Why I Switched Careers

It has now been a full month since I walked away from 8+ years working for a group of radio stations in Fort Wayne Indiana.

All together I have spent 25+ years in the radio business with a couple of breaks. I started as a teenage disc-jockey and moved into the advertising and marketing world which I found fascinating.

Radio uses push marketing methods. In order to get the free music, they will push advertising messages out too.

Television broadcasting works this way too. Newspapers also use push marketing methods... you want to read the news, then you have to page thru the ads too.

Yellow Pages is not push marketing. I don't know of anyone who has casually paged thru the phone book as a source of entertainment.

The selling point for yellow pages sales reps was, the book was the place people go to find a business to spend money with to solve problems. Once you pick up the book, you are ready to spend.

Technology however has made the phone book and the yellow pages outdated. When we want an answer, we Google it. The web and search engines are replacing the yellow pages as the source for finding information and answers.

The other reason I switched careers, I believe in the methods used by my team at Cirrus ABS which combines sound technology, solid strategic planning and analytics to measure the results.

Our Sunday Seth talks more about this:

Paying attention to the attention economy

Most of us are happily obsessed with the economy of money. We earn it and we spend it and we generally pay attention to what things cost.

Certainly, salespeople and marketers are truly focused on the price of things, on commissions and shelving allowances and net margin and the cost of goods sold.

With all of these easily measured activity, it's easy to overlook the fast-growing and ever more important economy based around attention.

"If I alert my entire customer base, how much will this cost me in permission?"

"How much time do we save our customers with a better written manual?"

"When we fail to ask for (and reward) the privilege of following up, are we wasting permission?"

"Does launching this product to an audience of stangers waste the attention we're going to have to buy?"

Attention is a bit like real estate, in that they're not making any more of it. Unlike real estate, though, it keeps going up in value.

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Bridging the Generations On Saturday Nights

I was a teenager when Saturday Night Live debuted in the 1970's on NBC. That's my senior pic.

SNL was never consistently good.

Sorry Lorne Michaels but you knew that before I said it.

I'd sit through one bad skit waiting for the next skit, hoping for something in the 90 minutes that would make me laugh.

Probably Weekend Update was the most consistent in providing humor each week.

Besides the network newscasts, SNL has the longest tenure of a network program with the exception of the Tonight Show, also on NBC.

Mediapost featured this yesterday:

'Saturday Night Live' Jumps On The Boomer Bandwagon

In the 1970s and early '80s, teenagers were stumbling upon a new show called "Saturday Night Live." The edgy comedy of the Not-Ready-for-Primetime Players spoke to everybody, and they were drawn in by the show's hosts, a group of hot young up-and-comers like Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, and Madonna.

Watching the show many years later, I can't help but notice that, while the show still connects with teens and 20somethings, "SNL" has apparently recognized who is controlling the younger generation's purse strings. The hosts are increasingly in my age demo -- a parade of Baby Boomers -- and older.

What began last year as a Facebook-driven movement to bring octogenarian "Golden Girl" Betty White to the famed "SNL" stage has now become a full-fledged trend. Consider the following:

• "Glee" villain Jane Lynch hosted last October only a few months after hitting the magic 50.

• Jim Carrey had just turned 49 when he hosted in January.

• 55-year-old "SNL" vet Dana Carvey made a comeback appearance in February.

• "AARP Movies For Grown-Ups" award-winners Robert DeNiro (67) and "True Grit" star Jeff Bridges (65) took December spots.

This month, it showed no signs of stopping, with another over-60 double whammy: Sir Elton John (64) and Dame Helen Mirren (65).

What cultural Kool-Aid have the "SNL" producers and creator Lorne Michaels been drinking?

It turns out the sugary beverage they've been sipping is cold hard reality: the over 75 million boomers who will turn 47 to 65 this year not only control half of U.S. consumer spending, the average age of a primetime TV viewer this season is 51.

NBC-TV, where "SNL" lives, made a presentation last November to advertisers stating that, when it comes to spending, the 55-64 demo is just as important as the traditional 18-34 year-old media darlings.

As a matter of fact, all of the major television networks know what side the bread is buttered on, as evidenced by the host of 50+ stars who, no longer relegated to supporting roles as crotchety in-laws, now carry their own series as shrewd, commanding leads. Tom Selleck (66) and Kathy Bates (62) are TV's newest primetime series stars, and who can avoid 63-year-old rocker Steven Tyler judging each week on "American Idol," replacing 50-year-old Simon Cowell as fan favorite?

Boomers have the money and are becoming increasingly prominent in TV programming, yet the networks still charge far more to advertise on shows with younger viewers than ones that skew older.

While the networks have progressed, responding to the demographic shift in population, advertisers and marketers still have to be weaned off of the idea that recent college grads carrying a mountain of school debt somehow have more in their wallets than their parents and grandparents do.

With demand for accountability, advertisers will eventually get on the same page as the networks when it comes to catering to Boomers, their appeal and their spending. If it's imperative for marketers to "follow the money," they should look no further than who is turning on the television sets and paying the cable bills.

Mark Bradbury is research director for AARP Media Sales.

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The Battle of the Screens

In my house, we have more screens than people.

5 Televisions.
1 desktop computer.
3 laptops.
2 smartphones.
1 non-smartphone.
and now a Kindle that has WiFi too.

3 people and 1 cat.

But the difference between my wife and I are our preferred screens.

