Archives

Monthly Archive for: ‘August, 2011’

Home / 2011 / August

Has The 2-Screen Experience Crushed the Future of Digital TV? (Mediapost 8.24.11) 0

Will the two-screen experience crush the future of digital television?

I heard this question posed earlier last week and it’s possible that the idea has merit.  It’s taken awhile for digital TV to really come of age, and in that time Apple launched the wildly successful iPad and created the tablet market.   Consumers have flocked to the idea of watching television either with or on the iPad, and in doing so they have circumvented the need for a more interactive digital television experience.  This doesn’t mean that digital TV, or TV for that matter in any form, is not still important.  It just means that the bells and whistles of an interactive digital experience on your cable box may not be as necessary or desirable in the eyes of the consumer.

Consumers watch TV, and they watch it a lot.  That’s not going to change, but in recent years we’ve seen more instances of consumers watching TV with a laptop or tablet in front of them, effectively multi-tasking.   We also see more consumers watching their favorite shows online, detracting from the cable box itself, and creating a more seamless interactive experience on their internet-connected devices.  Lots of TV manufacturers are working apps into the TV experience, but after the initial wave of excitement, I haven’t seen much additional consumer interest. 

Social media is what consumers are using while watching TV, and that experience is better on a tablet, laptop or smartphone.  It’s not an experience consumers are shifting to on a TV, and I don’t know that they ever will.   

TV gets expensive very quickly because the cable companies nickel and dime you for every possible addition.  I recently moved and was setting up service at my new home and it took me hours to do so, and that was before I even got them on the phone.  The permutations of services are endless, so just imagine what it will be like when they offer fully integrated digital services?  I can imagine a world with messaging fees attached to my TV, and that world gets ever more expensive very quickly.   In that world, consumers are not going to be willing to pay for additional services when they already have them on a different device.  It would be redundant to do so, and that just doesn’t make sense.

If consumers are watching TV on their computers and tablets, then digital TV (in the industry sense of the term) just isn’t necessary.  There will be a portion of the audience that simply doesn’t want it, and they are more than happy watching TV and toggling between shows and social media.  That experience is all they need.

Digital television has been promised for 15 years now, and it’s starting to feel a little like mobile; always 2-3 years away from being viable.  As with mobile, it relies on consumer adoption, penetration of the devices, and the integration of the platforms into regular programming that engages the consumer and makes the experience interesting!  It’s very possible that Digital TV may have missed the boat.  What do you think?  Is there a future here, or has the future already passed it by?

Let me know on the Spin Board!

Posted on: 08-28-2011
Posted in: treffiletti.com

“After All, You Created The 21st Century” – Bono (Mediapost 8.17.11) 0

This has been a rough couple of weeks.  The United States government is disappointing in many ways, and the economy is paying the price.  If you watch the news it’s very easy to get sucked into the discussion of a “double dip” recession and all the other negativity that permeates the conversation, but to be honest it won’t help matters much.  Listening to pundits and media people express their dissatisfaction and outrage only fuels the fire of fear.  That being said, there are two things you can realistically do, and you need to pay attention to them both.

First of all, if you’re unhappy with Congress, or the President or anyone else in government then you need to let them know when it comes time to vote.  If you don’t take the time to vote, then you have no right to complain because when it comes to government, that’s your only true voice.  Elected officials are supposed to mirror your needs, wants and desires and if they don’t, then you need to let them know.  You need to apply accountability to their actions.

The second opportunity you have is to create jobs and stimulate the economy.  Our industry is still one of the fastest growing industries in the US, and we have a unique opportunity to support the economy and drive growth.    The digital media landscape is complicated, but thanks to such tools as the ever-present LumaScape , you can demystify the business and identify the opportunities that are available.  Whether you are a marketer, an agency person or en entrepreneur, you sit in a unique position to influence and establish new companies that help improve the strength of our industry, and create jobs that help a lot of people.   As Bono said at the last U2 show in Oakland, “after all, you guys created the 21st century”!  He was right – our efforts in this business are driving new opportunities the world over, and everyone is paying attention.  Our business is an inter-connected, global business that is quickly providing the basis for economies all over the world, and your hard work is driving that success.

We need jobs in order to spark growth.  It’s as simple as that.  If anyone ever has been in a position to figure things out, it would be us.  And by us, I refer to those of you reading this article no matter where you are, how old (or young) you are or what you do for a living.  If you’re reading the Spin, you’re involved in a dynamic digital media business, and you‘re in a position to help. 

