Un-wired for sound

This week’s Digital Britain interim report outlined the commitment to digital access to everyone, quality content available to all and a digitally literate population. Great news for UK consumers. For me though the most interesting reading in the report was the Government’s recognition that there are a number of ways to deliver digital access, wired, or indeed wireless.

Action 6 of the report has 5 elements which are in summary: 

•  Allow mobile operators to re-use their radio spectrum to start the move to next generation mobile services
•  Make more radio spectrum available for next generation mobile services
• Make the 3G licences indefinite for mobile operators encouraging more investment
• Let mobile operators share spectrum so they can increase coverage
• Recognise mobile operators can contribute to universal coverage by pushing out mobile broadband

Digital Britain...kindly brought to you by advertising

Communications and Technology Minister, Stephen Carter, today finally published his eagerly awaited Digital Britain interim report.  The ‘talk’ and speculation in the run-up to publication had been about the BBC and public service broadcasting/publishing and ‘broadband for all’.  Would the Government suggest a collaboration between the commercial BBC Worldwide and cash-strapped Channel 4? (it does but doesn’t rule out other options) and will there be high-level commitments for broadband access? (there are). Despite criticism from opposition political parties that the 2Mbs universal broadband commitment is weak, it is a significant move.  It is also welcome that the report suggests unleashing mobile operators from spectrum licence agreements encouraging them to do their bit in delivering this commitment.  This could enable us to access content and services wherever, however and whenever.  The Government hasn’t ruled out giving public money to help this universal broadband commitment either.  The final report is due in the summer, but this interim document states the importance of online advertising to the UK digital economy: “Britain has the highest proportion of internet advertising than any developed economy”.  However it does seem to question its value to the digital economy and funding creative content.  Among the 22 recommendations within the 86-page interim report is an action to “examine measures needed to address the challenges for digital content, including opportunities for providing further support to foster UK creative ambition and alternative funding mechanisms to advertising revenues”. Online will soon be the largest advertising medium in the UK.  It pays for free content and services: from search engines to social networks.  It’s no surprise that the Government believes that a “successful Britain is a digital Britain”, playing a vital role in dragging the economy out of recession.  However, given this and our world-beating position in online advertising, it seems slightly bizarre that it remains to be convinced as to whether advertising is the right model for the digital age.  Nevertheless, the point of an interim report is for discussion and debate.  Clearly there’s plenty of this to do.

Online video advertising is on the precipice

Last year the IAB established a Video Council, consisting of publishers, agencies and providers, chaired by Rob Black at UTarget.Fox. This group is working full steam ahead to produce a new online video resource and printed publication to educate marketers on the best ways to use advertising in and around online video content. This resource will include an update to our guideline standard released last year. With over 35 senior representatives from different companies taking part, it’s involving a lot of coordination but is very quickly bearing fruit.  

18 months ago the IAB produced a handbook for video and in that time, the market has changed dramatically. Already it is abundantly obvious how mature the video industry has become, fuelled by the flood of people in the UK now watching video online of an increasingly better quality. Suddenly, advertising around video content is more than a little appealing, it is incredibly appealing.  

As pressure mounts from the likes of Ofcom to increase the speed of broadband across the UK, video is only going to become a better and more integral part of our lives and business. In a time of recession, when advertiser money really counts, the smart marketers are already looking to online video for its branding, impact and interactivity potential. If the ordinary people on the street (i.e. consumers) intend to save money too, I believe they will be more likely to spend time accessing free content offered by online video. "Shall we go to the cinema tonight for a tenner or, for free, watch the last few episodes of Lost on our laptops with a few ads?"

Right now, search and display take the lion’s share of online ad revenues. In a year or two’s time, could we see a third contender vying for a large share of the market? Yes. If there’s one developing area of online advertising to keep an eye on, this is it. Social media and mobile are, equally, websites and devices that people spend a large percentage of their time using. While marketers look to widgets and other, innovative and effective forms of advertising, could it be video that is the primary way to penetrate these hives of consumer activity? One clear trend on both social networks and mobiles is the sharing or viewing of video clips among friends. 

