitals, rather it is on another European city, Warsaw, where a recent gathering of human rights experts from around the world met to combat the use of the Internet by hate groups.  The meetings, held in the shadow of Auschwitz, showed just how sophisticated the Neonazi and white supremacists are in using the net to promulgate their ideas and recruit new members.  Their weapon of choice? Video. 

From an International Herald Tribune article:

In Poland, the experts on Internet hate speech viewed a kind of "hate film festival" - slickly produced videos promoting white power and demonizing Jews, blacks, gays and other minorities, all available online. The music videos and film were Hollywood quality. A kid looking at what effectively are recruitment ads to join the intolerance movement would be impressed with the production values.

What's the favorite way for hate groups to distribute their videos online?  YouTube.  While YouTube has been resolute in fighting porn on its site, and claims to prohibit "harassing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive" content, the truth is the site management has been lax in policing these hate-mongers.  That is unacceptable.  YouTube is a great global service and needs to act as a great global citizen as well.  Knowing the serious approach Google takes to warning viewers of cyberhate, perhaps YouTube will also clean up its act.  Let's hope so.  In the meantime, if you'd like more information about the fight against hate online, or to get involved, click here.

The Bubble Generation Does Not Bowl Alone

What's better than making new friends online?  Meeting up with them offline.  At least that's the evolving future of social media as seen in a spate of new services out now or launching soon.  Some, like meetup.com, and upcoming.org, I have written about before.  A few others, like whosgoing and matchactivity are gaining traction.  An upcoming entrant, Jonathan Abrams' wikicasting service, Socializr (Steve Poland has a good take on Socializr) is soon for a hard launch.

Point is, the Bubble Generation is proving that an impulse to connect and make friends is a driving cultural force.  So much for all the hand-wringing a couple of years ago over Robert D. Putnam's Bowling Alone.  Even the book's website has been converted to a social networking engine.

'Age of Anxiety' Helps Explain Web 2.0 Culture

So paint it black and take it back/We'll carry on/You'll never break me/We want it all/Defiant to the end we hear the call

My Chemical Romance

As marketers wrangle with the shape-shifting expectations of the Bubble Generation, it is instructive to look at the contextual undercurrents beneath the emerging Web 2.0 culture and consumer.  What explains the imperative to instantly--constantly--connect, to share, to self-reveal?  A big factor to consider is the underlying anxiety of our times.

Social scientists, like Jean M. Twenge, have identified three sources of sociocultural anxiety. 

The three models are overall threat (anxiety increases as environmental threat increases), economic conditions (anxiety increases as economic conditions deteriorate), and social connectedness (anxiety increases as social bonds weaken.)

Consider that the Bubble Generation came of age as the devolution of the nuclear family and community accelerated, just as the dotcom economic bubble burst, and then hit its white-hot strike point with the events of 9/11.  This Mr. Boston-by-the-book angst cocktail helps explain the need for my space, my face and instant outreach to my friends. 

Web 2.0 is all about combating anxiety through community and connection and authenticity.  If you want to play, you better identify yourself: Do you represent a circle of friends?  Are you willing to share?  Will you be there when needed?  Think asmallworld, areyouhere, jabber.  Each platform taps into a deep BubbleGen need.

While I am talking about some complicated human impulses, I believe they are easy to understand and interpret.  If you're an imposition marketer, you're not going to break into the circle.  If you are phony, you won't get a second look.  If you don't bring something to the party, you won't be invited back.

The Bubble Generation is using technology to cope and gain back some modicum of control.  This is not only laudable, it is possibly a recipe for a better, more civil society ahead.  Go ahead, put that into your marketing mix.

Envertise: Bubble Generation Shoppers Don't Buy, They Join

For the young, connected consumer, shopping is a process of discovery and sharing.  Your next customers don't like interruption and imposition, and they won't be hard sold.  Instead, they prefer to make a friend or make a connection.  On the bright side, they have no reservations when it comes to viralizing one friend (even a brand friend) to the rest of their IM or email lists. 

So, while it may be tougher to earn the respect of a BubbleGen consumer, once you do, it is easier to win their loyalty and evangelism.  Remember, the principles of Envertising are to engage, entertain and enlist.