I could live without a regular TV,

She likes her shows.

Look at this from Mashable:

Americans are now spending as many hours online as they do in front of their TV screens, according to a survey released by Forrester on Monday.

The average American now spends roughly 13 hours per week using the Internet and watching TV offline, Forrester finds, based on its survey of more than 30,000 customers. The Internet has long captivated the attention of younger Americans to a greater extent than TV and is now proving more popular to Gen X (ages 31 to 44) for the first time ever. Younger Baby Boomers (ages 45 to 54) are spending the same amount of time per week using both media.

While the amount of time Americans spend watching TV has remained roughly the same in the past five years, Internet use has increased by 121% in the same time frame.

Regular Mashable readers will not be surprised to learn that Internet-connected mobile devices have aided this growth in Internet use. One-fourth of online mobile owners now log into the mobile Internet, largely through mobile websites, rather than apps.

So what are Americans doing online? Shopping, mostly. In a similar survey issued in 2007, a little more than one-third of online respondents said they were shopping online; now, 60% claim to do so. A little more than one-third also access social networking sites regularly, often through their mobile devices; two-thirds of Generation Yers report that they update a social networking profile at least once per month.

Blogging, listening to streaming audio and IMing prove far less popular, engaging one-third or less of the U.S. online population respectively.

In addition, Forrester expects that 2 million new households will be connected to the Internet by the end of the year compared to the end of 2009, and that 82% of households will have Internet by 2015. Broadband will have reached 5.5 million new households by the end of this year, meaning that more than 90% of connected households will have access to high speed Internet by the end of 2010.

Image courtesy of Flickr, San Jose Library

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Teen Truths

Wednesday I posted a story about teen spending habits.

Here's a few more revelations:

9 Myths You Thought Were True

A teen, a Millennial and a Mom walk into a restaurant for dinner. The Mom has a coupon for 10% off that she got for "liking" the bar's Facebook page, the Millennial checked in on Foursquare to get a free drink, and the teen has nothing and is too busy texting her friends to care.

Teens are a unique audience. They have their own needs and social drivers that are unique to their stage in life. Many marketers assume that, because teens are young, their needs are the same as Millennials and that they will interact with brands in the same way.

New research is showing that teens have their own needs and behaviors that are different from other generations. If you're a marketer looking to reach teens, it's vitally important that you always have your finger on the pulse of the teen audience. As technology evolves, teens are finding their own uses for it that are unique to their personal and social needs.

There are some myths about marketing to teens that every marketer can learn from.

Myth #1: All teens want smartphones
While it is true that teens want phones, smartphone adoption has only reached 31% as of 2010. If 90% of teens own a cell phone, why aren't they buying smartphones? The answer is actually pretty simple: texting. Teens send an average of 3,339 texts per month, and typing that many messages on a touch screen is a lot more difficult than typing on even the most basic phone keyboard. That's why BlackBerry is one of the most popular phones for teens.

Myth #2: Texting is the way in
We already know that teens love to text. What some marketers fail to realize is that teens only love to text with their friends. Only 10% say they want companies to contact them via text message. There are some instances where a brand can use a texting campaign to engage this audience, but most teens see texting as "too personal," and aren't inviting brands into their personal space.

Myth #3: Teens use Facebook the way we use Facebook
Don't count on just your Facebook page to reach teens. Teens interact with brands on Facebook if they feel there is a real benefit to them for doing so. They're not "liking" every brand on Facebook that they purchase, and even if they do, they're not likely to come back to your page after the first visit.

Myth #4: Teens are going to join Twitter
Recent findings from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project show that only 8% of teens have embraced Twitter. Other studies also show that most teens don't have any interest in joining Twitter in the future (76%). By the time they decide to use Twitter, they probably won't be teens anymore.

Myth #5: If you build it, teens will come
Great ideas go to waste when no one knows about them. Many marketers believe that creating a social experience for teens will spread itself through word-of-mouth and online sharing. A good social media activation can always benefit from a mass-media driver.

Myth #6: Teens are online all the time
Teens spend roughly two hours per day on the Internet, and almost half of that time is spent on entertainment. Teens don't need the Internet to interact with their friends -- they see them all the time, and if they're not with them, they're texting them. If you want to reach teens online, you have to find a way to bridge their online and offline experiences.

Myth #7: Teens don't watch TV
Teens watch over 100 hours of television per month -- most of which is not viewed on TiVo, Hulu or Netflix. They may be texting or playing games while they watch TV, but they're definitely still watching it.

Myth #8: Teen word-of-mouth happens online
Teens do not spend most of their online time communicating with their friends. In fact, over 80% of teen word-of-mouth happens offline. If you want to tap into teen word-of-mouth, find a reason for them to talk about your brand offline.

Myth #9: Teens love online video
Teens use the Internet for entertainment, and online video is an important component of that. Branded video can be a great way to engage with teens as long as it doesn't come off as one long commercial. Teens aren't going to be tricked into thinking that your "viral video" is anything more than an advertisement.

David Trahan is a strategist at social marketing agency Mr Youth in New York, which was named one of the Top 10 Most Innovative Marketing Companies in the World by "Fast Company" magazine.

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Death to the TV and Landlines?

I could live without both. Could you?

