MTV2 episodes don't have commercials but do pitch Lee jeans

Here is a riddle from the brave new world of branded entertainment: When is a TV program that is billed as commercial-free not commercial-free? When a six-minute sponsored segment is part of the show.

That is what viewers of "Control Freak" on the MTV2 cable network will see when they watch three of its episodes, scheduled to appear at 11:30 p.m. Eastern time this Sunday and on Nov. 14 and Nov. 28. About two-thirds of the way through each seemingly commercial-free episode, the sponsored segment will appear, courtesy of the Lee Dungarees brand of jeans, sold by a division of the VF Corporation.

The segments, titled "Buddy Lee, Guidance Counselor," feature the venerable Lee Dungarees brand character - a doll named Buddy Lee - dispensing droll advice to high schoolers about potential careers like trapeze artist, ventriloquist and acting in steamy, Spanish-language "telenovela" soap operas. Viewers will be able to vote for one of three endings for each segment on a Web site, just as during the regular segments of "Control Freak" they can vote for one of three music video clips to be shown.


Read the article: www.nytimes.com

MTV2 episodes don't have commercials but do pitch Lee jeans

Here is a riddle from the brave new world of branded entertainment: When is a TV program that is billed as commercial-free not commercial-free? When a six-minute sponsored segment is part of the show.

That is what viewers of "Control Freak" on the MTV2 cable network will see when they watch three of its episodes, scheduled to appear at 11:30 p.m. Eastern time this Sunday and on Nov. 14 and Nov. 28. About two-thirds of the way through each seemingly commercial-free episode, the sponsored segment will appear, courtesy of the Lee Dungarees brand of jeans, sold by a division of the VF Corporation.

The segments, titled "Buddy Lee, Guidance Counselor," feature the venerable Lee Dungarees brand character - a doll named Buddy Lee - dispensing droll advice to high schoolers about potential careers like trapeze artist, ventriloquist and acting in steamy, Spanish-language "telenovela" soap operas. Viewers will be able to vote for one of three endings for each segment on a Web site, just as during the regular segments of "Control Freak" they can vote for one of three music video clips to be shown.


Read the article: www.nytimes.com

Loyalty cards idea for TV addicts

Viewers could soon be rewarded for watching TV as loyalty cards come to a screen near you. Any household hooked up to Sky could soon be using smartcards in conjunction with their set-top boxes.

Broadcasters such as Sky and ITV could offer viewers loyalty points in return for watching a particular channel or programme. Sky will activate a spare slot on set-top boxes in January, marketing magazine New Media Age reported.

Sky set-top boxes have two slots. One is for the viewer's decryption card, while the other has been dormant until now.

Loyalty cards have become a common addition to most wallets, as High Street brands rush to keep customers with a series of incentives offered by store cards.

Now similar schemes look set to enter the highly competitive world of multi-channel TV. Viewers who stay loyal to a particular TV channel could be rewarded by free TV content or freebies from retail partners.

Broadcasters aiming content at children could offer smartcards which gives membership to exclusive content and clubs.

Read the article: www.bbc.co.uk

Prospect of magazine product placement raises little legal concern

If advertisers and publishers were able to agree on a version of product placement in magazines, there would be little argument from the legal world.

Magazines already cross this line frequently in the form of advertorials, said advertising and marketing legal expert Doug Wood of Reed Smith Hall Dickler.

"I don't think it is a legal issue," Wood said. "The print medium has to decide what they want."

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

Video Games: The Next Ad Medium?

Video games aren't just for kids anymore. Faced with decreasing returns from traditional media, marketers increasingly look at video game ad and product placements.

The Yankee Group, in a report titled "Marketers Look to Video Games to Drive Their Messages Home," forecast the nascent market for in-video game ads and advergaming will be worth $260 million by 2008, up from a scant $79 million in 2003. In-video game ads are essentially product placement inside a video game, while advergames are branded entertainment -- the game is the ad.