We’re aiming for a release in March for our updated video guide, which I’d highly recommend keeping an eye out for. In 2009, I think we’re all going to need it!

The real lessons of Obama

For months now, the marketing press has been over-run with articles by industry experts telling us what brands can learn from how Barack Obama embraced digital media to help win the US election race. At conferences too, speakers have been queuing up to tell us how Obama’s team used Facebook, MySpace and Twitter for instance in a way that brands would do well to try and emulate.

But we’ve heard very little from the people actually involved in the campaign. Until this weekend that is…

Speaking at the first Progressive London Conference – organised by former London mayor Ken Livingstone's new Progressive London organisation – Seth Reznik outlined how his company helped to mobilise the American people using digital technologies in a way never seen before in political campaigning - and in so doing, helped to generate over $500m from 3.2 million donors.

Reznik is director of client services at Blue State Digital (BSD), the Washington DC-based Internet strategy and technology firm described by Business Week back in June 2008 as “Obama’s secret weapon” and more recently as “the geeks behind Obama’s web strategy”

At Saturday’s conference Reznik was sharing a platform with Sir Robert Worcester, founder of IPSOS Mori, who opened the discussion by arguing that the election of a “black, liberal intellectual” went against the usual three strikes and you’re out rule of American politics.  “This was an amazing internet election,” said Worcester. “And boy did Obama’s team use it”.

Picking up the mantle, Reznik went on to explain that BSD had worked with Obama “from day one” – as he continued to stress, this was a hard fought victory “that didn’t happen overnight.” Indeed, when BSD took the job it was by no means inevitable that Obama would be the Democrat nominee – at that point most people expected Hilary Clinton would be running against McCain.

Reznik argued that right from the start of the campaign, the key was “building personal engagement”. As an example of this he explained that once someone signed up to the Obama campaign they received a phone call straight away. “It was about creating a two-way dialogue,” said Reznik. This two-way dialogue is something that should not be alien to most marketers with a well developed digital strategy. Neither should some of the other techniques outlined by Reznik.

Social networking for example was crucial. The figures are remarkable - BSD mobilised over 2 million social networking participants to post 400,000 blog entries and promote more than 200,000 events nationwide. However, for Reznik, BSD wasn’t doing anything new - they were simply doing it well: “The key was taking technology like social networking and putting those tools in the hands of ordinary people in a way that wasn’t intimidating. It wasn’t a new idea – it was down to the application.”

Email too was crucial. Over the course of the campaign, the Obama team communicated directly with 10.3 million people, sending 1.2 billion emails and tailoring over 7,000 individual email messages. “With email, the results are instant,” said Resnik. “The most important metric was the unsubscribes. This told us what we had done wrong.” Email success was not just down to volume however. “We used simple, short, action-orientated messages,” said Reznik. As a result, emails from the Obama team had an average word count of 250 words, were very direct and always included a call to action. A useful model for any brand.

Indeed, there were clear lessons for brands to learn throughout Resnik’s presentation. In conclusion he argued that contrary to what the cynics may say, the digital techniques deployed in the election campaign can have a universal application. “This type of messaging works,” he argued.  “You don’t have to be Barack Obama”.

For Reznik though there is still work to be done. “We have not reached the limits of the technology,” he argued, stating that the key developments in the future will be in making the technology more open. “It’s not about the physical machinations of the technology – it’s about getting people engaged – and making it easy for them to get involved”. 

Since the victory, much has changed for BSD. According to Reznik, he has had companies asking “how can you make us the Obama of this and the Obama of that”. For the US of course there is a new broom sweeping through Washington. Obama has been swift to take action over Guantanemo – and to reign in the activities of lobbyists. But there is more going on too. In what is being seen as the rise of a new digital democracy, the all conquering Democrats are being portrayed as enlightened technocrats brushing aside the Luddite Republicans.