Landlines And Television Sets Losing Importance

According to a new nationwide survey from the Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends project, reported by Paul Taylor and Wendy Wang with Lee Rainie and Aaron Smith, only 42% of Americans say they consider the television set to be a necessity. Last year, this figure was 52%, and in 2006, it was 64%.

After occupying center stage in the American household for much of the 20th century, says the report, two of the grand old luminaries of consumer technology, the television set and the landline telephone, are suffering from a sharp decline in public perception that they are necessities of life.

The drop-off has been less severe for the landline telephone. 62% of Americans say it's a necessity of life, down from 68% last year, but 47% of the public now say that the cell phone is a necessity of life.

What Americans Need (% Rating as Necessity)
Item	% Saying Necessity	% Change 2009-2010
Car	86%	-2%
Landline phone	62	-6
Clothes dryer	59	-7
Home air conditioning	55	+1
Home computer	49	-1
Cell phone	47	-2
Microwave	45	-2
TV set	42	-10
High speed Internet	34	+3
Cable or satellite TV	23	0
Dishwasher	21	0
Flat screen TV	10	+2
Source: PewResearchCenter, August 2010

In the case of the landline phone, the verdict does not come just from the survey, but also from the marketplace. According to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data, just 74% of U.S. households now have a landline phone, down from a peak of 97% in 2001. During this same time period, use of cell phones has skyrocketed. Fully 82% of adults now use cell phones, up from 53% in 2000. There are now more cell phones in the U.S. than landline phones.

From 1996 through 2006 a rising share of Americans saw more items on the list as necessities rather than luxuries. Since 2006, says the report, as the housing bubble burst, and consumer spending throttled down, the trend has moved the opposite way. A rising share now sees more everyday items as luxuries than necessities.

The report concludes that the dichotomy posed by the question "luxury or necessity" may be a relic. A more appropriate question in 2010 may be whether consumers consider these venerable appliances to be "necessary" or "superfluous."

The economy isn't the only factor driving these numbers, says the report. For several items on the list, the television set and the landline phone for instance, innovations in technology also seem to be playing a role.

Even as fewer Americans say they consider the TV set to be a necessity of life, more Americans than ever are stocking up on them. In 2009, the average American home had more television sets than people, 2.86, according to a Nielsen report. In 2000, this figure was 2.43; in 1990, it was 2.0; and in 1975, it was 1.57.

The disconnect between attitudes and behaviors, opines the report, may be that the TV set hasn't had to deal with competition from new technology that can fully replace all of its functions. If a person wants real-time access to the wide spectrum of entertainment, sports and news programming available on television, there's still nothing (at least not yet) that can compete with the television set itself.

Another twist to the TV story, though, comes from the flat-screen television. According to the latest Pew Research survey, 10% of the public now says that a flat-screen television is a necessity of life, up from 5% who felt that way in 2006. And according to industry reports, American consumers have bought more than 100 million flat-screen television sets since 2005.

For some items dependency increases with age, especially with the very-21st-century attitudes of today's young adults. Fewer than half of 18- to 29-year-old survey respondents consider the landline phone a necessity of life, while fewer than three-in-ten say the same about the television set.

Approximate % of Group That Considers Item as a Necessity
Age	Landline	TV Set	Cable Service	Flat Screen TV
18-29	46%	29%	11%	10%
30-49	62	58	21	8
50-54	64	50	27	10
65+	77	53	35	17
Source: PewResearchCenter, August 2010

For other items, dependency decreases with age:

· The cell phone decreases in importance from 59% of the 18-29 group to 29% among the 65+ group

· Importance of the home computer goes from 53% of the younger group to 35% of the over 65s

· High speed internet is important to 33% of the younger group, increases to around 40 from 30-64, and falls off to 15% for the 65+ crowd.

The "balance of necessity" between cell phones and landline phones shifts with the age of the respondent. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, more respondents consider a cell phone a necessity than a landline phone. For those in middle age, more consider a landline phone to be a necessity. And for those ages 65 and older, those who say the landline is a necessity outnumber those who say the same about a cell phone by a ratio of more than two-to-one.

Landline Phone vs. Cell Phone (% in Each Age Group)
Age Group	Landline a Necessity	Cell Phone a Necessity
18-29	46%	59%
30-49	62	51
50-64	64	43
65+	77	29
Source: PewResearchCenter, August 2010

As a June 2010 Pew Research Center report and other recent surveys of consumer behavior have shown, the deep recession that began in December 2007 has led to a new frugality in Americans' spending and saving habits, and it appears to have scrambled Americans' judgments about whether many everyday appliances are necessities or luxuries, says the report.

But one pattern is consistent across items studied. Their necessity rating was at (or very near) its peak four years ago, and has since declined. This suggests that the psyche of the American consumer is in a much different place now than it had been in the heady days before the recession, concludes the report.

For additional information please visit Pew Research here.

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Teen Time

I have a 12 year old grandson who has a cell phone and is active on Facebook.

I know that teens (and pre-teens) are an important market, but how do you reach them?

Take a look:

The True Effect Of Interactive Media

Interactive is a term that can encompass the entire buzzword category -- social, viral, mobile, digital and even most non-traditional (for all you experiential or promotions gurus!). These terms have been floating around for the last decade, but they all boil down to one core result: consumers have options about the messages they receive.

How does this relate to the teen category? As children grow into teens and mature into adults, certain tried-and-true paid media strategies will be less effective. It is increasingly important to look at the underlying shift in behavior and media consumption that is occurring in order to utilize the most effective mix possible.

