TV ads 'still have a future'

The death of the 30-second television advert has been greatly exaggerated, according to a report showing that TV viewers using ad-avoidance technology still boast impressive levels of advertising awareness.
And there are several ways advertisers can minimise the threat from advert-avoiding personal video recorders (PVR), the report, from the media-buying agency Starcom, found.

TV viewers with a PVR such as Sky+ saw 30% fewer adverts than viewers with Sky digital TV, the report found, but their awareness of advertising fell by just half that level.

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

Paid product placement surges in magazines, newspapers, other media

Product placement has become the cause celebre on Madison Avenue, transforming the TV advertising marketplace. But a new report shows it is a much bigger deal that has influenced virtually all forms of media, even supposedly sacrosanct print outlets such as newspapers and magazines where paid placements are that fastest growing segment of the business.

Although highly controversial, the total value of product placements in magazines is on pace to grow 17.5 percent in 2005 to $160.9 million, and product placements in newspapers is projected to rise 16.9 percent to $65.0 million, estimates Stamford, CT-based PQ Media, one of the most respected researchers tracking the economics of media.

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

In-store TV audience figures 'inflated'

A leading member of the fledgling in-store television industry has warned that audience figures are being inflated, giving the business a "wild west reputation".

Britain's biggest supermarket, Tesco, promised advertisers audiences the "size of Coronation Street" when it launched in March 2003, but it has struggled to convince advertisers of audience sizes since. Now David Williams, the chief executive of Avanti Screenmedia, which supplies televisions in shopping malls, bars and gyms around Britain, has warned that figures are being inflated.

"Crucially, we sell researched impacts [the number of times an advert is seen] not gross customers per week, and we hope that the rest of the industry will soon follow," he said. "The most important thing that the industry can do is to report audience in terms of commercial impacts not in terms of gross footfall.

"Until they do that, our little emerging industry is going to suffer from a wild west reputation."

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

Advertisers are starting to find television a turn-off

This is the Age of McKinsey, the US consultancy thatsays what gets measured gets managed. The latest evidence comes from the world of advertising.

The world's biggest advertisers are terrified that television commercials are losing their punch and are searching for alternatives - on the internet, outdoors, in stores and even by creating entertainment content themselves.

Read the article: www.ft.com

Blogs, podcasts and camera phones fill the airwaves

Ofcom yesterday heralded a new era for the media industry as technology begins to allow the creation of content from home or from the scene of major news events.

Ed Richards, the regulator's senior partner in competition and strategy, said a phenomenon was emerging as consumers created their own television schedules, music compilations or news footage.

Mr Richards added that the increase in use of iPods and personal video recorders, which allow viewers to skip through TV ads, was tipping the balance of power in favour of consumers.

"What's going on ... is a gradual transfer of power from broadcaster, distributor and supplier, to viewer, listener and consumer."

Speaking afterwards, Mr Richards said that user-generated and distributed content, such as internet blogging or radio broadcasts created through "podcasting", was a very important part of the "overall liberation" of media consumers.

"The self-creation of content and the self-distribution of that content ... is a really important and significant long-term development which we have hardly scratched the surface of," he said.

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

Product placements infiltrate TV shows

They get flush turning TV shows into promotions -- and all you get are these lousy product placements. Beware: Television more and more is shill-o-vision, where commercial breaks still come and go but the commercials never end.

Commercials for Sears products, which outfit ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." For Coke, with logo-inscribed glasses nursed by Simon and his comrades on Fox's "American Idol." For Clairol, when a contest to be "Herbal Essences Girl" pitted two pals against each other on an episode of the WB sitcom "What I Like About You."

And this is only the start. Foiling ad-aversive TiVo users, TV honchos burn with gold-rush fever as they stake out a zap-proof advertising gold mine: the programming itself.

Hear CBS boss Leslie Moonves as quoted last month in Broadcasting & Cable magazine: "We're making more and more of those deals: The kind of cars they drive in 'CSI'; the kind of orange juice they drink in 'Two and a Half Men.'"