Video Game Advertising Growth Forecasts

Year In-Game Advertising Revenue Growth
2003 69.0%
2004 83.6%
2005 113.7%
2006 153.3%
2007 203.5%
2008 259.9%
Source: Yankee Group

Year Advergaming Revenue Growth
2003 10.0%
2004 11.5%
2005 17.2%
2006 30.1%
2007 52.8%
2008 92.4%
Source: Yankee Group

Market dynamics for the video game industry as a whole are also very strong, and offer marketers an attractive demographic. The video game industry is expected to grow from $7.4 billion in 2003 to over $8.3 billion by 2008. The ranks of 108 million US gamers 13 years and older will swell to over 126 million by 2008. (See Chart at bottom of column)

According to Michael Goodman, Yankee media and entertainment analyst, "The two main challenges for video game marketing are measurability and timeliness." Goodman explained initiatives are underway by a number of companies to provide real-time ad insertion in games, which will help the market take off.

Read the article: www.clickz.com

Gurus fast-forward DVRs: see passive TV viewing, changes in ad placements

Even with digital video recorders (DVRs) becoming more commonplace, TV viewing will continue to remain a passive act with advertisers poised to reach viewers through more innovative ways, said panelists speaking at the Advertising Research Foundation's conference in Manhattan on Thursday.

Currently, 40 million American households have digital TV through satellite and cable subscriptions, and that has changed the media landscape drastically, said Jen Soch, a vice president and associate media director at Publicis Groupe's MediaVest unit. "Time shifting," a DVR feature that gives viewers the ability to watch a program any time they want, will have a particularly strong impact.

"In the future, [commercial] pods will be gone, as advertising will be sold in blocks," Soch said at the conference, which was held at the New York Marriott Financial Center. "TV will come to resemble a magazine, where consumers no longer just 'watch' TV, but 'consume' TV through the choices of programming that they will decide to make."

As this happens, Soch explained, the "video anywhere" concept will force a different set of metrics to the forefront, as ratings will no longer be able to account for time shifting and greater audience fragmentation.

As to how viewers will relate to DVRs, Artie Bulgrin, senior vice president for research sales and development at ESPN, and Rachel Mueller-Lust, vice president for sales research at ABC Television Network, criticized current research for relying too much on "early adopters" and for being too "TiVo-centric."

The two conducted an ethnographic study from February to August 2004, in which 157 homes were given DVRs. Of those households, 67 returned the DVRs, finding either a bad experience with installation or that the cost was too high.

In terms of the homes that stuck with the DVRs, roughly half said they didn't watch more TV, but that they did watch more efficiently--but that doesn't mean they skipped through commercials, merely that they were able to watch desired shows according to their busy schedules. For example, some would watch shows on weekends, and others, later at night, Bulgrin said.

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

Global Branded Entertainment – America takes it's place

The Branded Content Marketing Association (BCMA) today announced that
it is establishing an American board to steer its activities in the
world’s most important entertainment market. The BCMA is the global
network of advertisers, agencies and entertainment producers
influencing the growth of the branded content industry around the
world.

Branded entertainment, where advertisers create or distribute
entertainment to communicate with their consumers, is increasingly
popular with advertisers struggling with traditional advertising
techniques in a fragmented media world.

The BCMA  was launched in London in 2003; now with a presence in
Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and America, it is connecting
global advertisers with the best of the world’s entertainment talent.

 With members from the world’s largest communication groups - WPP,
Omnicom and Interpublic – and leading advertisers including IBM,
Mastercard and Bacardi, the BCMA provides a forum for advertisers,
entertainment creators and distributors, agencies and regulators to
shape the future of branded entertainment.

A delegation from the BCMA UK including Mike Falconer head of Omnicom’s
UK content division, BCMA’s General Secretary Alison Knight, Cocojambo
CEO Claes Loberg and BCMA Chairman Mark Boyd of BBH will be in America
in November meeting with Hollywood studios, the TV networks, major
games publishers, advertisers and their agencies to find agreement for
who should sit on the board of the BCMA (USA).