At the risk of sounding like a televangelist, there is a great chapter being written right now, and it can end really well, or it can end really poorly.  I personally want to create a world where my sons will be happy, healthy and successful.  If that means I lose a little sleep and I work a little hard, I’m ok with that.  What about you?

Of course, beating my chest and yelling from the top of the mountaintop isn’t much help without some practical advice, so here are some tips for how you can support the fervor of entrepreneurialism that we need to support the economy and drive growth:

  • If you’ve got an idea, write it out and see if there’s a business there.  It doesn’t mean you have to see it all the way through, but ideas can come from anywhere, and there are always hungry people around you looking for good ideas.
  • Support your local entrepreneurs, by either investing (if you have the resources) or just taking meetings with them.  You can be valuable just by applying a second set of eyes to an idea, and providing good, constructive feedback.
  • Be constructive, don’t be dismissive.  The more you can provide positive, supportive feedback to someone with an idea, the more you help them be successful.
  • Don’t start the discussion with “what’s in it for me”.  Our country wasn’t built on a sense of pure selfishness – it was built on a sense of opportunity and the backs of some dreamers.
  • Give someone a test, if you can.   If you’re in a position to test out an idea, and push for innovation, give it a shot.  The more of your budget you spend with the “usual suspects”, the less you help drive new ideas.  Be open to innovation.

I know it sounds bit too much like patriotic mumbo-jumbo, especially coming from me, but it’s not intended to be.  I don’t care who you vote for, or what side you support.  I’m only trying to get people to stop complaining and start doing something about it, and the best way I can see for that to happen is to leverage what we have, as an industry.  And that is ideas!

Don’t you agree?

Posted on: 08-19-2011
Posted in: treffiletti.com

The Future Of The Virtual Scrapbook (Mediapost 8.10.11) 0

Sometimes, on a Saturday morning when my son wakes up a little earlier that I would like, I bring him into bed with my wife and I and we crack open the iPad and look at pictures.  My son will swipe the pictures to the side and we’ll reminisce over the fun days we’ve had, and he’ll ask questions about places we’ve been.  It’s fun, and it’s sentimental, but it also gets me wondering what his future “scrapbook” experience will be like?

When I was kid we made physical scrapbooks.  We collected pictures from friends, threw them into albums and put them in the closet to check out again when we got old.  Nowadays creating the family album is far more immediate with tools like a laptop, Flickr and YouTube.  Even Facebook becomes a virtual family album for generations to come.  The immediacy and ease of access to those images makes it more likely that we spend time perusing those pictures on a regular basis.  I sometimes find myself thumbing through my iPhone, reviewing images and the fond memories that come along with them.

I think my kids will have fun viewing and sharing those images with their families when they get older, but I wonder just how that will happen?  What format will it take?  Will Facebook still be a tent pole of the Internet?  Will Flickr and YouTube still be around?  These questions seem silly, but remember it wasn’t so long ago that you may have had Excite as your homepage, or you communicated primarily with your AOL account.  You may still have that email address, but you probably have 3 others as well.  As for Excite, well, that’s just history (it’s there, but it’s not the same).

I imagine the virtual scrapbook will be a cloud-based account that houses all of your personal information; your pictures, movies, music and even personal documents that you want to share with your family for years to come.   Maybe your virtual scrapbook will simply be an email address that you use as a compendium of all that same content, in a chronological order that reflects when it was created?   Maybe it will be a digital safe deposit box, housed at a bank, and backed up on international servers based on Switzerland so that no one can have access unless you want them to?

I can see something with a Flipboard-like interface that creates the same experience we see today when we sit with our grandparents and go through old photo albums. A page-by-page interface that tells a story, and offers insight into how our families were born, how they were raised, and how they laid the groundwork for who each of us are today.  I hope someone finds a way to make it smell like Old Spice when I peruse that album, because that will equal the same wonderful memory I have of sitting on my grandfather’s lap and looking at pictures.

I know people who create email addresses for their kids, or Twitter accounts, as early as possible and they use those accounts to store personal messages to them, passing along a library of tips and advice to help them become the adults that would make their parents proud. 

No matter what it looks like, the experience will be the same, but even easier than it is today.  I just hope that when I’m old and grey, that I still know how to use all this technology the right way!