In 2004, the value of television product placements (a product or brand name inserted for marketing purposes into entertainment fare) increased by 46.4 percent over the year before, to $1.88 billion, according to the research firm PQ Media.

Read the article: www.newsday.com

Why product placement does not equal brand building

Here’s a chaos scenario for you: What if the advertising industry spends billions of dollars to build an elaborate infrastructure of new-media technology to chase down the elusive consumer, and suddenly the consumer isn’t so elusive anymore?

What, if after all that gearing up, consumers resume their more traditional ways of receiving ad messages and the new technology lies in an unused heap like Global Crossing’s excess capacity?

There are signs that this possibility isn’t so far-fetched. The ad industry is counting on product placement in movies, TV shows, electronic games and mobile phones to be its salvation, but the ugly thought is beginning to seep into people’s brains that one reason box-office receipts for movies, and most recently DVD sales, are off is because movies are increasingly one gigantic product placement. Consumers object to paying for entertainment when they’re being sold stuff as part of the deal.

Dreamworks, for instance, gave investors a nasty surprise last week when DVD sales of Shrek 2 were way off projections. Movie moguls are beginning to fear that they have to bring out DVDs much closer to a film’s release to stimulate both movie and DVD sales.

If consumers aren’t going to the movies as often, and they’re not buying DVDs with the same fervor, how are they spending their newfound extra time? There’s evidence that the new wide-screen and plasma TV sets, not to mention high definition, are sparking a resurgence in good old-fashioned TV viewing. The kind of programming they’re returning to, by the way, is not reality shows -- the genre that is the most blatant with product placement.

Read the article: www.adage.com

Nissan ad gets free ride on 24 DVD

Its pioneering 24-part TV commercial pushed the "advert as entertainment" boundary, and now carmaker Nissan has scored a coup by getting the multi-part advert included on a DVD - for free.

The "original drama" advert, which told the story of a man withdrawing $65,000 from his bank account and featured four Nissan cars, launched this year in Britain, and was shown in one-minute parts during each episode of US drama 24 on Sky.

It attracted so much interest on internet bulletin boards and web hits that distributor 20th Century Fox decided to include it as an extra on its boxed set of 24 being released next month - at no cost to the carmaker.

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

Food makers aim to curb ads using online games to target kids

The food industry's main lobbying group will present recommendations today to curb food advertising aimed at children, but already critics say the group is missing the point.

The Grocery Manufacturers Association wants to crack down on the practice of "advergaming," or advertising within online games and interactive Web sites and to add resources to the industry-funded Children's Advertising Review Unit of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, which polices kid-targeted advertising.

But critics say the proposals, to be presented at a Federal Trade Commission meeting on childhood obesity, barely touch the larger issue, which is the lack of nutrition standards for food marketing to kids.

"You can't separate out nutrition and responsible food marketing," said Margo Wootan, director of nutrition policy for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Read the article: www.suntimes.com

Podcasting goes from indie to mainstream overnight

Mainstream media companies are starting to dominate podcasts — topping in popularity the quirky independents that created the trendy online radio genre. Podcasts from ESPN, CNN, ABC News and the TV show Queer Eye are among the most popular this week on iTunes, Apple's download site.

That's a huge change. Until recently, podcasts were largely pirate-radio-style broadcasts, often produced by one person on a home PC. Now, podcasts are anchored by such staid celebrities as Rush Limbaugh and Ted Koppel.

Podcasting "went from underground to mainstream overnight," says Ted Schadler, digital media analyst at Forrester Research.

Customers signed up for more than a million free podcast subscriptions in just two days when iTunes started featuring them last month. That includes independent podcasts, such as The Dawn and Drew Show. But the soaring popularity of mainstream podcasts on iTunes may make it tough for indies to find an audience — and profitability.

"Apple and the mainstream media are making a monumental mistake," says Richard Bluestein, who podcasts on YeastRadio.com. They're "repackaging the same boring, heartless and anti-human garbage" instead of focusing on alternative programs, he says.