So what are the underlying shifts that are occurring?

1. Active media is becoming passive media, but it's still important. It's cool to say "traditional is dead," but is it really? According to several studies, TV is still the most effective way to reach a mass audience quickly. Studies are also showing that teens are more receptive to television advertising than you would think -- just check out this report from Nielsen highlighting a study from the What Teens Want conference.

As an advertiser, you're more likely to reach a mass segment of your audience using traditional impression-based media even if you're paying for un-targeted impressions based on the volume of impressions you are able to gain. A number of media vendors are smartly beginning to package interactive media opportunities with traditional placements, driving up the value that is received by buying into the medium. TV, print, and radio will no longer be the main driver to instant action; however, they drive brand awareness, which makes your audience more likely to visit a social media page, click a banner ad, and/or participate in an event.

2. Experience is everything. A major shift in behavior is the role of instant gratification. Increasingly, consumers are given an instant high online and offline, and your marketing strategy better account for this when a teen interacts with your brand. Online, teens can spend hours reading Facebook gossip the instant that it is posted. Offline, mobile devices are bridging the gap between these interactions and are providing a forum for people -- at any point in the day -- to get that instant feeling.

Whether teens are interacting online or offline, the brand experience is what's important. Make use of co-branded artistic opportunities with music, such as Nike did with the band Ok Go, or movies/videos, applications or adver-games. If you want to kick it old school, run a simple promotion, contest or sweepstakes. But keep in mind that the next step down the path to teen marketing Zen is providing payoff to the effort they're putting into interacting with your campaign; a simple offer won't cut it.

3. Coupons are cool again. Strike that -- loyalty programs are cool. Once you've opened up that two-way street with your consumer, invest in the community. If it's Facebook, build out and maintain your page. If it's an in-store rewards system, make it something that's better than your competitors' rewards systems.

Keep in mind the most important marketing message of all: the one that doesn't include any marketing. If you're going to build goodwill with teens, it's important not to come across like a used car salesman. Include relevant, cultural content to your fans or loyalty network to drive interaction. That will ensure your marketing messages are read and, more importantly, accepted when you have something valuable to say.

In closing, it's important to look deeper into the shifts that are occurring in consumer behavior and not just the tactics. Make sure you utilize proven tactics efficiently, dive deeper into what will really work, and provide value beyond the initial interaction.

Frank O'Brien is the founder of Conversation, a strategy-driven, independent advertising agency specializing in emerging technologies and cross-channel marketing integration. Building on his previous success at agencies such as Deutsch Inc and Mr Youth, Frank has grown Conversation's client roster to include The Children's Place, Estee Lauder, Unilever, E*Trade, Rocket Dog, Prince Tennis, Pollo Tropical and HGTV, among others.

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TV vs Social Media

The subject of debate is: Word of Mouth...

Internet Can Drive Word of Mouth Even Better Than Television

There's no arguing that word of mouth (WOM) marketing impacts sales. And while a large number of people talk about content they found online, three-quarters of the time those conversations take place offline.

A recent study from Yahoo on WOM marketing demonstrates that the Internet has grown more influential when it comes to informing people through conversations about brands, even more so than TV in certain categories. The study also finds that the best vehicles for influencing WOM come from consumers who play in social networks. These "Conversation Catalysts" drive a disproportionately higher percentage of WOM activity.

While many marketers have little doubt that the Internet can influence WOM marketing nearly as much as TV, the huge gap in budgets for online versus television tells a different tale, says Radha Subramanyam, Yahoo vice president, who heads corporate and media research. "There's a bit of an intellectual gap in how marketers spend their budget that doesn't exactly tie to ROI," she says.

Although only 7% of all brand-WOM conversations occur online, 38% of people have brand-WOM conversations both online or offline influenced by the Internet, which Yahoo estimates at 74 million people.

Among the media channels influencing WOM, the Internet has grown while others like television and print remain flat. The level of Internet references rose to 15% in January 2010, compared with nearly 12% during the same time in the year-ago period.

Despite the buzz around social media and its role in WOM, most conversations take place face to face. Media -- both online and off -- are influential in driving these conversations, but it's important to note that 76% of WOM conversations take place in person.

Two-thirds of WOM is positive, and only 8% is negative, according to the study.

Certain categories such as financial and automotive appear to do better than health and health care and personal care and beauty. The study recognizes a 17% impact on finance from the Internet, compared with 8% for television. Yahoo believes that impact has a 1% bump to 18% on its network.

The study finds that Yahoo's audience drives more WOM marketing for automotive and finance categories. While the Facebook and YouTube audiences both have a considerable reach, a much higher volume of auto and finance WOM occurred among the Yahoo audience since January.

Automotive in Yahoo's network drove 54% of WOM marketing volume compared with 48% in Facebook; 46%, YouTube; 21%, MSN; 17%, AOL; and 15%, Hulu. Finance in Yahoo's network drove 55% of WOM marketing volume, compared with 48% in Facebook; 40%, YouTube; 23%, MSN; 17%, AOL; and 14%, Hulu.

Conversation Catalysts have become the most valuable WOM segment, because they have a large social network, belong to clubs, organizations and social groups, and often give advice in five or more product categories. They are 20% more likely to mention the Internet in brand WOM conversations.