This all bodes well for a forward thinking, open Presidency. All brands would do well to keep watching and learning.

For further reading, prior to Saturday’s event Reznik posted this analysis of the differences in the way the web is used for political campaigning in the UK and the US. You can also read more about BSD’s work with the Obama campaign in the case studies section of their website.

It’s Obama Day – let’s give some money to the Labour Party!

OK so there’s a credit crunch on. And yes the Labour Party is skint. So it’s time for the fundraising department to get creative. But really, there is a limit isn’t there?

The party today sent out an email to members with the subject line: “Be part of this moment”.

No surprise then that it kicked off with the line: “Today is an historic day for the United States of America - the inauguration of Barack Obama. It is another step in a movement of progressive change, both here as in America.”

What came next though was something of a surprise: “A movement like this is only ever possible with the support of the many over the interests of the few. For instance, you may have heard that most of Obama's donors were ordinary people giving whatever they could afford as early as possible - helping increase the impact of their donations. By giving whatever you can afford right now you will immediately help us in this year's elections.”

Yes it’s true to say that millions of ordinary American citizens were so inspired by the promise of an Obama presidency that they decided to dig deep into their own pockets in unprecedented numbers. But they did so because they were being presented with the opportunity to positively affect change and contribute to a fundamental shift in an entire nation’s mindset.

Can donating to the Labour party to ensure funding for a local by-election really aspire to such lofty ambitions?

The email goes on to say: “In America, almost 70 million ordinary people have been inspired by a belief - a belief at the core of the Labour Party - that we should try to be the change that we want to see in the world.”

Yes I can see the point. But, ultimately Labour’s email comes off sounding opportunistic and just a little bit desperate - not traits normally associated with Obama.

Are we all talking gaga?

“Lady Gaga? Never heard of her” my mum said on the phone. Ten minutes later and I had an email from her entitled “Lady Gaga”, with the message “I searched for her website. I like her sound.”

Over the weekend my mum began planning the first search campaign for her new holiday home business, Holiday Home Yorkshire. This isn’t overly surprising because both of my parents have owned and sold a number of businesses over the years with marketing around them. Even so, I remember the video recorder, surely neither of them understand technology… or do they? If there’s one thing my parents know how to do on their computers it’s to search and find websites, and search marketing is just one simple step up.

It’s this level of simplicity some other forms of digital marketing are yet to achieve. Email and search have pretty much got it nailed. Using email is universally the same - same layouts; same fields; same way of contacting people – and email marketing is a matter of planning, knowing the audience and the right creative. The technology never stands in the way and it’s the same with search. Display is getting better, yet it’s certainly not as simple and emerging mediums like online video and mobile suffer the same problem.

Interestingly, the BBC has an article on its site today about the complications people have with their mobile handsets. Matthew Bancrof from consultants Mformation is quoted as saying “Industry work on standards for basic handset operations could help the situation”. I’ve mentioned this subject before in posts, but if Matthew had swapped “could” with “will” in the last sentence, he would be bang on. The technology industry is doing itself no favours with non-collaboration. I can understand why competitors ‘think’ it’s a good idea to outcompete each other through advances in technology, but the core offering needs to be the same to be understandable and usable by everyone. Reading user manuals is not fun.

"Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age"

Citizen journalism? Leave it to the footballers

Recession? What recession? Many have speculated over the last few days that the world of football has lost all touch with reality. With the impending transfer of Brazilian star Kaka and the crazy salary figures being quoted it certainly seems that the beautiful game and real life are not likely to be re-acquainted any time soon.

However, a recent example of football’s willingness to embrace the world of fantasy says as much about the role of user generated content as it does about our nation’s favourite sport. Over the last few days an elaborate hoax to create an entirely fictional hot young talent has been exposed, with an unidentified blogger – or group of bloggers – managing to make fools of such reliable sources of information as The Times, When Saturday Comes and goal.com into the bargain.

