The Digital Decision Series

The rules of engagement have changed and so have the ways we communicate with each other in business and entertainment. The Digital Decision Series is a weekly video blog featuring leading experts and an in depth look at the massive paradigm shift happening across every media channel today. Our goal is to harness the collective power and wisdom of a myriad of disciplines through interviews with working professionals, in a variety of media related industries, in an effort to find some answers and gain a better understanding about exactly what these new communication tools mean for business, entertainment, branding, and marketing.

We’ll cover content, metrics, social media, gaming, technology and multi-platform distribution and how the new 360 or Transmedia storytelling maxims are applicable to every business sector looking to reach out and engage people with a compelling, relevant and entertaining message. Our thought leaders come from a variety of backgrounds: from marketing to music, television to gaming. Collectively, they will unfold the story of the great media paradigm shift and suggest ways in which we can all approach communication in business, education, and entertainment more effectively in the digital space and beyond. In the end, we hope this series sheds some light on the amazing opportunities presented and offers some solutions that have a positive impact on your engagement in the digital landscape.  Episode 2 takes a closer look at why it’s so crucial to customize every approach to messaging and story and using the best digital tools for the job.

Episode 1 Features:

Suzanne Diamond, Tim Mosher, Jason Feinberg, and Zach Jordan

You can produce a strip, prime time chat show, even with a high cost talent like Leno, for a fraction of the investment required for an hour drama or half hour sitcom. Period.  On the “Zucker is wise” front, you have lower cost, less risk of audience rejection of 95% of your original offerings (if they like Leno, they will just keep coming back and NBC can pre-book that), and you get to plant your flag in the “new”  10pm slot with a tried and true brand while others must follow.  If broadcast does become the repository for reality and event TV, NBC might reap the rewards of being first to embrace.

On the other side, you give up the major windfall that the occasional hit narrative delivers here and abroad for years and years to come in syndication. NO one will argue that chat is evergreen (though original reality formats may be).  I’m having a hard time trying to figure out how the move toward inexpensive programming will balance out against the loss of the annuity of a “Friends” or “Seinfeld”.  Part of the answer may be a top to bottom embrace of the need for reinvention of the overall approach to broadcast, cable, and digital and who becomes who in the content zoo.  I’m betting on NBC.

If the Leno project works, NBC owns 10pm and has the luxury of exporting the model and success to 8-10 pm.  NBC reinvents broadcast prime time.  Where do the dramas and quality narrative go?  NBC’s cable unit.  Their cable outlets have been their success story for years and, under Jeff Gaspin, have become quality content profit centers.  There is no reason why FX should own the quality ribbon. Of course, that move will necessitate lower production budgets and the current scripted programming sources will go kicking and screaming.  As Zucker mentioned however, lower cost doesn’t have to mean lower quality.  Examples of budget and content bravery abound.  Lower budgets, lower risk, even bigger windfalls when they find a hit—and the ability to genuinely brand their cable channels.

And what about digital?  NBC is banking on Hulu.  Fine for now.  But if they genuinely want to be the Mother of Reinvention, they must actively pursue a custom strategy for serving the digital landscape.  Yes, they will offer their shows on line.  Fine.  But for a growing and evolving digital generation it won’t be enough to shoehorn “TV” into the content offerings.  The audience will increasingly demand customized, personal, quality content that is crafted for who they are, where they consume, how they consume and what they wish to consume.  They won’t be sold, won’t be washed over with message, and won’t engage unless you invite them in.  No one has the answers yet. But if NBC wants to genuinely lead the way and reap the rewards of audience loyalty, THIS is where the tough work needs to be done.  What does the online user between 7 and 11pm want?  Has anyone really bothered to find out?  That answer will be the linchpin to success.

NBC will figure out the new world of  broadcast, it will build on its cable success and we’ll see if it can address digital.   If they bother with all three prongs, they will clean everyone’s clock by being the content source that creates the 360 degree, on demand, content and distribution plan that is the future.

The legendary lion in one of his last interviews which was taped in 2007.  There’s also a great documentary on HBO right now about Ted Kennedy that gives a much more in depth look into the powerful legacy he leaves behind.  For more big thinkers and thought leaders, check out Big Think.