This trend is driven by millennials, Subramanyam says. "This generation is moving into the years of life where they think about purchases. These kids are now becoming adults," she says. "This generation is the first that literally grew up with the Internet."

As millennials become the new adults, marketers will see an interesting cultural shift, Subramanyam says.

Even so, there's a missed opportunity in understanding that traditional Internet marketing has a bigger impact on word of mouth, says Brad Fay, chief operating officer at Keller Fay Group, and marketing consultant at McKinsey. "There's a big opportunity to drive word of mouth using something as simple as a brand Web site," he says. "The study found it's the number one component to drive word of mouth through the Internet."

About 15% of all conversations include something from people who found the information online, Fay says. People sit side-by-side with a mobile device in hand, talking about restaurants, clothing stores or services they read about online, he says.

The study concludes that Internet content can significantly impact WOM activity, especially on sites that serve this market segment known as Conversation Catalysts.

Yahoo partnered with Keller Fay to observe WOM activity from more than 18,500 survey respondents between August 2009 and January 2010. WOM conversations were tracked with the assistance of a 24-hour diary and follow-up contacts to answer standardized questions about brands and companies they talked about.

(Source: Online Media Daily, 06/11/10)

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Have TV Viewing Habits Changed?

Not really according to this from the Economist:

The lazy medium

How people really watch television

Apr 29th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

Only the content and the curtains have changed

A MIDDLE-AGED couple sits in front of a TV set. He flicks idly through a magazine, she holds a drink. An advertisement for Marks & Spencer, a British retailer, comes on. “These are really good ads,” declares the woman. Her husband glances at the screen. “Oh, I looked at that skirt,” she continues. It is a humdrum domestic scene, one that could have been captured at any point in the past 50 years. But that in itself is surprising.

The husband and wife in the video are playing back a programme that they have captured on a digital video recorder—something they do often. They do not need to watch advertisements. Indeed, they claim never to do so. Whenever an ad comes on during a recorded programme, the husband says in an interview, he zips through it at 30 times the normal speed.

Just outside Brighton, on England’s south coast, Sarah Pearson watches people watch television. She has almost 100,000 hours of video showing utterly banal scenes—people channel-surfing, fighting over the remote control and napping. Her findings are astonishing. There turns out to be an enormous gap between how people say they watch television and how they actually do. This gap contains clues to why television is so successful, and why so many attempts to transform it through technology have failed.

In the past few years viewers have gained much more control over television. Video-cassette recorders have been replaced by DVD players and digital video recorders (DVRs), both of which are easier to use. Cable and satellite firms offer a growing number of videos on demand. TV has gone online and become mobile. As a result, viewers’ expectations have changed dramatically. Katsuaki Suzuki of Fuji Television, Japan’s biggest broadcaster, says nobody feels they need to be at home to catch the 9pm drama any more.

But a change in expectations is not quite the same as a change in behaviour. Although it is easier than ever to watch programmes at a time and on a device of one’s choosing, and people expect to be able to do so, nearly all TV is nonetheless watched live on a television set. Even in British homes with a Sky+ box, which allows for easy recording of programmes, almost 85% of television shows are viewed at the time the broadcasters see fit to air them.

“People want to watch ‘Pop Idol’ when everyone else is watching it,” says Mike Darcey of BSkyB. If that is not possible, they watch it as soon as they can afterwards. Some 60% of all shows recorded on Sky+ boxes are viewed within a day. Often the delay is only a few minutes—just enough to finish the washing up or to make a phone call. For the most part, internet video is used in the same way. Matthias Büchs of RTLNow, a video-streaming website, says online viewing of a programme peaks within a day of that programme airing on TV.

Social animals

It may seem dated, but the image of the family clustered around the living-room set is an accurate depiction of how most people watch television in most countries. In Latin America advertisers have learned to tout grown-up products on children’s channels like Nickelodeon and Discovery Kids, knowing that many parents will be watching with their offspring. Indeed, TV executives believe there is more demand for programmes that the whole family can watch together. Colleen Fahey Rush, head of research at MTV, puts this down to the rise of two-earner households. Because both the father and the mother are absent more often, their company is more valued. “Today’s children actually like spending time with their parents,” she explains. A big thing they like to do together is watch television.

Like all social activities, television-watching demands compromise. People may have strong ideas about what they want to watch, but what they really want to do is watch together. So the great majority of them first see “what is on”—that is, what is being broadcast at that moment. Restricted choice makes it easier to agree on what to watch. If nothing appeals, they move on to the programmes stored in a DVR. On the very rare occasions when they find nothing there, they will look for an on-demand video.

This helps explain one of the oddest and most consistent findings of television research: that people seem unaware of their own behaviour. In surveys they almost always underestimate how much television they watch, and greatly overstate the extent to which they watch video in any other form (see chart 4). In particular, they underestimate their consumption of live television. One of Ms Pearson’s subjects, a 27-year-old man, claimed to watch recorded television 90% of the time. In fact he watched live TV 69% of the time. He was probably not so much fibbing as misinterpreting the question. When asked how he watched television, he gave an answer that described his behaviour when he was alone, and thus did not have to compromise. But most of the time he watched with other people.

Efforts to improve the TV-watching experience have often gone wrong because they took people at their word. The past ten years have seen a parade of websites and set-top boxes—Apple TV, Boxee, Joost, Roku—offering a huge range of content and interactive features. All promised to deliver TV the way people (that is, individuals) really want it. Because they failed to take account of the social nature of television, not one has caught on. Efforts to turn TVs into personal e-mail devices and home-shopping outlets have fared no better. “The killer application on television turns out to be television,” says Richard Lindsay-Davies, CEO of the Digital TV Group.