Podcasting began appearing last year, when its pioneers figured out that talk radio programs could be downloaded with a click of a mouse, just like digital music files. Podcasting gets its name from Apple's iPod digital music player.

Read the article: www.usatoday.com

Internet advergaming: The new mantra to deliver brand message

With traditional media spaces like television and print getting increasingly cluttered, brand owners are facing a constant struggle to find ways to get their brand message noticed, understood and then acted upon by consumers. Their search for a clutter-free environment is making them turn to the Internet, and ‘advergaming’ is the latest online property that enables brands to wrap core brand messages in a gaming format.

Though the business of Internet advergaming is still small in India, pegged at Rs 2 crore per annum, the concept is fast emerging with more and more brands opting for it. But the potential of this medium is obvious when one considers that worldwide, Net advergaming is already a Rs 1,000-crore business.

It is all about creating awareness and encouraging user interactivity with the brand that is pushing marketers to this medium. Said Ravinder Zutshi, Deputy MD, Samsung Electronics India, “We are increasingly looking at the online media as a tool for directly reaching out to our target user groups for products like mobiles, note PCs and MP3 players. The interactive format of the medium not only creates interest but encourages active participation.”

Instead of a ‘push’ medium, advergaming is more of a ‘pull’ medium where consumers opt to learn about the brand by playing a game. It is a fun, non-interruptive technique, played at the consumer’s leisure. Rohit Bhandari, Director, AXN South Asia, felt that interactive creative solutions have tremendous opportunity, and AXN is “looking at integrating new age media into our overall plans”.

Read the article: www.exchange4media.com

Sony Branded Entertainment Series "Pimp My Weapon"

Heavy.com, the world's leading broadband network with more than 5 million unique viewers monthly, today announced that "Pimp My Weapon," a branded entertainment series that Heavy created in conjunction with Sony, has streamed more than 5.5 million episodes, resulting in 45 million consumer impressions.

Conceived and produced by Heavy.com to promote Sony's hit videogame title, God of War, Pimp My Weapon (PMW) is available exclusively at Heavy.com for both streams and PSP-casts. Heavy was first to market with downloadable video entertainment including PMW for Sony's hit multi-media player, the Sony PlayStation Portable. Because of the breakaway success of the first three episodes, Heavy will release additional episodes of PMW beginning in July.

Pimp My Weapon is the first example of machinima as branded entertainment. Machinima (short for machine animation) is the convergence of filmmaking, animation and game development—where the game controller is used to manipulate the characters on screen and a new soundtrack is dubbed in. The success of Pimp My Weapon marks the first time that a studio-endorsed machinima has reached a broadcast-scale audience through cable or broadband.

Read the article: www.gamesindustry.biz

'I'm drinkin' it - they payin' me for it'

When McDonald's recently announced that it would spend the summer of 2006 paying hip-hop artists $5 each time they mentioned a Big Mac, the idea came in for widespread derision. Product placement in song lyrics seemed to many to be breaking some kind of taboo. In fact, it has been a regular feature of the US marketing scene for almost 20 years and is now creeping across the pond to find a home in the revenue streams of UK rappers and DJs.

"It costs a lot of money to put a record out these days," says Mervyn Lin, vice-president of marketing at Sony BMG UK, Lemar's record label. "When Sony and BMG merged in February, we set up a Futures division to explore ways for working with partners on shouldering those costs. Brands like the idea. We're looking at working with, say, mobile phone companies like 3 to help with the costs of videos or recording sessions in exchange for exclusive tracks or alternate endings."

In the past, these deals have tended to sidestep record labels, usually being done between the brand and the act or the act's management. The recent master of the strategy is the spirit Hypnotiq - a blend of vodka, fruit and cognac that launched in the US in 2001 and in the UK last year. Hypnotiq started from scratch in New York, sold into off-licences personally by the brand's founders Raphael Yakoby and Nick Storm. Storm had previously worked in the music industry and he started getting bottles to the urban music community, where it began featuring in videos.