The story begins when a blogger began posting a number of stories about 16 year-old Moldovan protégé Masal Bugduv. Wikipedia was targeted and temporarily posted the news that “the great hope of Moldovan football is the teenage sensation Masal Bugduv who has been watched by a host of top clubs around Europe. At just 16 years of age, he has already been named in the country's provisional squad for the forthcoming World Cup campaign.”

As internet rumours gathered pace, a Times journalist was duped into including the fictitious footballer at number 30 in the paper’s list of fledgling superstars, stating: “Moldova’s finest, the 16-year-old attacker has been strongly linked with a move to Arsenal, work permit permitting. And he’s been linked with plenty of other top clubs as well.”

Goal.com too bought the story, although they have since posted an apology for their report on the “phantom prodigy”, stating: “We received information from a fake Associated Press report, and we are sorry to pass this on. Still, unlike some publications we did not even begin to imply that we had watched him play - merely that he was in a provisional squad list and was attracting attention.” It all sounds like an episode out of Flat Earth News.

And so with all this falsehood around, where are we to turn for reliable journalism? Luckily help is at hand.

One footballer we can always rely on to keep touch with reality is Rio Ferdinand. In a somewhat unlikely move, the Manchester United defender has just been unveiled as the new face of digital media following the launch of his 24-page digital magazine – the inventively named Rio.

In the face of unreliable citizen journalists, Rio’s new (virtually) weighty tome - “that brings everything to life” - seems set to become a beacon of truth, a guiding light in a world of speculation and half truths. If Rio’s media track record is anything to go by we can at least be fairly sure it’ll be entertaining - let's hope it's at least as entertaining as Rio Ferdinand's World Cup Wind Ups - or the track he raps on, recently released on his own record label – definitely worth a listen.

Rio is stepping into troubled waters of course. These are not only difficult times for publishers, but this is not traditionally a sector that footballers have managed to excel in. Jamie Redknapp's vanity publishing vehicle Icon Magazine, for example isn’t faring too well. In March 2008 it was revealed in The Sun newspaper that the magazine had hit financial difficulties and was losing £85,000 a year. But then again that’s small change for the modern footballer isn’t it?

L…lo…loa…load…loadi…loadin…loading

With broadband now a norm, the humble loading bar - typically a %bar is now often consigned to a mere blip before your page fully loads.  So then the loading bar is dead or is it?

I for one have been a huge fan of the loading bar.  This may have something to do with the fact that I used to work with Flo Heiss of Dare.  He has such an unhealthy obsession that he even made a movie about it as a student.

This of course transpired into our daily work.  The loading bar for Axe Feather was, “I’m 67% yours”, “I’m 68% yours”, “I’m 69% yours” – you get the idea.  Sony Ericsson was a pencil drawn egg timer and Vodafone was a fluttering Mayfly.

Dare of course aren’t the only agency to love the loader.   Agency Republic’s Sack Boy, AKQA minimalist Boot camp and of course Poke’s Orange Unlimited.

I could even recognise an Agency.com loader after 15 Stellas, they’ve used the same one for their work since I can remember.

Just as the loading bar looks consigned to the “I’m so fast at loading you’ll never see me folder” Creative Circle have come to the rescue to celebrate the beauty of the loading bar in the form of an award.  Entries can be made at www.creativecircle.co.uk/entries and it only costs £50 – a credit crunch friendly fee.  I can only imagine that when the winner is announced the customary drum roll will be replaced by, of course – a giant loading bar.

PS:  If an agency does one of those Final Cut Pro show reels cut to a metal track of all the entries on the night – could I have a copy please?
 