Some technology firms do “get it”, as the bloggers like to say. Yahoo is building internet widgets into the most advanced TV sets that appear as small icons at the bottom of the screen. Click on a weather icon, for example, and a sidebar appears with the latest forecast. The widgets work because they are unobtrusive and do not distract other viewers from watching their programmes.

Other technology outfits are learning to become more like television. YouTube, the original video-sharing website, became famous for water-skiing squirrels and bedroom musings. It still has plenty of those, but since November 2009 it has also had a “TV shows” section that is neatly divided into genres, not unlike a video-on-demand menu from a cable or satellite company. In North America the website has Vevo, a channel offering music videos. Another innovation is youtube.com/disco, which plays one video after another. The aim, says Hunter Walker, its head of content, is to create “more of a TV-like experience”.

All together now

Live television is not just the most popular way of watching video; it also influences the way people watch shows on all devices. The most popular live television programmes tend to be the most heavily recorded and the most watched on computers and mobile devices. In February “EastEnders”, a British soap, accounted for 12 of the 20 most played-back programmes on iPlayer, the BBC’s online video service. Technology slightly favours programmes aimed at men: science fiction and shows about cars are more likely to be recorded or watched on computers. But there is little to suggest that television is growing a long tail of niche interests.

Quite the opposite, in fact. David Poltrack, head of research at CBS, says technology is helping hits to attract even bigger audiences. Now that it is so easy to record TV programmes and to find them online, the big shows scheduled at peak viewing time are freed from direct competition with each other. Faced with a choice between two programmes at 9pm that they want to see, viewers will often watch one show live and play the other one back an hour later. So strong is the competition from recorded shows that it has become hard to break a new show in America at 10pm. Indeed, thanks to technology and the rise of multi-channel TV it is becoming ever harder to get away with repeats or mediocre programmes at any time of day.

In the 1999-2000 season the most popular thing on American broadcast TV was “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”, a game show. Every Tuesday evening it pulled in 28.5m viewers. But the rest were not far behind. The 10th most popular show that season attracted 63% of “Millionaire’s” audience, or 18m viewers. Even the 100th most popular show still got 30% of the top figure. By the 2008-09 season the also-rans had tumbled. The top show, “American Idol”, had 25.5m viewers. The 10th most popular programme pulled in 55% of its audience and the 100th most popular show just 20%. Relatively, the hits are becoming bigger.

Humdrum television thrived in a world of scarcity when there was little to watch. As the number of channels multiplies, more households get DVRs and television spreads to computers and mobile phones, there is always something on. “You don’t have to watch the best of a bad choice,” says Mr Carey of News Corporation. And one kind of show is becoming more and more dominant.

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TV ads vs Web Video Ads

Interesting.....

Online Ads Surpass TV Ads in Recall, Likability

New online advertising research has again shown what other studies have suggested: Online commercials get better recall than television messaging.

In every recall measure -- general recall, brand recall, message recall, likability -- online proves superior.

Online video ads have a 65% general recall, compared to 46% general recall for TV ads. Brand recall online is at 50% to TV's 28%; message online recall comes in at 39% to TV's 21%; and online likability is 26% to TV's 14%.

The study of 14,000 surveys was originally presented by Dave Kaplan, senior vice president of product leadership at Nielsen AG, and Beth Uyenco, director of global research at Microsoft, at the Advertising Research Foundation. They evaluated 238 brands, 412 products and 951 ad executions to get these results. A deeper brand impact was felt higher among young viewers 13-34.

What accounted for the positive results?

Internet video viewers are more engaged and attentive. The research also said curiosity is a factor, as online video is still relatively new compared to existing media.

One of the biggest reasons for the attentiveness: The inability of the user to skip ads versus that of traditional TV, where about one-third of US viewers have the ability to fast-forward through messaging.

There is also reduced advertising clutter; about four minutes for an hour of programming. This is against 10 minutes of national ads for traditional TV, and around 15 minutes overall when including local ads and TV promos.

There are growing trends to increase commercial load, however. The research says online advertising's "sweet spot" is between six and seven minutes per hour.

(Source: Media Daily News, 04/22/10)

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Stop Blaming Gramps..

For the Loud TV.

I work in the radio business, and we use audio processing to, shall I say, "Juice" the volume of our commercials. Many stations do the same with the music so loud commercials on the radio don't really exist.

However, in TV land, if they only apply the processing to the ads and not the shows, you get this:

(From Mediapost)

Are You Listening When It's Loud?

According to the findings of an Adweek Media/Harris Poll of 2,194 U.S. adults,86% of Americans say that compared to the TV shows themselves, television commercials seem louder. 57% say the commercials seem much louder. Just 12% say the shows and commercials are at the same level, and only 1% say the volume of the commercials is softer than the shows.

93% of those who say the ads are louder say it bothers them, with 62% saying it bothers them a lot. 31% say the fact that the commercials seem louder bothers them a little, while only 7% say it does not bother them.