By 2005, the brand had been either name checked in or appeared in the video for 26 different tracks, including three by R Kelly, two by Missy Elliott, one by Lil' Kim and one by Usher. Memphis Bleek and Jay-Z even went so far as to record a track called Hypnotic. The drink went from selling 10,000 cases in 2001/2 to 700,000 cases in 2003/4 without spending a penny on TV or magazine advertising.

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

Where's the iTunes for movies?

Jonathan Marlow has spent much of the last two years trying to persuade filmmakers to put their most valuable products on the Net. On some days, the task feels a little like pulling teeth.

Marlow, a cinematographer and Amazon.com alumnus, is director of content acquisition at Greencine, a small San Francisco-based Netflix rival that is increasingly offering online access to films alongside its rent-by-mail business.

Read the entire article: www.zdnet.com

BitTorrent may be next target for copyright cops

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. content companies are riding high this week after their courtroom victory over illicit file-sharing networks, and the popular BitTorrent software may be next in their crosshairs.

BitTorrent, created by programmer Barm Cohen, is a file-sharing program that distributes large files quickly by breaking them into many pieces, sharing the pieces among a large number of users, and reassembling them upon delivery.

Read the article: www.washingtonpost.com

Slingbox could spark new lawsuits

Days after the Supreme Court weighed in on digital copyright infringement issues in the MGM v. Grokster case, select consumer electronics chains began stocking a product some predict could spark the entertainment industry's next showdown over intellectual property rights.

New to the shelves of Best Buy and CompUSA this month is Slingbox, a brick-sized device that enables viewers to route the live television signal coming into their homes to a portable device anywhere on the globe via broadband connection. Slingbox costs $250 and has no subsequent subscription fee; several stores sold out on the first day.

Created by San Mateo, Calif.-based company Sling Media, Slingbox is the most prominent example of a handful of new ventures trying to repeat what TiVo achieved through time-shifting with technology capable of what loosely is referred to as place-shifting. Leading place-shifting firms even have drawn interest from cable operators interested in potential partnerships.

"I'll bet there will be a Supreme Court ruling sometime in the next decade specifically addressing this issue: Does the consumer have the right to place-shift as they do time-shift their content?" said Ted Shelton, chief operating officer of Orb Networks, a competitor to Sling Media that offers its own place-shifting software online free of charge.

Place-shifting is problematic to many copyright holders because it sidesteps what is known in legalese as proximity control, which restricts the distribution of content to specific regions and times. It's a standard contractual stipulation for the MPAA, whose member studios license distribution rights to movies for distinct territories; the NFL, which considers geographic limits the linchpin of lucrative television deals, including its Sunday Ticket pact with DirecTV; and local television stations, which pony up millions of dollars for exclusive territorial rights to all kinds of programming.

Read the article: www.hollywoodreporter.com

'The Matrix Revolutions' Surfaces On Google Video

GOOGLE SEARCHERS LOOKING FOR FREE video Thursday morning may have found a bit more then they were hoping for--video streams of copyrighted material including the entirety of the final installation of the Matrix trilogy, "Revolutions," and episodes from the comedy cartoon series "Simpsons" and "The Family Guy."

Read the article: www.mediapost.com

Swedes curb rampant downloading

Sweden has outlawed the downloading of copyrighted movies, games and music in an attempt to curb rampant piracy.
About 10% of Swedes freely swap music, games and films on their computers, one of the highest rates in the world.

With no law banning file-sharing, Sweden had become a hotbed of piracy where films, music and software were readily swapped. But experts believe the law will change little and that Swedes will remain rampant downloaders.

Prior to the law coming into force, Sweden was the only European nation that let people download copyrighted material for personal use. As a result many Swedes, thanks also to the available of cheap high-speed net access, were committed downloaders. It is estimated that about 900,000 Swedes regularly downloaded movies, games and music.

Read the article: www.news.bbc.co.uk