Technology+Culture+People // テクノロジーとか、人とか、文化とか。

»English Article (via: Online Media Daily)

In its success, however, lie the seeds of value destruction for its TV network creators… The report derives the figure of $920 per viewer lost to Hulu by estimating that Hulu runs four ads each hour at a $50 CPM compared to 32 ads during each hour of programming on TV at a $35 CPM. ($1,120-$200 = $920). Hulu has not disclosed actual ad sales or ad rates.

The convergence of TV and web is a dilemma in itself. While the Internet can provide contents at lower cost and higher convenience, the only reason why services such as Hulu can attract users is because of the programs that they provide. If the current business model sustains and therefore revenues from TV commercials continues to decline, with all else held constant, the quality of any given show will diminish due to simply budget cuts. As long as the industry continues to be on board with the current business model, only those who can provide popular shows will survive and the rest will be history. “Survival of the fittest,” I guess.

How do we break this negative spiral? How can we create a win-win situation for both TV and Internet? I think the first step is to carefully analyze the differences of those two media. TV is a public medium, where as the Internet is very private. TV is capable of sending mass messages whereas the Internet is better at sending targeted messages. TV has a time constraint in which one can view a show, whereas the Internet is capable of on-demand streaming. TV shows and commercials generate higher cost and revenue than that of Internet videos.

Perhaps a good strategy is to use the Internet as a place of experimentation, which is commonly seen by amateur creators on YouTube and other video sharing websites. Professional productions should move to the Internet as a forum of experimenting new entertainment. The low-cost-low-risk environment coupled with a great potential of buzz creation makes Internet an ideal “playground” for creators to innovate. After such experimentation, those that seem to work can be broadcasted on air to cause wider awareness to a more general audience. This will not only push the creative limits of existing TV entertainment, but also will contribute in providing a continuous flow of fresh and unseen forms of entertainment, giving viewers a reason not to abandon their TV sets and cable contracts.

A very good example of this is BeeTV, a Japanese mobile-based movie streaming service. By paying a monthly fee of roughly $4, users gain access to a variety of original programs (that are not re-runs or existing programs distributed by external vendors, conglomerates and cable TV stations) on their mobile phone. There are many experimental programs being distributed through this service, and because more Japanese consumers access the Internet through their mobile phones than computers, the number of registered users are in a rapid increase.

Another extremely interesting and unique case of CGM is Nico Nico Douga, a popular Japanese video sharing website. The uniquess of this website comes from the high degree of user involvement. The most distinguishing feature of this website is that any user can anonymously comment on the uploaded videos, and every user can view comments of one another. An example can be seen here. This is one of the popular MAD videos that remixes an anime opening with Ronald McDonald. The letters the flowing from the right to the left are archived user comments (or annotations). The entertainment is not created when the video is uploaded. In fact, that is merely the first step in Nico Nico Douga. User comments constitute a large part of entertainment of each video, and therefore this annotation feature creates a high degree of consumer involvement in creating a constantly-evolving entertainment media.

Although neither of the above have succeeded in providing their successful contents to TV media, they themselves have been successful in creating buzz and revenue from their own experimental contents production.

It’s now time for creators to stop panicking, take a step back, and analyze what can be best done in each of the tools that they have access to in order to create the best value for both the industry and their consumers.

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凄いデータだね。テレビ番組のネット配信がどれだけの脅威かを物語っている気がする。

ただ、Huluのような、第三者団体が行うテレビ番組のネット配信にはジレンマがある。それは、彼らのようなサービスが出現することによってテレビ局の広告収入が減り、そのせいで個々の番組の質が下がり、最終的には放送できる番組の絶対数をも脅かしてしまう事。つまり、結果的には配信できる番組の質とバラエティーが減っちゃうんだよね。これでは共倒れ。意味が無い。

では、どうすればいいのだろう。この点に関しては、日本はアメリカよりも相当進んでいる気がする。日本では既にテレビとネットの相関性というか「位置づけ」が、ビジネスの側面からはっきり捉えられている傾向があると思う。例えばBeeTVとかはその良い例で、携帯動画配信というプラットフォームを使って、比較的少ない予算で実験的な番組を多く配信している。ネット配信だとミランカとかが良い例かも。これらで実験的に制作された作品の中からうまくいったモノを地上波に持っていけば、あたるか外れるか分からない博打のような番組制作をしなくても良くなるし、実験的なベースから新しいテレビ番組が作られていくので、常に視聴者に新しいエンターテイメントを提供できる気がする。