There is an age difference when it comes to how loud the commercials seem:

• 92% of those 45 and older say the commercials seem louder
• 83% of those 35-44 say this
• 79% of 18-34 year think they are louder
• 70% of adults 55 and older say the volume of the commercials is much louder than the televisions shows themselves

Perception of Ad Volume Compared to The Show (Base: All U.S. adults)
		Age
Perception	Total	18-34	35-44	45-54	55+
Louder (net)	86	79	83	92	92
Much louder	57	42	55	60	70
Somewhat louder	29	37	28	33	22
The same level	12	18	17	7	8
Softer (net)	1	3	*	*	1
Somewhat softer	*	1	*	*	*
Much softer	1	2	*	-	*
Source: Harris Interactive, April 2010 (% Roundied; * indicates less than 0.5%)

There is also a difference in age over how bothersome this volume change is. Seven in ten adults 55 and older, and two-thirds of those 45-54 say the fact the commercials seem louder bothers them a lot. Just under half of those 18-34 say this bothers them a lot, while 40% say it bothers them a little.

Consumer Attitude of Bothersome Quotient (% of Respondents Who Feel Commercials Seem Louder)
		Gender		Age
"Botherness"	Total	Male	Female	18-34	35-44	45-54	55+
Bother (net)	93	92	95	88	94	96	95
Bothers me a lot	62	58	66	49	60	66	71
Bothers me a little	31	34	29	40	34	30	24
Does not bother me at all	7	8	5	12	6	4	5
Source: Harris Interactive, April 2010 (% Roundied; * indicates less than 0.5%)

Women are more likely to say the change bothers them a lot, while men, on the other hand, are more likely to say the changed volume bothers them a little, or does not bother them at all.

The report concludes that, since commercials are intended to sell products, when they become something that actually bothers consumers, advertisers need to consider looking to softer, more subtle ways to get their messages across.

Of note, says the report, in December 2009 the House of Representatives voted to pass the CALM (Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation) Act, which will regulate the volume of commercials. The bill is currently being reviewed by a Senate committee.

For more information, please visit HarrisInteractive here.

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Jeff, Oscar, and Hyundai

from AdAge.com:

How Jeff Bridges Voice-overs Imperiled Hyundai's Oscars Blitz

Kim Basinger, Richard Dreyfuss and Others Helped Hyundai Comply With Oscars Rules at the Last Second

by Brian Steinberg

(AdAge.com) -- Hyundai Motor America was all ready to bombard this year's Oscars with a raft of commercials -- seven different spots were locked, loaded and ready to go. With just a few weeks to go before the March 7 ceremony, however, the company was told its commercials were unfit for air.

The problem? Actor Jeff Bridges has been doing voice-overs for Hyundai since 2007. But Mr. Bridges is also a nominee for best actor in this year's contest for his role in "Crazy Heart."

Even with the new accommodation last year that finally let movie studios advertise actual movies during the Oscars, marketers still have to make sure certain ads featuring celebrities or celebrity voice-overs don't run near segments of the program that could feature those very same stars.

Actor Jeff Bridges has been doing voiceovers for Hyundai since 2007.

Trying to determine where seven Hyundai ads could run and not violate the conditions of Oscars advertising was simply too much to handle, suggested Chris Perry, director-marketing communications, Hyundai Motor America. So the automaker is keeping the ads but has enlisted seven other celebrities to read the marketing copy.

"We've been scrambling to get this thing done," said Mr. Perry. Instead of Mr. Bridges, the ads' narrators will be Kim Basinger, Richard Dreyfuss, David Duchovny, Catherine Keener, Michael Madsen, Mandy Patinkin and Martin Sheen.

Other advertisers taking part in this year's broadcast are Coca-Cola; Ameriprise; CBS Corp.'s CBS Films; The Hershey Company; JCPenney; Kimberly-Clark; McDonald's, Microsoft; Church & Dwight's OxiClean; Samsung Electronics Media; Summit Entertainment; Sprint; and Walt Disney Pictures.

A 30-second spot in ABC's Oscars broadcast costs between $1.3 million and $1.5 million, according to media buyers, close to the price for ad inventory in last year's show. With ratings increases notched by recent airings of the Super Bowl, Grammys and other big-ticket programming, advertisers are hoping the Oscars takes part in the trend.

"It seems like a lot of these shows are picking up steam," said Mr. Perry.

The hope is that, with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences broadening its best picture category to 10 nominees, a wider audience will tune in, he added. Oscars ratings have long hinged on the popularity of the best picture slate. In 1997, for example, approximately 55 million viewers tuned in to see the crowd-pleasing "Titanic" win best picture.

But in 2003, when "Chicago" won the honor, only 33 million watched. And just 32 million tuned in to see "No Country for Old Men" snare the prize in 2008. Oscar ratings hit a new low that year, down from about 38.9 million in 2007, according to Nielsen research compiled by Brad Adgate, senior VP-research at independent ad buyer Horizon Media. Oscar ratings rebounded in 2009, when the event snared approximately 36.3 million viewers.

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Combining Social & Traditional Media

A consumer perspective....

(We have more Televisions than People in our house, so it would be rare for all of us to be gathered around the set like this family.)

This is from RBR.com:

Users of new video devices still watch traditional TV

New research from Horowitz Associates finds that four in 10 consumers watch broadband/mobile TV at least once monthly. Even so, the vast majority of video viewing time is still spent watching traditional TV sets.

Data from Horowitz Associates' annual Broadband Content and Services (BCS) survey of 800 Internet users revealed that 44% watched actual, not user generated, TV content at least once monthly, including viewing online and on handheld devices.

