 The Future of Television
The 30-second TV spot still rocks. Like rock-music legends the Rolling Stones, it’s been around since the comparatively dinosaur era of mid-last century.
And like Mick Jagger and his aging cohorts, whose recordings have been available from vinyl to digital downloads, the 30-second commercial has moved with the technological times. It has survived fast-changing epochs of free-to-air TV, cable and satellite networks. But as Bob Dylan, a Stones contemporary, sang, “The Times They are a-Changin’ ” and the Internet technology is transforming the way TV is consumed and exploited commercially.
In its March 2008 global forecasts report, ZenithOptimedia predicts that while traditional TV advertising will grow 27% to $205 billion by 2010, Internet advertising will jump 132% to $67 billion during the same period.
“Once again, we have substantially increased our forecasts for Internet advertising,” says ZenithOptimedia . “Online video and local search are generating substantial new revenues; in the longer term, we expect behavioral targeting on social-networking sites to provide fruitful new opportunities to advertisers.”
Media owners, marketers and agencies are seeking a share of the opportunities coming from the new generation of TV services like U.S.-originated Hulu and Veoh, Netherlands-originated Joost, Italy-originated Babelgum, plus even more recent newcomers such as Zattoo, Miro, and U.K.-based BT Vision.
Traditional media giants like News Corp. and NBC Universal are backing Hulu; CBS is a Joost investor; and former Disney boss Michael Eisner is part of Veoh. BT Vision’s programs can be accessed via Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video-games console. Even U.K. state broadcaster BBC has joined forces with commercial rivals ITV and Channel 4 to unveil the Kangaroo project, an ad-funded TV venture using the BBC’s iPlayer technology, later this year.
Before launching last fall, Joost could boast 30-plus blue-chip advertisers, including HP and Procter & Gamble.
Using a combination of the browsers, file-sharing technology, digital-player software like Adobe’s Flash Player, broadband connection and a secure environment to prevent piracy, most of these Internet-delivered services can bring high-quality TV entertainment or user-generated content to your PC or laptop.
Linked to a set-top box, the Internet can also carry the same programming, ads and the Internet's interactive capabilities to today's 42-inch flat-screen plasma/LCD TV sets. For Jean-Paul Colaco, Hulu’s senior vice president of advertising, the future is about consumer involvement. “TV has been a very passive experience; you sit back and use your remote control. In the case of the Internet, it’s about user engagement, and we want to capitalize on that.”
Hulu recently launched its Ad Selector format. This enables consumers to select which ads they want to see. And its Movie Selector allows advertisers to sell or sponsor a two-minute trailer so that the viewer can watch a whole movie commercial-free. “Advertisers want to lead consumers into the digital space and to make it more effective and relevant for their customers. Broadcast TV still has the widest reach. But technology and the pace of innovation will continue to accelerate in the online space and drive the future,” Colaco adds.
Another Internet-driven innovation is from Sling Media, a subsidiary of satellite-TV operation EchoStar Holding Corp. It’s Slingbox, SlingPlayer, SlingCatcher, and Clip+Sling technologies literally enable viewers to watch and navigate their domestic TV viewing, including commercials, on TV or online in any other location in the house or another country. “The potential for addressability and relevance is greater because the advertiser knows the consumer chose to be in that environment,” says Stuart Collingwood, Sling Media’s vice president of EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). “It also means we’re creating more inventories for the advertiser.”
Google, the search-engine giant, is another technology provider contributing to the changing TV landscape.
In May, CNN International (CNNI) adapted the video-enabled Google Gadget to permit users to watch the network on their personalized iGoogle home page. Moreover, the Google Gadget allows access to CNNI on YouTube, the Google-owned video-sharing network.
Google’s AdWords, a service that allows advertisers to place online classified ads next to the most relevant text, has now been extended to put TV spots next to the most appropriate programming. Currently available in the U.S., following trials with satellite-delivered Dish Network, it is expected to be in the U.K. via the News Corp.’s BSkyB.