あと、日本のコンテンツ市場の更に秀逸な部分は、ニッチではあるけども、ニコニコ動画のようなかなり濃いユーザーベースを持ったコミュニティーが存在するという所。最近のニコニコは刺激に欠けるし、まだビジネスモデルを模索している状態ではあるけれども、数多くのMADや初音ミクなど、今までに比類の無い形のエンターテイメントを数々のユーザーが一つのムーブメントとして作り上げている。これほどまでにユーザーが自分の欲求を満たす為だけにモノ作りに励むコミュニティーは、絶対に珍しいし、大切にしなければ行けないと思う。

»English Article (via: Advertising Age)

Just ask Lowe, London, which was recently sacked by Unilever on its Peperami snack brand so that the marketer can run a contest to find ad ideas. Unilever is offering a $10,000 bounty to the winner of a competition to find TV and print ideas for the meat snack popular with schoolchildren.

So here is my take on this:

First of all, because the campaign will ultimately decide and pick the one (or few) “outstanding” idea(s), it probably does not fit the definition of crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing assumes the anonymity of the “solvers” of any given problem, which this campaign fulfills, but at the same time also assumes the community-formation and cooperation of those anonymous “solvers.”

Crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving and production model. Problems are broadcast to an unknown group of solvers in the form of an open call for solutions. Users–also known as the crowd–typically form into online communities, and the crowd submits solutions. The crowd also sorts through the solutions, finding the best ones. (Wikipedia)

Therefore this campaign is not crowdsourcing, but merely a contest for ideas.

Second of all, to be honest, I think Unilever abandoned one of its two most important roles as a business: to create value of their own product brand. Assuming that Peperani, the product, is a “good” product, they are fulfilling their first responsibility as a business, which is to create quality products that bring value to consumers, and ultimately the society as a whole. However, just creating something “good” is not enough. Businesses must also create ways to cause a wide awareness of the good that they provide (this is usually referred to as “advertisement”).

So let’s pretend that Unilever really crowedsourced their next campaign. A question was posed, bunch of anonymous people formed communities online, and came up with a perfect advertisement solution. Perfect.  Well, whatever comes out of that is in fact the people’s aggregated opinion of “this is how we want that product to be advertised.” What value is there if one is simply (and blindly) provided what the other wants? There will be no surprise, no excitement, no nothing.

As a matter of fact, THIS is exactly the value of creative: to observe the trend of the market, discover their implicit needs, and deliver a good (goods) in ways that will not just cause awareness but also emotionally “move” these who come in touch with that product.

This is like asking someone what they want for their birthday present. I mean, I know this is a very lame analogy, but I hope you understand what I’m getting at. There is only half the value in giving someone just what they want, if you don’t thoroughly think of the ways in which that is delivered.

Receiving the ring is only half the happiness for her. The other half was how she received it, and the work that that wonderful man (and the magician) put into delivering that ring.

»English Article (via: Coding Horror)

Hilarious.

もう、最高。

»English Article (via: Advertising Age)

The folks at online ad firm uSocial are taking that a step further: Pay them money and they’ll make you at least appear to be very big on Facebook. In fact, they’ll deliver you 5,000 Facebook “friends” for 7.6 cents per friend ($654.30), or up to 10,000 Facebook “fans” for a mere 8.5 cents a fan ($1.167.30).

Apparently Twitter followers, Diggs and Yahoo Buzzes are also available for sale from this service. As a former ad industry worker, I feel pretty iffy about this; I’m not sure if my pride and dignity will allow me to buy virtual “fans” of my work.

On the other hand, it is very similar to begging (paying) somebody to sign a petition for you. I’m sure many of you have experienced this on college campuses or workplaces. In some aspects this works very well, because more names and signatures will make that petition “appear” better.