As a founding member of BCMA UK, BCMA Australia and founder of Branded
Entertainment specialist Cocojambo, Claes has played a leading role in
the development of the branded entertainment industry in recent years:
“The entertainment industry is on a precipice, the interruption based
advertising industry is rolling downhill – branded entertainment is the
route back to the summit.”

Mark Boyd, Head of Content at BBH, the creative agency leading
inititives in branded content and Chairman of the BCMA (UK), said
“The media we consume and the model that used to subsidise it so well
is changing.  Brands are finding techology and changing consumer
behavior make consumers harder to interupt.  Digital technology will
continue to empower viewers, listeners and readers and make it harder
for brands to reach them.  Where we look for increasingly heighted
experiences, brand need to deliver on that.  We are learning to engage
consumers through branded content rather than shout at them for the
periphery"

Trouble ahead for ITV, says top bank

ITV has been on the end of a double blow after Merrill Lynch forecasted a gloomy scenario for the future of the broadcaster’s advertising revenues.
Two reports by the stock broker suggested that ITV would be hit by a short-term fall in impacts – the number of people who see an advert – and a long term threat from the rise of the personal video recorder.

Merrill Lynch announced it had downgraded its verdict on ITV shares – no longer recommending them as a buy and rerating them under the term neutral – as it claims that flagship channel ITV1 will end the year more than 5% down in its share of impacts, despite a fight back in the ratings since September.

Under the terms of the contract rights renewal process, this would entitle agencies to move more than £100m out of ITV and into other broadcasters.

In a separate report, entitled The Rise of the Machines , Merrill Lynch claims ITV will be the worst hit of all European broadcasters by the anticipated take up of the PVR, because of the aggressive push by BSkyB behind its machine, Sky+.
Although Merrill Lynch claims the impact will not be truly felt for a couple of years, the reports predict PVRs will wipe out 25% of advertising in homes that take up the technology – which are predicted to amount to 2.5 million among Sky subscribers alone by 2010.

Read the article: www.mediaweek.co.uk

Product placement moves to cartoons

O joke. A new cartoon series on Comedy Central will incorporate the names and products of sponsors into the animated action.

The first episode of the series, an adult cartoon called "Shorties Watchin' Shorties," is scheduled for next Thursday night on the Comedy Central cable network, which is owned by Viacom. Viewers will see animated product placements, ranging from subtle to blatant, in three of the seven 30-minute episodes, for three advertisers: Domino's Pizza, Red Bull energy drink and Vans sneakers.

A fourth advertiser, Activision, will not have its video games placed in the episodes, but will use the characters - two babies who behave like the rambunctious young adults at whom the shows are aimed - to introduce commercials for a video game featuring the skateboarder Tony Hawk.

Comedy Central and the advertisers decline to discuss the financial terms other than to describe the arrangment as a sort of bonus - added value, in industry parlance - for agreeing to buy a certain amount of commercials on a variety of shows on the network. Such packages can run into seven figures.

Read the article: www.nytimes.com

Nielsen, Activision announce in-game ad test

Nielsen Entertainment and Activision, a leading maker of video games, announced Monday the details of an upcoming test, which will be used to develop standardized tools to measure audiences for in-game advertising.

In addition, the two companies, which partnered in April in order to develop ratings for in-game advertising, announced results of a new study among 500 Men 13 to 34, that examined the power of incorporating brand name products within the video game experience.


“I expect the Activision/Nielsen Entertainment partnership will be a milestone in media history books; the chapter on how video games became a dominant force in our culture and a magnet for advertising dollars,” said Andy Wing, CEO of Nieslen Entertainment, owned by Mediaweek parent VNU, in announcing the new alliance.

The test will be be conducted in late 2004 to early 2005 among a representative sample of active video game households and will measure consumer interaction with The Chrysler Group’s Jeep brand, which is integrated with Activision’s newly-released video game, Tony Hawk’s Underground 2.

To track how long and how often players are exposed to the Jeep brand, Nielsen will employ a watermarking technology that places an inaudible code around the Jeep brand to identify when players are exposed to it within the game. Nielsen Entertainment will also conduct pre- and post-test surveys with the sample respondents to understand their perceptions of in-game advertising and how it effects brand awareness and recall.