2008: lovely jubbly, 2009: pump up the jam

Looking back, I have to say that 2008 was a pretty good year. We may have begun to slump into recession by the end of it, but overall we saw a large amount of growth throughout the year. More interestingly for me, we also saw a number of quite radical jumps in technology and software that open up the internet even further to make it easier to access and pass on information. So behold! Below is my personal list of the best things to have happened in digital in 2008 and following those, the things I hope will happen this year.

• High quality, long play streaming video really began to take off. Thank-you BBC, ITV and Channel 4 for your online gift!
• The iPhone proved its worth by introducing the world to a fully integrated portable device that’s easy enough for a 5 yr old to use (I know because I saw her doing it!) You’re probably sick of hearing about the iPhone, but people talk about it not just for the device, but for the plethora of activities available on it. The noun “iPhone” is equivalent to “PC” or “laptop” in my book. Other manufacturers have failed to match its impressive build and features, but they are getting close.
• Music became digital rights management free on Amazon and Play – about bloomin’ time! Apple finally followed suit in the first week of 2009. Now we can buy music online and put it on all of our devices, just like the good old days of erm… tape. Ahem.
• Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 kept the momentum and innovative software coming to deliver a truly awesome online gaming experience. Microsoft in particular has done a stellar job of tying all of their online social properties together with Live, from MSN messenger to Xbox. If you haven't joined the millions of people shooting each other on XBox Live on Gears of War 2 or Halo 3 while talking to each other through headsets and MSN messenger, you haven't lived (or died virtually).

• TV set top boxes must be released that stream the current online video channels (including a YouTube channel!) Some devices that let you do some of this and an excellent programme called Boxee already exist, but we need more that are easy to use and accessible to everyone.
• Nintendo Wii has the best controller for interaction with the TV screen and it’s now in 25% of UK homes. The controller is patented and won’t be replicated by anyone else soon, so the companies offering streaming video should work with Nintendo to deliver their channels through the Wii too. In Japan, Nintendo are about to launch a Wii TV channel which will no doubt reach us eventually, and the BBC are apparently already working on an iPlayer channel to accompany its Wii website. All of this can’t come soon enough.
• Video content providers must work together to offer even better methods of advertising around clips and programs.
• Social media providers must also work together to offer a more standardised approach to creating widgets and applications. Creating an application for Facebook is fab, but it would be better if it would also work immediately on iGoogle, MySpace etc. I was thrilled to read that many of the social networks are now allowing users to share their login and profile data with other websites.
• Other mobile manufacturers must, must, must give the iPhone a run for its money. I'm one of the biggest iPhone lovers, but I want competition – don’t forget about that standardised approach across platforms though fellas!
• Rich and traditional banner adverts must increase in physical size to be more impactful now that most monitors have far more spare space when viewing websites. Download size should gradually become less of a problem with faster broadband. We all want the internet's branding power to continue to grow, and to do that size really does matter.
• DVD’s and CD’s need to be wiped OFF OF THE FACE OF THE EARTH. Amy tells me that Bill Gates said the same thing back at IAB Engage 2005 and if Bill says it will be so... Environment, reduction in production and consumer cost, ease of purchase; downloads are better on every level and if you disagree, you are wrong.
• Likewise for computer games, this year I'd like to see significant steps made to allow us to download all new games to our consoles. We can download old games on them and PC's can download new games - now let's do away with the physical products altogether.
• Lots of companies are offering new methods of measuring campaigns and you must have heard the ‘last click wins’ mallarky, everyone’s banging on about it. Someone has to link all of these tools together to offer advertisers the ultimate reporting package. Unfortunately or fortunately for the IAB, this will most probably fall to us.

I have a lot of wants this year. However, on the internet, actually, everything is easy. It’s the people that make it hard. So let’s come to agreements, work through the legal stuff and get this medium moving.

What's in store for online advertising regulation in 2009?

Let's hear it for the meerkats!