Posted on: 08-14-2011
Posted in: treffiletti.com

I Love Amazon, But Don’t Forget To Support Your Local Stores (Mediapost 8.3.11) 0

I think we sometimes tend to overlook just how important Amazon is to the web.  In all the buzz and hullabaloo of IPO’s and venture capital funding, we take for granted that Amazon is basically the Wal-Mart of the web.  That being said, there are some issues that should be raised and paid attention to.

It wasn’t so long ago that Amazon was just a simple little bookstore on the web.  They were in a pitched battle with Borders and Barnes & Noble for online literary supremacy, and now they’re far more than a simple little bookstore and those “brick and mortar” stores are either dead or dying. 

Amazon expanded its business to include music, movies, toys, and eventually just about everything else under the sun.  They developed and patented their “One-Click” shopping process, and transformed the world of considered purchases into impulse buying, thereby lowering the barrier for decision-making adults on whether or not to buy a product.  Their recommendation engine has blazed the trail for every data-targeting company that exists, and the pedigree of the people who have worked at Amazon can be seen throughout the world of e-Commerce as those people represent the cream of the crop for the online consumer business.

As a consumer, I start my shopping experience with Amazon, and when it comes to making a purchase decision most consumers are willing to pay 5-10% more and buy it from Amazon than to buy it from an online retailer they’ve never heard of.  The brand “Amazon” is synonymous with customer service, fast delivery, quality products, and (for many people) free shipping.  Amazon flooded the market with banners and buttons back in the day proclaiming free shipping to get trial, and it worked.   That and the industry best practice case study of the Amazon Affiliate Program, which every e-tailer has tried to emulate since it began.

Of course, Amazon also deserves to get some of the blame for what’s happening to local business, in much the same way as Wal-Mart does.  When Wal-Mart comes into a market, its routine that smaller retailers go up in arms because they can’t compete with the price and selection that Wal-Mart offers.  Amazon has the same gripe against it, plus they don’t pay state sales tax.  That third leg of the proverbial stool is having a profound effect on local business, and as a result I’ve started to see local marketing from groups of store-owners and chamber of commerce groups practically pleading with consumers to “shop local” and support your local business’ so that tax money can be fed back into the local community. 

I agree with this movement, and I think people should pay attention.  It doesn’t mean you have to stop shopping with Amazon, or Wal-Mart for that matter.  It just means that every few purchases you make, try to buy something local.  Support your local bookstore, or record store, or grocery store, or boutique clothing store.  Support your local pet store, or your local toy store.  The prices are certain to be higher than what you’re paying at Amazon, but they won’t be astronomical and these stores need your business.  They need you to come in and peruse and buy, rather than come in, peruse, and then go to Amazon to get it for less. 

I’m all for finding deals, but once in awhile you have to support your local business, at least until Amazon and the government determine a way to work out the sales tax situation.

Don’t you agree?

Posted on: 08-5-2011
Posted in: treffiletti.com

Nothing In Life Comes For Free, But It Can Be Gotten Cheap (Mediapost 7.27.11) 0

Nothing in life comes for free, however you can get everything at a discount. It’s now a fact of life that everything, and I mean everything, can be purchased at a discount! It started way back in the day with Amazon giving away free shipping to incentivize consumers to give them a try, but in the last couple of years it’s spread like wildfire. There are two primary sources of deals and discounts these days, and the path is blazed by GroupOn and RetailMeNot.

We all know about GroupOn, Living Social, HomeRun and the host of companies that have emulated their business model by offering daily deals and discounts for any subscriber. These businesses provide discounted access to services and products, sometimes as high as 65-75% off the original cost. These deals are limited in nature, and serve to provide companies with a temporary bump as well as access to a whole new pool of potentially loyal customers. When used properly, these services provide an invaluable lead generation opportunity that can benefit a brand.

RetailMeNot is the enigma in this space, and one that definitely benefits consumers, though I’m not 100% certain it benefits brands. If you’ve ever visited the site you know they offer coupons and discounts on all kinds of brands and services. The way I use them is pretty simple; whenever I’m about to buy anything online, I open another browser window and type in the retailer to see if they have a coupon saved. The results tell the likelihood that the coupon still works, and in almost every case I end up saving money. I recently bought a pair of golf pants from a niche retailer, and ended up with 20% off. I had no idea RetailMeNot ran so deep in the retailer category, but after that experience I was absolutely sold – I will never pay full price again!