Here are some good approaches to envertising in the car world:

1. The Toyota Yaris is taking an aggressive approach to winning friends with its own MySpace page, and a culture home base.

2. Ford's "Bold Moves" campaign has launched with a serious blog and an ad campaign on 400 other blogs where they think they can make new friends.

3.  Identify with the Mercedes Benz brand?  You can get a Friendster page layout to declare yourself.

4.  And, Nissan has gone full throttle with a multimedia integrated around the seven-day journey of comedian Marc Horowitz as he lives in his Sentra for a week.  Apparently, Dane Cook wouldn't leave the bus. 

Okay, so If you like this blog, tell a friend.

Taking Web 2.0 to the Streets

I have been arguing for some time that the cultural tenets of the Bubble Generation will inevitably spill over from the web to the analog world.  One of those candidate tenets is tagging.  Tagging is the ability to assign keywords and values to a wide range of digital content, like photos, bookmarks and blog posts like this one.  For the Web 2.0 consumer, tags are like online post-it-notes, useful in flagging and returning to places of interest--and more importantly, telling others of a great find or a great buy.  Now, two guerrilla campaigns have taken tagging to the streets.

Launched by advertising agency, Xgeronimo in Berlin and taken up by Rebelbaby in Seoul, the underground campaign is allowing consumers to "tag" an editorial comment on outdoor advertising.  From "cool" to "sickening," consumers are having a say about the quality (or lack thereof) of ads that confront them everyday.  This may be just a publicity stunt, or it well may be a portent of things to come.  If you think that's alarming, wait until Tivo starts offering a tagging feature for commercials.

Expect Rapid Adoption of the Digital Wallet: Are You Ready?

As Mike Malone has famously observed, the adoption of new technology takes longer than you think, but happens sooner than you expect.  However, neither will be the case with the mobile phone cum digital wallet.  It is coming quickly and you should expect it soon as a major market force.  Bubble Generation consumers are more than ready for it.  The question is, are you?   

Employing your cell phone as a digital wallet is not a new notion, but many of the technical and structural barriers are now coming down.  The underlying technology, Near-field communications (NFC) combines two established technologies: radio frequency identification (RFID) tags--tiny chips that operate like built-in radio transmitters, and wireless readers that pick up signals from the radio.  If you have a Fast Lane pass or a smart card, you already use the technology.  By adding the capability to your mobile phone, it can replace your wallet, credit cards, even your car keys.  For a generation tethered to the mobile phone, the transition will be quick and painless.

With at least 60 different trials completed or going on around the world, applications are being tested, protocols are being worked out, and standards are being developed.  For some time now, consumers in Europe and Asia have been using their phones to make routine purchases, buy train tickets or pay tolls.  And in Japan, the digital wallet is the only way the young, connected consumers do business.  From Govtech.net:

It's not unusual, for example, to see pedestrians sidle up to concert posters and use their mobile phones to read small bar codes. Their mobiles process the bar codes, automatically taking them to Web sites for more information. Viewing their mobiles, users can see prices, pick out seats and buy tickets. Magazine ads, publicity fliers and bus stops often have bar codes that allow mobile users to arrive at Web sites to make purchases or see information.

With the digital wallet phone, old static advertising will perish.  It will be replaced by envertising-- engaging, entertaining and enlisting customers as the opportunity to make a friend and make a sale pop up everywhere throughout the day.  Will you answer the call or will your competitors get to market with more compelling envertising than you?  Do you have a skunk works team holed up in a war room somewhere working on the digital wallet?  Are your communications being redesigned to use embedded technology? Is your customer service group on alert?  Are you building digital wallet point-of-sale capabilities?  Have you identified a Chief Envertising Officer? 

The digital wallet is a tectonic plate shift.  It will favor those companies ready to roll out new forms of marketing communications and customer involvement that employ the technology well.  The opportunity to cross-pollinate media is unprecedented.  Print, web, radio, outdoor, TV, blog, podcast all converged in a way that allows the consumer to experience your brand, get engaged, entertained and enlisted.  For marketers, instant karma--no more guessing which ads "pulled," or which promotions filled the funnel.  These are exciting times for those companies prepared to get a healthy share of the new digital spend. Scary times for laggards.