So I guess what it comes down to is how “success” is measured on a campaign. If success is measured by the number of “fans,” AND you have no pride for your work, AND if you are ready to betray your client, this might be the answer for some marketer. If success is measured by sales, this will not be the direct solution, since it can only be used to give the product more exposure on certain rankings and searches. If success is measured by the happiness of the consumer, then your time and money might be better spent on product improvement and R&D.

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Twitterのフォロワーが多かったりFacebookグループの「ファン」が増えると、検索からのエクスポージャーが増えて、いわゆるSEOになる。ここに着目したのがuSearchっていう会社なんだよね。この他にもアメリカで最も有名なブログランキング「Digg」や Yahoo Buzzも買えたりするらしい。

個人的には、ちょっと微妙なサービスだと思う。正直自分が関わった作品には、できるだけ使いたくないサービス。だって、簡単にいうと見せかけだもん。まぁアルファブロガーに執筆を依頼するのにも似てる部分はあるんだけど…。

結局は、キャンペーンの「成功」をどう捉えるかなんだと思う。「集客」が最終目的で、かつ自分の仕事にプライドを持っていなくて、かつ自分のクライアントを裏切る覚悟があるならこのサービスは最適なのかも。商品の売り上げが最終目的なら、このサービスは見せかけの人気で更に人を集めるサクラみたいなものだから、直接的な成功の要因にはならない。お客さんを幸せにするのが最終目的ならば、R&Dにお金を回した方が遥かに理にかなっている気がする。

This is a new campaign for Vaio Type W. I’m assuming it is a laptop with strength in browsing the internet. I think this is a very well executed campaign in several different ways. First, and foremost, it is built on a very sturdy creative concept work. The overall theme is the “workshop” for social media addicts. I think the above TV Spot plays off that theme very well. Second, they were playful but smart to prepare individual interviews of the characters seen in the TV Spot. This adds much more depth to the TV Spot, and also gives a good reason to use YouTube –its not just a place where they upload the TV Spot for free, but also a place to enrich the TV Spot and user experience. Last but not least, the website for this campaign, http://www.stopwritingonmywall.com/ does a wonderful job in very creatively extending and encompassing the creative concept. Very well executed integrated campaign –I love it!

It’s only so funny and entertaining until reading this article…

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Vaio Type W の新しいキャンペーン。今まで見た中で一番秀逸なインテグレテーテッドキャンペーンだと思う。なんかというか、とても美しく昇華されてるとおもう。まずTVCMだけど、全体のクリエイティブのモチーフである「ワークショップ」が、商品の特性とともにユーモラスに描かれている。次に、YouTubeの使い方も上手で、ただCMをアップロードするだけじゃなくて、CMに出てくるキャラクター一人一人のインタービュークリップをわざわざ撮影して載っけてる。僕はこれを見たとき、CMの世界観がもっと膨らんだような気がして、とても楽しかった。こういうプラスαのもてなし、いいよね。最後に、キャンペーンサイトがとても秀逸。わざと素人っぽい、本当にそういう支援団体みたいなサイトデザイン全体のモチーフを上手に踏襲してて、ほんとうにブレのない、美しいインプレメンテーションだと思った。ビバ！

»English Article (via: HubSpot) || »日本語の記事 (via: Ad Innovator)

Specifically, the average company that blogs has:

• 55% more visitors
• 97% more inbound links
• 434% more indexed pages

That’s quite a difference that a Blog can make. I wonder what methods were taken to retrieve these results…

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ブログを行っている企業は55%サイトトラフィックが多く、また434%、検索エンジンにインデックスされるページが多いことが分かった。また、外部から インクを張られること97%多く、検索インデックスページの増加と共に、検索結果で上部に上がりやすく、見つけられやすくなっている

こんなに違うものなのかー。どういう計算でこういう結論に行ったのかが気になる…。

»English Article

Studios are trying to gauge the impact of an avalanche of tweets, and how it affects the staying power of a movie. Was the 39 percent box office drop of “Bruno” from Friday to Saturday a case of disappointed moviegoers tweeting from theater lobbies? Or did a limited fan base for “Bruno” exhaust itself on that first day?