Portending future growth of viewing on alternative platforms, incidence of TV consumption on the computer/ handheld devices is already ubiquitous among young people, with 82% of 15-17 year olds surveyed viewing at least monthly. On handheld devices alone, half (48%) of online young people surveyed report watching TV content at least monthly, doubling from 24% last year.

Consumption of TV content on alternative platforms varies by genre, with news topping the chart among adult Internet users, and music videos topping the chart among 15-17 year-olds. Sports, kids' content, and movies are the genres least likely to be viewed on a platform other than traditional TV.

While incidence and sampling of alternative TV platforms has apparently reached mass market proportions, the actual percent of TV content consumed on alternative platforms remains small. According to the Horowitz study, of all the hours Internet users say they spend watching TV programs, about 4% of TV time is on a platform other than a TV set – 2% on a PC/laptop and 2% on a handheld – with the vast majority (96%) still consumed via the traditional television platform.

"It's important to keep in perspective that when all is said and done, consumers are still spending only a very small amount of their total TV time on alternative platforms," notes Adriana Waterston, VP of Marketing for the research firm. "But, we anticipate that multiplatform TV viewing will continue to grow – especially among young people – as the technology improves towards a more authentic and convenient TV experience, and with programmers and aggregators actively promoting themselves on these platforms."

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It's A Just a Tool

Social Media.

Those in old media are quick to mention it's limitations. Radio & TV stations that say, we have all of these listeners & viewers that your commercials will reach, we are better than Facebook, have their heads buried in the sand.

Newspapers that ignore Social Media know that they are dying, but are afraid to publicly acknowledge it.

On the other side of the coin, we have Social Media Guru's and Experts that talk about Friends, Followers, SEO techniques, and speak in a language of their own and are ready to kill off the still popular old media, if they can just more Friends and Followers to jump on their web bandwagon.

Both are wrong. Instead of combating, they should be collaborating. Harvey Mackay wrote about this recently:

Harvey Mackay's Column This Week

Use technology to enhance creative thinking

A Midwest university professor complained: "We are now focusing more on how to use the tools of communication than we are on how to effectively communicate. As a result, we are turning out computer and internet gurus who can't write and think creatively."

How frightening! If ever there was a time when creative solutions were more valuable, I can't remember it. Most companies are operating with fewer employees, less cash, more challenges and uncertain futures. Creative thinking is the difference between their next chapter and Chapter 11.

There's a certain irony in the professor's comparison too. Technology should help us use our time better. It should ease our workloads. With our records, correspondence, contracts, plans and ledgers at our fingertips with a few clicks, we should logically accomplish more in a shorter time. We actually have the means for instant, real-time, "face-to-face" communication just about anywhere on the planet.

But if that communication is meaningless and useless, the whole point of having and using great tools is lost. Mastery of texting skills often means abbreviations and "alternate" spellings. Limited space for tweets requires the writer to send the briefest of messages, eliminating details and information. Both skills are useful, even essential, but secondary to the message being sent. I appreciate brevity and succinctness, but definitely not at the mercy of effectiveness and creativity. As I like to say, knowledge does not become power until it is used.

We should have seen some of this coming. Author Marshall McLuhan stated back in 1964 that "the medium is the message," meaning that the medium used influences how the message is perceived. All media, he said, have characteristics that engage the viewer in different ways. But I wonder if McLuhan could have imagined the far-reaching effects of our information age technology and the instant access available to anyone on the Internet. Is creativity lost to the medium?

Really good managers foster creativity in their employees by challenging them to use their technology to enhance their brainpower. Try some of these exercises to get the creative juices flowing in your organization. Use whatever technology works best for the situation.

• Pass the BlackBerrys. At your next staff meeting, invite each person to write one idea or solution for the group to consider. Then have each person pass the idea to the next person, who adds his or her thoughts. Continue passing until the idea arrives at the original source. Have the group discuss and choose the best ideas. Fresh perspectives spur creative solutions and identify problems you may not have realized even existed.
• The worst idea. After a problem is presented, each person suggests the worst possible idea to address the problem. Bad ideas enable employees to see problems in a different way and can spur very good ideas. Ask "what's the worst thing that can happen?" and determine what effect a given solution might have.
• Try on "new shoes." Invite employees to walk in their customers/clients shoes to identify what their needs and desires are. Don't think about what you already do for them, ask what you'd really want if you had to do their jobs. You may be able to recognize needs that the customer hasn't expressed. Then communicate those creative solutions to your customers by a tweet, website update, or Facebook message.
• Foster an attitude of respect. Employees perform better when they know their ideas will get a fair hearing. If you are tempted to automatically dismiss an employee's suggestions, or if employees aren't willing to share their ideas for fear of having them shot down, the work environment is not productive. On the other hand, if your employees are constantly producing creative ideas, they make you look like a genius.
• Celebrate successes. Get in the habit of recognizing and celebrating creativity as it happens. Spread the word on company email. I've long thought that creativity is contagious and I want my whole staff infected! A little recognition goes a long way toward building a confident staff.

I'd take Marshall McLuhan's observation in a slightly different direction in 2010: The medium enhances the message. A spectacular website with a lousy message will never supersede a creative message in simpler form. There is no substitute for great ideas.

Mackay's Moral: Technology is a result of creative thinking, not a replacement for it.

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