Aside from the fact that the meerkat is by far my favourite animal, few campaigns have impressed me more in recent months than the latest for comparethemarket.com.  Often in digital we're quick to champion innovation, those campaigns that really push the creative boundaries and blow our minds with state-of-the art technology and applications that even the geekiest of internet users take a while to get to grips with.   This is great, of course, but whilst such creativity and execution is essential to the development of our medium, such campaigns are still few and far between and often marketers just won't have the budgets to make this happen, time and time again.

 

In my mind what we also need to celebrate to a greater extent is the solid, well thought-out, highly engaging and fully integrated cross-media activity that should now be typical of this new(ish) media landscape.  The 'compare the meerkat' campaign, which is actually TV-led but has online elements, has it all. And what makes it even better is that it's for an insurance brand where inspiring ideas can be few and far between, with many often opting for the trusty old 'click here for great deals' because that's what internet marketing used to be all about. 

 

The IAB/Thinkbox research of last year proved that using TV and online together can greatly improve the success of your marketing activity, and execution-wise, this campaign is a great example of that in practice.  If you haven't seen the TV ad (created by VCCP), a very brief synopsis is that a meerkat called Aleksandr, founder of comparethemeerkat.com, has been inundated with requests for car insurance quotes.  He then points you in the direction of comparethemarket.com where you can access this very information!  "Simples!" he says... But not only do they have an adorable and pretty entertaining TV ad, they're also on the ball with their search activity - Google 'meerkat' to see the proof, and it's interesting to see that confused.com are already trying to get a piece of the action... They've also produced a fully functioning microsite to complement the TV creative, as well as launching Aleksandr on YouTube, Twitter (slightly bandwagon-esque but still cute!) and Facebook, where he already has over 1000 friends - one of which, I'm ashamed to say, is me. 

 

Whilst this campaign may not win any awards, and it may not be the success of the century, I think sometimes it's nice to celebrate the work that's actually just really quite good!  So even though the creative and levels of production may not be up there with Sony Bravia, the campaign does what the majority of clients crave, which is achieving fantastic cut-through.  It's not just the outstanding, award-winning stuff we should be shouting about, but the consistent work that both traditional and digital creatives are putting out there that gives advertising a good name, not just with judges, but with the public, too.

Facebook vs The Queen

According to the latest research, social networking is not only changing the face of traditional media, it is changing the very nature of Christmas – and may ultimately spell the end for the monarchy.

Figures from Hitwise show that one in every 22 website visits made on Christmas Day went to Facebook - making the site second only to Google in terms of overall traffic.

Impressive – but not earth shattering.

What’s perhaps more interesting is figures released by Plusnet which showed that Facebook use rocketed around 3pm – that hallowed hour when Her Majesty the Queen addresses her subjects. According to Neil Armstrong, Plusnet's products director, this proves “the web is changing the face of the traditional Christmas”.

For some time now the great British public has been looking for alternative ways to entertain themselves after the blow out of Christmas lunch. As a result, the traditional glass of port and mince pie enjoyed as generations of the family huddle round the TV to hear the Queen’s analysis of the year ahead, has long been under pressure.

Traditional media has thrown some options into the ring with alternative Christmas messages by the likes of Ali G and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Now however the Queen is fighting a battle against all kinds of media.

Back in the old days when King George V read the first Rudyard Kipling-scripted speech, the monarch was delivering a message to a captive audience who had very little choice in the media they consumed. Equally when the Queen gave her first televised address in 1957 there wasn’t much competition for eyeballs.

Admirably, the Royal Family has responded to growing competition by launching its own YouTube channel. However, figures show that when we have the choice we don’t seem to be too interested in what she has to say. This year's speech has just 9,454 views on YouTube. This compares to an alternative message soundtracked by The Sex Pistols's God Save the Queen which has so far scored 69,561 views.

Obviously this is not the right forum to discuss the role of the monarchy. But with a host of other options out there, The Queen’s subjects are choosing to filter her out of their Christmas entertainment. As with all bastions of the old guard, The Queen needs to think carefully about how to remain relevant and how she can effectively communicate her message to the modern world.