]]> http://www.joedigitalblog.com/targeted-distribution/ted-kennedy-thought-leader/feed 0 http://www.joedigitalblog.com/targeted-distribution/brands-brave-webseries-22 http://www.joedigitalblog.com/targeted-distribution/brands-brave-webseries-22#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:25:54 +0000 Peter Schankowitz http://www.joedigitalblog.com/?p=420 Keep Reading]]> Brand integration in web series?  Wait, I thought that was dead.  Didn’t every brand get a good clock cleaning earlier this decade by investing in this very same format?  Certainly.  However, as we have said for some time now, that too has passed. The opportunity for organic and effective branding in web series is here, we’ve learned a ton and there is a new sheriff in town when it comes to making brand and entertainment deliver on the promise.

In today’s Brandweek.com, T. L. Stanley, confirms our suspicions, and notes that brands are dipping a bit more than a toe into these waters and reaping the rewards.  Stanley outlines the key elements that make brand integration a genuine tool as opposed to the hail Mary of yesteryear.

This time around, content and brands are on more equal footing.  It’s no longer the juvenile business built around the “wow, I can put stuff into stuff on line and….”  These days, brands are (1) looking to get involved during the nascent stages of content development; (2) willing to accept less overt, less “salesy” integration; and (3) partnering with content producers who are willing to find ways to use integration organically with story and format.

Those three key elements make me hopeful for a true creative partnership between companies like mine and brands across virtually every vertical.  We would add a few more arguments to the mix as well as some wishes and warnings to keep this momentum going toward an effective brand / entertainment marriage.

When you look at the cost basis for digital branded entertainment, you can’t beat the potential ROI in terms awareness and even conversion.  But that is just the tip of the “why integrate” pyramid.  The opportunities and results also depend upon how well we can collectively  exploit the public’s increasing willingness to accept branding in content.  They have a specific set of demands that we need to deliver upon in everything we produce and distribute:

(1) make it engaging, entertaining, informative and great or shut up;

(2) make it authentic and honest (as opposed to a sore thumb interrupting my content);

(3) make it an invitation to connect with versus “buy” your brand; and

(4) earn my attention by delivering something of personal value (entertaining and something I care about).

If we develop and produce content that fits this bill, there will be no need to have another branded content nuclear winter.  Instead, our business with the brands will grow, develop, evolve and prosper.  The seedlings are all here, right now.  Creatives have a better understanding of how to pick and choose content that is customized for a given brand.  Brands are rightfully demanding to be involved early on.  Creatives’ fear that brands will “ruin” the content is not proving to be rational.  It behooves the brands to have their say while letting the producers produce (ahh, if only televison were like that).  All of this means that our ability to work with brands on more than just the on-the-nose, fact-based product content is here and, hopefully, here to stay.

Consumers are more willing to embrace longer form web series covering every genre.  New narrative series, including our —here comes the shamless plug—–”Operation Midnight Climax”, a dramatic series about a true-life black ops, mind control CIA experiment, are getting a lot of attention.  “In the Motherhood” and “Haute and Bothered”, for example, have been seen millions of times.  Perhaps we aren’t far away from brands thinking of shows like this, as a go-to branding device as opposed to an experiment?

What happens next depends upon both sides of the equation.  Brands need to step up, spend on digital content, stop retreating to the more traditional media, and deliver quality content to the consumer “on their terms”.  We producers need to do our part to make sure brands and consumers have a positive experience so that we don’t have to wait another 6 or 7 years to have at it again. If we all stick to the rules of engagement outlined above, I think we might just turn this into a business.

One of the key components of our company’s branding mantra is the need for personal engagement through authentic messaging.  Our formula always stresses (1) specific and personal = loyal and (2) keep it real.  In other words, no brand is going to earn consumer attention and loyalty without delivering something of real value (content) that can get past what we like to call the extremely sensitive BS meter that exists in today’s marketplace.  In a recent post, Diane Verde Nieto (CEO of Clownfish, London) takes this point to an even more granular level that we should all take to heart.  It’s not just about “getting past” the BS meter.  It’s about doing so because your brand genuinely lives and breathes your brand message.  Diane points out that corporate social responsibility (“CSR”) efforts, in which brands incorporate their corporate causes into brand messaging, are a key route to building a loyal relationship with the target audience.