According to the results of the study conducted between March 19 and April, the more an ad is integrated within the video game, the greater a gamer’s ability to recall the ad; 87 percent of participants remembered seeing a highly-integrated brand more frequently than other less-integrated brands.

The ad also has the potential to increase the gamer’s interest in buying the product at a level comparable to a TV ad. About 40 percent said that the in-game ads made them more inclined to buy the advertised product.

Nearly three in 10 said that advertising in video games was more memorable than traditional TV advertising.

Read the article: www.mediaweek.com

Advertisers to get the world’s first guide to ‘in-game advertising‘ opportunities

On the 1st December advertisers and agencies will finally have a single destination where they can view and review forthcoming video games. In-game advertising has grown strongly in the past two years, but the lack of transparency of forthcoming games has limited the number of advertisers using this exciting medium.

A world first, ‘The Cocojambo Guide’ is being published online and in print, and distributed to subscribers at major advertisers and agencies around the world. Supported by major games publishers and developers, and with Asian recipients including Coca Cola, Dell, American Express and Dentsu, OMD and George Patterson, The Cocojambo Guide will provide the games industry with the exposure it deserves.

Michael Wood, a director of Cocojambo, said “For a couple of years now, advertisers have been asking us for an overview of the available opportunities in games, and it just has not existed. The Cocojambo Guide will enable advertisers, and their agencies, to find the games that work for them; allowing new brands to discover the games industry.”

For further information, or to subscribe please contact 'cj-guide@cocojambo.com'

Technological eruption is imminent, warns Currie

The chairman of media regulator Ofcom has likened the technological challenges faced by traditional broadcasters to "standing about the equivalent of one mile from Mount St Helen" and warned them that when it blows "it will be too late to run".

Lord Currie said that broadcasters were not taking the seismic changes in technology provoked by the emergence of digital television, personal video recorders, broadband and on-demand viewing seriously enough.

"The rapid growth of first multi-channel, then digital, then PVRs and soon higher-speed broadband are simply the pre-tremors of the real volcanic eruption that technology is about to unleash," he said in his Royal Television Society Fleming Memorial Lecture last night.

"At the risk of being over dramatic I would say that most traditional television broadcasters are today standing about the equivalent of one mile from Mount St Helen. When it blows, frankly, that will be too close and it will be too late to run," he warned.

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

Videogames with an agenda

VIDEOGAMES WITH AN AGENDA @ THE CURZON SOHO, OCTOBER 16-NOVEMBER 7

The current growth of videogames is turning them into one of the defining media genres of the new century. However, unlike film or even television, videogames grew up under the late capitalism, when marketing was already very developed. This may in part explain why many of the commercial videogames that are available today are quite conservative and do not aim to do much more than entertain us (thankfully, there are some exceptions, such as Sim City, The Sims or Grand Theft Auto 3).

However, there is a long tradition of using games for other purposes outside entertainment. Educators have been using games for centuries to model systems. The military has used them as training tools. One of the most popular board games of the 20th century, Monopoly, was based on an original game (The Landlord’s Game) created in 1904 by a Quaker woman who was opposed to a certain form of land taxation. Artists such as Augusto Boal (The Theater of the Oppressed) have also brilliantly combined drama with games in order to create little laboratories where players explore social and political issues.

Find out more: www.thecorporation.com

Gaming helps traders score big-time

Video game skills and a good poker face online are becoming essential job qualifications in the financial markets, with recruitment drives assessing potential star traders in online gaming exams.

At Geneva Trading, based in Chicago, they train up students to make money out of anything from Brent crude to precious metals and pork bellies.

But as the company's president, Mary McDonnell told the BBC Go Digital programme, they are looking for recruits with a new generation of job skills. And part of their assessment process involves studying an applicant in a video game exercise.

"It is unlikely that we would hire someone who didn't show good proficiency at a GameBoy or online poker or similar video-type game where hand-to-eye coordination is important" she said.