As a mentioned, this kind of service is amazing for consumers, but I have to think retailers are not too excited. If a retailer forgets to pull down a coupon code, or remove it from their checkout system, it can live in perpetuity. Some of these codes are holiday codes that may have been forgotten about or passed by, and I’m sure the retailers never intended to give me a Christmas discount in June.

Coupon cutting is all the rage online, and there are numerous cases where brands offer limited time coupons to their most loyal customers, and websites or blogs take them and run, making them available to their hundreds of thousands of readers online. Brands actually pay for these coupons, and when a coupon goes “off the reservation” like that, it can cost a brand hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep up. The other concern here is that daily deal sites and coupon discounts are teaching a whole generation of shoppers that the ticket price is rarely ever the actual price, so retailers and marketers are going to have to factor this into their pricing strategies going forward. Will retailers start pricing higher to satisfy the discounts they offer? Will some retailers adopt the old “Saturn-like” pricing of “no haggle, stress free shopping”? Will the online retail marketplace just become a means of under-cutting local business?

This last question is a timely one as Congress mulls passing an online sales tax to be enforced on a national basis. I personally think it is only fair that online businesses charge a sales tax because these companies create significant revenue that may not be properly used to cover state or federal expenses, but they are taking away sales from local business that do pay those taxes (or at least they used to). I read recently that online sales take away billions of dollars in state and federal taxes, and that could help us in a period where we should be trying to balance the budget.

There are a lot of moving parts to this discussion, and in the majority of the argument the consumer wins, (which is great). I just hope we aren’t setting a bad precedent for years to come in retail.

What do you think?

Posted on: 08-2-2011
Posted in: treffiletti.com

How To Screw Up A VC Pitch 0

Want to know how to screw up your next VC pitch?  Then check this out!

 

 

View more from

Posted on: 08-2-2011
Posted in: treffiletti.com

The Anti-Portfolio – Missed Opps in Venture Capital 0

One of my team found this page last week, and its a very interesting, humble approach from a Venture Capital firm.  They posted, tongue in cheek, all the missed opps they passed on and succeeded in spite of them. I love it when people are willing to take themselves a little less seriously.  Kudos to the folks at BVP for this page. 

 

Check it out

Posted on: 08-2-2011
Posted in: treffiletti.com

Marketing In The Cloud 0

Check out this presentation detailing how the cloud can be used for marketers – it’s a hot topic right now, and one that silicon valley is taking a keen interest in. Special thanks to Scott Brinker at ion Interactive for posting it! Nice work!

View more from

Posted on: 08-2-2011
Posted in: treffiletti.com

Is Pottermore The Future Of Publishing? (Mediapost 7.6.11) 0

I, like much of the world, suspected that we hadn’t heard the end of Harry Potter, but I, like much of the world, didn’t exactly see what was coming next .  JK Rowling continues to be a genius by surprising her readers, and the world in general, with her recent announcement of Pottermore.

Pottermore is basically a virtual world of publishing where readers will be able to read new and previously unreleased material set in the world of Harry Potter.  It will consist of back-stories for characters, locations and other assorted tidbits of knowledge that will keep her readers bathed in the Hogwarts glow for many years to come.  In creating this masterpiece she does three things.  First of all, she satisfies the almost insane, obsessive curiosity of her fans pining to read more of her world of wizards and magic, which she so eloquently created.  Second, she is setting the stage for what could easily become the foundation for publishing for the next 50 years.  Third, she guarantees monthly revenue for herself until her grandkids’ grandkids start having kids of their own (not that she really needs it)!

The focus for me is the impact on publishing.  Many authors have turned to the web to create content.  Some have looked to the area of virtual worlds, while some have looked to video and other avenues, but all of them felt stale and/or forced.   What Rowling is doing is using digital purely as a tool for distribution of background and extended work, basically replacing the existing publishing system, while maintaining control of all her own material.   Its brilliant when you think about it; she can always package the work up into a book later, and she can leak it out slowly over time, monetizing it however she so chooses.  If I were George Lucas, I’d be keeping a close eye on what Potter fans will be seeing as this is a model that Star Wars could, and should, likely emulate!

Of course, if JK Rowling decides to partner with Radiohead, then all of the entertainment world will be standing on its toes!  Both Radiohead and JK Rowling are trying new ways to distribute their work directly to fans and maintain control over their product.  Both are laying the groundwork so that others can emulate, and both are having strong success in doing so!