“I think Twitter can’t be stopped,” says Stephen Bruno, the Weinstein Co.’s senior director of marketing. He’s trying to stay ahead of an audience’s appetite for instant information.

“Now you have to see it as an addition to the campaign of any movie,” he says.

As we can see from the above quote, movie makers now have to integrate Twitter into their campaigns. But even more importantly, they must seek a way to shape people’s expectations. What I mean by this is that no matter how successful the movie promotion is, if the people are disappointed after they come out of theaters, there will be negative word of mouth (WOM) on Twitter. So movie makers must either (1) minimize the viewers’ disappointment when seeing the actual movie, (2) increase the positive surprise of viewers when they see the actual movie, or (3) do both. Because it is possible for talented agencies to well promote a bad product, ultimately it is the matter of how well the movie is made. Bottom line: with the recent, dramatic increase of viewer’s access to information and WOM, film makers must try even harder to “up the notch” of the quality of their films, and promoters must factor in the viewer’s potential “expectations” when they plan ads, trailers, and other campaigns.

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最近Twitterの口コミ口コミ効果が、ハリウッドを脅かしているそうだ。公開間もない「ブルーノ」という映画のチケット売り上げが３９％も下落したのだが、どうやらがっかりしたユーザーのつぶやきが原因の一端を担っているとの憶測が飛んでいる。映画関係者は「これからはTwitterも重要なプロモーションツールとして活用しなければならない」って言ってるんだけど、結局のところ本質は作品そのものの魅力だってことを忘れないでほしい。

とはいえプロモーションは欠かせないわけで、これからはTwitterというツールに捕われるよりも、いかにして「人々のエクスペクテーションを操作するか」が大きな過大になってくると思う。例えば予告編を大げさに作りすぎてお客さんに過度な期待を持たれると、そこそこの映画でもがっかりする人は必然的に増えるだろう。だって期待を裏切られるんだもの。これからは、「このプロモーションに触れた人が、何を感じて、映画館に足を踏み入れるまでにどういう期待を寄せるのだろか」という、もう一歩踏み込んだ所まで頭をひねる必要がでてきそう。

Wow.

via: Mashable

»Simple Machines -Museum of Science and Industry Chicago

A website produced under the collaboration by unit9 and Helpful Strangers, for MSI Chicago.

I love it!! The moment the content started, I was engaged with the adorable characters and the non-verbal communication. I’m assuming this interactive game targeted younger audiences, and it does a fantastic job in creating an engaging atmosphere, simple but entertaining user experience, and educational content that lasts in one’s memory. One of the best educational website I’ve ever came across. If I had kids, I would definitely have them play it.

»English Article (via: Advertising Lab) || »Press Release (via:comScore)

1. Heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks.
2. Heavy clickers are not representative of the general public. In fact, heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000.
3. Heavy clickers behave very differently online than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time online than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage.
4. No correlation between display ad clicks and brand metrics, and show no connection between measured attitude towards a brand and the number of times an ad for that brand was clicked
5. when digital campaigns have a branding objective, optimizing for high click rates does not necessarily improve campaign performance

While the click can continue to be a relevant metric for direct response advertising campaigns, this study demonstrates that click performance is the wrong measure for the effectiveness of brand-building campaigns

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1. バナー広告のヘビークリッカーはネット人口全体のわずか6%あまりだが、彼らのクリックは全クリックレートの50%を占めている。
2. ヘビークリッカーは一般人口とは異なる存在である。そのほとんどが世帯年収が400万円以下の25-44歳である。
3. ヘビークリッカーは一般ネットユーザーとも異なる存在である。彼らのネット利用時間は一般ユーザーの約4倍だが、ネット上で使うお金の額はそれに比例していない。
4. バナークリックとブランド認知、およびそれから派生する購買は比例しない。バナークリックとブランドに対するイメージは関連しない。
5. ブランディングを主な目的としたデジタルキャンペーンの場合、クリックレートの最大化はキャンペーンの成功の尺度に必ずしもなり得ない。

バナーのクリックレートはダイレクトレスポンスキャンペーンでは有効な尺度ではあるが、ブランディングキャンペーンの効果を測定するには不正確な物差しであろう。

…だそうです。