So, so true.  A great CSR effort can make a major difference in the eyes of the audience and the returned favor of loyalty.  But like all things, it has to be done correctly, which as the author points out, mean honestly.  In this market where the consumer wants and demand it all on their terms, honesty is paramount.  All brand content has to be authentic.  CSR driven content must be even more.

I was recently discussing with some colleagues the need for brands to do what Diane suggests, walk the walk at the core of their business.  That means, don’t just take on a cause and promote your “stuff” with it via window dressing.  Rather, prove to your audience that you are for real by making your CSR effort internal and sincere and not just for the public’s eyes only.  This means that from the ground up in the company, the CSR must be a 24/7 subtext of the business.  Employees, management, hell, even outside vendors have to live it.  Be this genuine and your content effort will do a lot more than get past the BS meter.  You will be believed, trusted—and remembered.

If good brand storytelling is about hitting emotional touchstones, I can’t think of a more emotional campaign than matching up brand CSR and the things that your target audience genuinely cares about.  Per the post, women do need soap—but they choose Dove because the brand (via their self-esteem, female oriented content efforts) literally cares about all of the other things that women care about in their daily lives.  Dove passes the sniff test because, in fact, they care….inside and out.

The opposite.  Look at some of the failures where brands have disingenously jumped on the healthy or green wagons.  When a brand’s message is no more than profit driven “fashion”, they can smell the rat. We won’t be fooled or green washed.

There are lots of “green” organizations for example.  But which of them deserve and earn our trust?  The ones you can believe because they have proven credibility.  Case in point?  We recently did a video celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Friends of the Earth.  It was a labor of love and we know the content is going to help this Godfather of environmental activism because they are, demonstrably, the unrelenting, uncompromising organization that was there before anyone would listen and is still in the thick of battle now that we know we’re killing the planet.  Our company (hence my vendor argument) lives this way.  It was a creative and passionate marriage that we hope continues for a long time.

It’s tough out there.  In a prior post we talked about the new “Simplifiers” who don’t want to be sold “stuff”, but rather, offered personal, important experiences.  So how does a brand differentiate itself and earn the attention it needs to prosper?  Don’t “sell”.  Present something people need / want  and place it organically in the context of the bigger picture.  Connect with the things in our every day lives that matter.  Do so honestly and with integrity.  It’s human nature.  Common cause, common experience equals community.  I don’t want to emotionally connect with soap, but I might with the soap community that cares.

As a guy who still likes to touch paper, I fear she is correct.  The more I think about it, however, the more I am starting to realize that my fears are unwarranted.  The key fear that I share, apparently, with many others is that we will be reduced to taking our news from the uninitiated, ill-informed, biased sources that are the Mongol hordes besieging the traditional news media.  This is, in reality, unlikely to happen as it ignores all human experience, human taste and behavior and the lessons we have already learned from other periodic assaults on the media status quo.

Yes, there is a LOT of drivel out there.  That said, has the print and broadcast news world been devoid of its respective share of the same?  I have two thoughts.  First, people vote with their eyeballs and ears.  Second, we forget that there is market segmentation when it comes to content demand.  As the digital world evolves, why would those fundamentals of human behavior change?  The platform is really going to alter who we are, what we want, and when we want it in such a drastic way?  Really?

My first point goes to the quality fear.  Why do we assume that quality won’t rise to the top?  Why do we assume that the experienced professionals we hold dear won’t adapt, move on to other platforms and figure out a way to evolve their business?  The entire content space, right now, is a bit of a wheat field and, of course, we are still trying to figure out a new system of sifting the wheat from the chaff.  But that does not mean that we are eons away from new models that allow intelligent choice and the development of a pecking order when it comes to digital media sources.  There is a Murrow out there–and I am betting more than just one.