Not every author will be able to pursue this model, but many of the most successful franchises certainly can.  The Twilight series is an obvious opportunity to emulate this model, and even the “Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” series if you tap into the character back-stories and tangentially related offshoots of the books. 

What I also find interesting is that as of now, Pottermore is primarily a free site, and it will encourage fan participation.  How will this turn into revenue?  My guess is a simple 3-tiered model of advertising, merchandising and publishing.  She can package up new material for collectors whenever she wants, even on –demand.  She can integrate advertising or marketing into the world, with many brands being willing to pay a pretty penny to be integrated into that world and the eyes of her loyal readers.  She can also merchandise her world to her heart’s content.  Those pages of Potter-related products in the Air Mall magazine are just the beginning!

Ms. Rowling may not be releasing everything she intends to do as of yet, but she’s a smart cookie.  She has a plan, and much like the rest of her stories, she won’t tip her hand too early.  I look forward to Pottermore and the untold stories that will be laid out on front of me!

Posted on: 08-2-2011
Posted in: treffiletti.com

The Future of Advertising: The Second Oldest Profession In The World (Mediapost 6.29.11) 0

Did you know that advertising is the second oldest profession in the world?  It’s a little known fact, but if you follow the money, as they typically say on re-runs of Law And Order, you’d guess the folks engaged in the oldest profession in the world had to advertise to find clients, right?

Seriously though, advertising has been around a long time.  According to sources like the Wikipedia, advertising has been traced all the way back to ancient Egypt, Pompeii and ancient Arabian civilizations.  The concept of promoting a service to people who need it is as old as anything else in the world, but the last 15 years have witnessed more change in the business than possibly anytime in history.

The advent of the data-age, or as I‘ve referred to it previously as the “Money Ball era“ of marketing, has brought more accountability and addressability to advertising and the next ten years are only going to get more complicated.  These days the business of buying media is work-intensive, and complex.  The Mad Men days were heavy on creative, light on research, and media was a secondary consideration.  In the data-age, media runs the discussion with creative being important but no longer driving the car.  The cat’s out of the bag and its going to be hard to regress to the old days anytime soon.

TV is headed this direction too, as the next 4-6 months will likely see some very innovative announcements coming from the likes of the cable operators as they unveil some of what they’ve been working on over the last 5 years.   Data is the name of the game, and interaction will be the way the game is measured!  Social media is driving the cross-promotion of all media vehicles, and it’s even headed cross-platform as TV integrates social activity into the equation.

So what does that mean for you as you continue to evaluate your career and plan for your own personal future?   First off, it means you cannot be afraid of the data, and you’re going to need to become fluent in data analytics.  Buying media used to be a combination of experience, syndicated research and relationships.  In the next 2-3 years the focus will shift even heavier to a direct response model of test, run, repeat.  In this model your data dashboard will become even more important as it tells you what to do and where to do it.  Even the Account and Creative angles on the business need to become more fluent in data because they can no longer hide their heads in the sand when the reports come out!

The second consideration is you’re going to have be functional cross-platform.  The era of the digital media buyer as a stand-alone, at least in its current incarnation, is going away.  “Digital” media buyers are going to have to learn about the new ways to buy TV and TV buyers are going to have to finally embrace digital.  The two are becoming quickly intertwined, and your value as an advertising professional will depend on your ability to talk effectively about both paths. 

Your career value in advertising is going to depend heavily on your understanding of the technology behind media buying on both sides of the fence and the analytics of the data in front of you.  You will have to understand econometric modeling, be fluent in sifting through the clutter to focus on the core data that will provide actionable insights for your campaigns, and apply that thinking to both online and TV.  If I were starting over today, I’d go back and make sure I was fresh on my traditional TV-buying terminology and I’d review economics and statistics.  I would recommend diving into the developments of companies like Canoe Ventures and I would spend lots of time with companies like Omniture and DaTran Media to find out what their plans are for the future. 

If you start your way into the business on the agency side, make sure you get a crash course in both online and offline customer research, and spend time with the analytics department before you head over to media, because the alignment of these multiple paths of thought are going to be invaluable for your career.

It’s an exciting time to be in advertising, especially while its still legal in all 50 states. 

Posted on: 08-2-2011
Posted in: treffiletti.com
Page 1 of 41234»