Read the article: www.bbc.co.uk

Agency's solution to TiVo

What costs 20 percent to 30 percent of the price of a 30-second TV commercial, is at least two-thirds as effective, and best of all, may prove relatively zap-proof to digital video recorders? The answer, says David Sklaver, president of East Coast operations at KSL Media, is a 10-second TV spot that represents a new opportunity for advertisers. It also represents a new business opportunity for KSL, one of the largest independent media buying shops, which has launched a new division that also makes it a seller of media time.

The new division, called TV10s, has been formed as a sales rep for the burgeoning market of 10-second ad units that have been created for sponsors of closed captioning of TV programs. Because the units appear "in-program" and before the regular commercial breaks begin, Sklaver says they are less likely to be zapped by DVR users--something he believes may make them even more valuable than conventional TV commercials, although they cost a fraction of the price.

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

Yachts, bunkers and videotape: it's the sales bearpit of the TV industry

The Mipcom trade fair sits at the business end of the television industry - buying, selling and making programmes.

One of the most radical contributions came from Maurice Levy, the chairman and chief executive of Publicis, owner of the Leo Burnett advertising agency and media buying group Zenith-Optimedia. He warned that advertising and programming will have to change as personal video recorders and broadband make the old 30-second ad break increasingly redundant. Advertiser-funded shows and product placement are tightly regulated in Britain, and there is some pressure to lift restrictions. It is not a new debate but the call from advertisers to have a closer involvement in programming as ad slots lose their impact is becoming louder. In the future, advertising executives could be roaming with the sales teams, buyers and producers on the dealing floor.

"[Broadcasters and advertising groups] have worked very closely but with a certain distance until now. The media, most of the time, has kept advertising agencies at a certain distance because of the influence the advertising money can have on the content. We have to work more closely together while at the same time being respectful to the viewers and the content."

Read the article: www.media.guardian.co.uk

Simulcast

People are online while they watch TV.

Over two years ago, comScore Media Metrix reported half of all Internet users have a TV and computer in the same room, and most use them simultaneously. That was then. Now, with over half of all U.S. Web users on home broadband, coupled with very rapid adoption of home Wi-Fi networks, channel and Web surfing are becoming inextricably entwined.

No fewer than 31 percent of Web users were online during this year's Oscar telecast. Super Bowl advertiser sites saw dizzying traffic spikes; in Cialis.com's case, nearly 1,900 percent above average.

Sal Taylor, Yahoo Branded Entertainment senior product manager, told me "ice cream" was the third most-searched term on Yahoo the evening of a call to action on "The Apprentice." The Ciao, Bella-brand flavor in question sold out nationally. "My team and I didn't even get any," Taylor only half laments.

Read the article: www.clickz.com

'Re-discovered' oven chips film gets TV airing

A long-forgotten short film to mark the launch of oven chips 25 years ago will finally get a nationwide airing this weekend. Food manufacturer McCain made the film in 1979 when the chips, then an innovation, first went on sale.

The film featured former Blue Peter presenter Valerie Singleton speculating about what the future may hold. It was only designed to be screened internally to staff at McCain as a way to mark the launch and never received a wider audience.

But while preparing to celebrate the 25th anniversary of oven chips, the company was reminded of its existence. It launched an appeal in the local newspaper in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, where the product is made, for anyone who had a copy of the film buried away.

Their wishes came true when a former employee at the McCain plant in the town came forward. The three-and-a-half minute film has been digitally remastered and will be shown in its entirety during the commercial break of Coronation Street on Sunday.

Read the article: www.scotsman.com

Burton and Mandalay join forces to take snowboarding to new entertainment heights

Fueled by unparalleled passion for their respective industries, Jake Burton and Peter
Guber have set the standard for quality and creativity in snowboarding and
entertainment. Through a partnership announced today, those passions will
merge as Burton's namesake company and Guber's Mandalay Entertainment join
forces to create and distribute snowboarding themed entertainment properties
for all media platforms.