Secondly, it is not like the public has en masse, always turned their attention to the in depth, detailed reporting that most say they will miss. The market has always been segmented into the New York Times Crowd, the USA Today Crowd, The Star crowd and all of the nuanced mini markets in between.  There is no doubt that the dust will settle and the audience will self-select similar segments to which they will throw their support.  For those who want “journalism”, there will be journalists and quality content.  For those who like the brightly colored pictures and care little about fact checking and objectivity,  there will be plenty to go around.

When a guy like me (a paper toucher) finds himself checking news online, on my phone, etc. then you know times are a changin’.  As in all things, I think the news delivery / quality issue will find a new equilibrium.  Everyone will get what they want—only now there will be no more waiting for the paper to be tossed under the lawn sprinkler on Sunday morning.  I think we will all be ok with that.

Just when I thought the wonders of the information age were being used for the power of good, the negative side of the free flow of information rears its ugly head.  We just came off of an election in which the power of niche marketing, personal messaging and a powerful brand message in the form of President Obama gave new meaning to grass roots politics in the digital age.  Of course the honeymoon can only last so long.  Rush Limbaugh’s recent rant about wishing for Obama’s failure has flown around every platform.  Great that the madness can be exposed so rapidly.  Not so great that the divisive message that got us into the current mess is out there for the huddled right wing masses to rally round.

Limbaugh literally said that he hoped for OUR President’s failure.

He defended himself at a recent right wing cabal utilizing an analogy that makes even his normal, hate-filled, myopic musings look like a reasonable part of the public discourse.  Somehow, he thinks wishing ill on his President is akin to his rooting for the failure of the Arizona Cardinals in the recent Super Bowl (he’s apparently a Steelers fan).  Really Rush?  Is it really the same?

Let’s see.  All that was at stake in the Super Bowl, was the fate of a team sport, the momentary dreams of some die-hard fans and a shiny trophy.  Hoping that the President fails, especially in this current crisis, is just a tad different.  Really Rush?  You actually want the economy to continue on the GDP killing path that President Bush and your right wing cronies started, nurtured, and created as a little gift to all of America?  So, foreclosures, the collapse of the markets, the highest unemployment in decades and most American families struggling to keep food on the table rises to the same level as the possibility of a Pittsburgh Steelers defeat?

When Rush defended his statements at his recent speech, the crowd of lemmings jumped out of their seats.  I guess they had forgotten that this kind of speech and creed is what is making most of them worse off than they could ever have imagined in their lifetime.

Not only is the statement and his usual bluster offensive, but arguably, it is, at best, a mild form of digital treason.  No Rush, none of us wanted “Bush to fail” and certainly none of us “wanted the war in Iraq to fail”.  On the contrary, we actually love our country and realized that the mess that was the Bush Administration was a very high stakes game that cost us $1,000,000,000.  And there is that small matter of over 4,000 brave Americans who lost their lives.

The populace spoke loud and clear in November of 2008.  The President is doing what he thinks is right in an attempt to clean up the massive mess that Rush, and his right wing minions, are conveniently forgetting was built on the GOP watch.  These are serious times that call for serious discussion and serious answers from serious leaders.  That leaves no room for the seriously disturbed, Oxycontin-addled bluster from the king of family values who has managed to rack up more wives and divorces than even some of the Hollywood commies he hates so much.

The great thing about the web is that at least Rush’s garbage spew is out there in the open.  Sorry, Rush.  Your way lost.  There is a new Sheriff in town and a new sense of community and common purpose that even your drooling hate mongering can’t stop.  You should be praying and hoping and crossing every part of your body so that President Obama gets us out of this mess, ends the bloodshed overseas and restores America to its rightful moral high ground around the world.  If you can’t do so because you are an American, do so for yourself. Think of it this way, if the economy comes around, you will have more money to pay off the current Mrs. Limbaugh when even she grows tired and repulsed by your drivel.

I hope that the rest of us step up and use the web to expose this kind of nonsense for the anti-American bile that it really is.  Rush, take a look in the mirror.  Look familiar?  That’s the bloated face of the unpatriotic.

The GOP leadership can try to call this entertainment and Rush just “being Rush”.   That’s just a dangerous and very telling dodge of the fact that this is, in fact, the guy who speaks for the party.  Any wonder why America woke up, spoke out and elected Obama?