Social-media services like Facebook, News Corp.-owned MySpace, and Bebo (recently acquired for $850 million by Time Warner's AOL), could also revolutionize the TV experience. For example, its 'Open Media' technology enables broadcasters to transfer content and ads on to Bebo and hence reach its 42 million subscribers.
That kind of scope, plus social media's community-like environment, has enabled Bebo to break ground by commissioning professionally produced ad-supported TV drama. With bite-sized episodes of up to four minutes each, the TV programs ‘KateModern,’ and ‘Sofia’s Diary’ have created new openings for brand owners.
In a tie-up with U.K. chocolate maker Cadbury, KateModern’s script featured a scene centered on the Cadbury Crème Egg. The Unilever-supported Sofia's Diary can now be seen on Fiver, the U.K. digital-TV broadcaster, the first time an online-produced drama has transferred to TV. Now Bebo has an agreement with Endemol, the TV production giant responsible for the 'Big Brother' series, to co-produce The Gap Year, a global reality-TV series.
“Social media network is a new cultural phenomenon,” says Sarah Gavin, Bebo’s global communications director. “These shows are constantly creating opportunities for the audience to be part of the experience… be it allowing the audience to vote on who from the supporting cast should become a new lead character, or helping to solve clues online.” For advertisers, she continues, +++brands get the ability to distribute their content where audiences are congregating online.”
Tim Smith, EMEA research manager at Universal McCann, believes social media’s impact on TV should not be underestimated: “As more and more people spend time online, social media will have a wider effect on the time spent on TV.”
In Universal McCann’s recent Social Media Tracker research, covering 17,000 respondents in 29 countries worldwide, 83% said they watch video clips online, up from 62% in June 2007; and 57% belong to social-media networks.
“In markets, where (traditional) media is less developed or more controlled, such as Asian markets like China, social media has been adopted with great enthusiasm,” he explains. And the developments of widgets, the piece of technology that allows consumers to gather all their favorite online content on their personalized Web site or social-networking page, means TV content will follow the viewer, instead of the other way round.
As technology fragments mass-TV audiences, industry experts believe advertisers will need to work harder to reach TV fanatics.
For example, IPTV is enabling Asian markets to gain greater access to international TV programming. U.K.-based Granada International (GI) recently sold a slate of High-Definition programs and Hollywood movies, including ‘Bugsy Malone,’ to IPTV services like Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom. But GI says it is relying on subscription, rather than advertising, for payment.
“We have similar deals in South Korea, and despite most of these services already having about 500,000 (paying) customers, revenues are from subscriptions only,” says James Ross, GI's Hong Kong-based regional director.
TBWA\Hong Kong has produced viral TV commercials distributed via online platforms like YouTube and other Asian Web sites, for clients like Levis, and Standard Chartered Bank. Forward looking, however, Ian Thubron, executive vice president, TBWA\Asia Pacific, agrees that “IPTV is still in its infancy. But mobile TV is growing quickly and is beginning to be more widely used.” Korea and Japan have some of the world’s most developed mobile-TV businesses. Indeed, U.K.-based telecoms analysis firm Juniper Research predicts that, globally, the still evolving mobile-TV broadcasting will bring in more than $2.5 billion in ad cash by 2013. The future still holds even more exciting but still unexplored opportunities for advertisers. Schematic, the U.S.-based interactive media agency, is testing brand-messaging on TV platforms that include one where the viewer navigates programs and channels by merely waving the hands. With all these new developments, Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman of OgilvyOne and The Ogilvy Group, London, sees more opportunities for advertisers. “Advertisers consider fragmentation a problem; consumers consider it as a choice. But as it becomes more fragmented, what you lose in mass reach, you trade off by reducing wastage. The hours spent watching TV is not in decline; advertising will fund content as long as it is of interest to the targeted audience.”
GO TO: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] |