Though not the first effort to continue action sports matriculation into
the mainstream through entertainment, the partnership may represent the most
powerful. Burton is by far the most recognized and leading brand in
snowboarding equipment, apparel and events, as well as in its sponsorship of a
team of the world's most renowned professional snowboarders. Mandalay has
achieved critical and commercial success in film, television, branded
entertainment, sports franchise ownership and operation and new media by
focusing on the core components of storytelling and entertaining the audience.

"Throughout my career in entertainment and more recently through our
sports franchise ownership, I've realized that these two fields inspire more
passion among audiences of consumers than any others combined," said Guber.
"The storytelling opportunities available through snowboarding and the action
sports culture are limitless, and we're excited to work with Jake and his team
in bringing an original look at snowboarding and the lifestyle of those at
both the professional and grassroots levels to big screens, television screens
and much more."

Read the article: www.prnewswire.com

Asia's first branded entertainment company challenges conventional branded communications

OCTTANE, Asia’s first Branded Entertainment company, officially launched today, offering a unique new communications vehicle that is set to challenge the entire concept of conventional branded communications

The brainchild of former Batey Singapore CEO, Nick Marrett and Lesley Campbell, former SVP Marketing, Discovery Networks Asia-Pacific, OCTTANE combines brand strategy, marketing, media expertise and content production with the purpose of engaging the audience in a fresh, new, entertaining way.

“This is not product placement or brand sponsorship. It is more fundamental. It involves the creation of an entertainment experience – for Film, TV or the Web – from the ground up based squarely on the values and philosophies of the client’s Brand. It’s as simple as creating a Brand asset in the form of entertainment which might involve, for example, producing a TV series conceived specifically as a vehicle for a commercial message. The entertainment is genuine and the brand is a natural but integral part of the story,” said Marrett, Chairman and CEO of OCTTANE.

In the United States and Europe, trends reveal that reaching an audience with a 30-second TV commercial is becoming more difficult in an increasingly cluttered media environment. Technology is also playing its part with more than a third of TV viewers regularly using a PC while watching television and, according to Forrester research, by 2007 personal video recorders (PVRs) and video on demand (VOD) – which allow you to record programming and skip through ads – will reach half of all American households. These trends are expected to be felt across Asia at a similar pace and timeframe.

Read the article: www.emediawire.com

More imagination needed to make ad-funded shows work

The industry needs to rethink the way that TV is traded, while production companies must change the way they work with advertisers and broadcasters to make advertiser-funded programming work, delegates at this year’s Edinburgh TV Festival were told.

Agency and broadcaster heads attending the festival urged production companies to include advertisers in programming conversations from the outset and to stop bombarding marketing directors with poor ideas.

Advertiser-funded programming – often just called AFP – is still expected to be huge by the broadcasting fraternity, despite the fact that the industry has been discussing and exploring the concept for a number of years with few actual examples to show for it.

“We’ve got a media spend that needs to work a lot harder,” Stewart Mison, managing director of marketing agency Octogan, told delegates. He warned that, unless TV started to deliver better value for advertisers, brands will move elsewhere.

US broadcaster Discovery Networks, which makes $3bn in revenue annually, expects a third of that to come from AFP over the next five years, according to third-party speakers at the “How to Get Cash from Advertisers” session.

Read the article: www.mediaweek.co.uk

ITV pushes for regulatory change

ITV is pushing for regulatory change to allow for product placement during programmes in the form of on-screen logos, Broadcast reports today.

Speaking at the RTS Conference, Network CEO Charles Allen said that the measure would be a possible solution to the threat from personal video recorders (PVRs), which allow viewers to fast-forward through ad breaks.

Under such proposals, for example, the Cadbury's logo could be "embedded" in Coronation Street throughout the show. Product placement is currently banned in the UK.

"This regulatory change will take years because it’s through Brussels and not Ofcom, but we’ve already started working on it," said Allen.

He added that one other answer to the PVR threat would be to schedule more live programming that viewers don't usually record.

Read the article: www.productplacement.biz