the7stars I Whats Hot I June 2013

The future of advertising

Anonymity chic

TV tracking looks towards VoD

The value of advertising: a view from Cannes

Aligning all screens

the7stars I Whats Hot I June 2013

The future of advertising

William Bernbach, one of the kingpins of American advertising in its heyday of the 1960, famously said, Advertising is fundamentally persuasion, and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art. As classic as this statement is, we are now in a different era one proliferated by smartphones, smart TVs and Google glasses. As technology rattles on at such an exponential speed, lets look at what science can now add to this art. Human nature dictates that few decisions are purely rational, and emotions play an important role in any consumers decision making process by guiding their attention, enhancing their memories and ultimately influencing their behaviour. Consumer research will always yield insight based on claimed feelings and opinions, but to really understand the subconscious responses that an ad stimulates, we can now turn to science for some answers. Biometrics , the study of measurable biological characteristics, is a field of neuroscience that enables researchers to assess physical responses, such as changes in heart rate and breathing, that are triggered by emotional reactions to a given stimulus. By incorporating biometrics into ad testing, advertisers can assess whether, when and for how long their ad has engaged emotionally with the viewer. Biometrics has now moved beyond research groups behind closed doors and has started to infiltrate the media landscape. Outdoor media owners have been using facial recognition and eye tracking technology for a while already. Recent research by outdoor specialist Kinetic using these methods found that a digital poster is twice as likely to be looked at than a static 6 sheet and also viewed for 60% longer. Some advertisers are now integrating this technology into their ads to enable them to deliver highly targeted messaging. Examples include Plan Internationals Because I Am A Girl campaign and Macmillans Not Alone campaign, both of which used gender recognition technology to determine what creative to show based on who was looking at the ad. The digital landscape is the media channel to have embraced the potential of biometrics the most. Earlier this month Be On, AOLs global branded content business, announced a partnership with Realeyes, an emotional testing platform to measures how people feel and react when they view their branded content videos. AOL will be tracking this by getting people to watch videos on their own PCs and tracking their responses via their webcams. Reassuringly, this is only possible with volunteers who have opted in, but still marks a futuristic shift in digital ad capabilities. Elsewhere, Apple, Samsung and Google have all patented various facial recognition and eye tracking technologies, including an intuitive gaze detection function, which aim to create more seamless interactions between consumers and their mobiles. Beyond online ads, biometrics is transitioning into the high street too. An app called Facedeals allows advertisers to track consumers offline as much as they do online. The company installs cameras at the entrance of brick-and-mortar retailer which scans customers' faces as they enter. If said customer opts into the app on Facebook and verifies his or her photograph, then Facedeals texts them exclusive deals available in store. As technology advances, its important to keep an eye on advertising because, more and more, it will be keeping an eye on you.

the7stars I Whats Hot I June 2013

Anonymity chic

Fashion designer Phoebe Philo recently proclaimed that, The chicest thing is when you dont exist on Google. Following revelations that a number of technology giants cooperated in Prism a top-secret system at the US National Security Agency that collects emails, documents, photos and other material for secret service agents to review, there have been heightened concerns regarding the security of personal information stored online (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and so forth). Has the time come for internet users across the globe to revert to a self-imposed state of integrity? It could be claimed that Prince pre-empted the trend for online anonymity by using a symbol instead of a name over two decades ago, rendering himself unsearchable. Over the past few years, the impetus has gradually become more widespread: recent examples include an album title spelt out with / and \ by British recording artist MIA, not to mention a New York-based band called !!! (known verbally as chick chick chick or bang bang bang). But are the masses of liquid moderns (a term coined by Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman) ready to forgo the sense of belonging provided by social media? Ask yourself this: would you be willing to surrender the security provided by online exhibitionism solely to be free of the virtual hothouse? The constant clamour for attention online leads some to dream of deleting their Facebook profile, cancelling their broadband package and relocating to the woods.. Nevertheless, whether users are ultimately willing to sacrifice their carefully constructed online sociability in order to regain a sense of private identity is very much an issue for debate. As Guardian technology columnist Stuart Jeffries points out, the current fight for individualism is at odds with our totalitarian vision of the internet Google can well be described as a construct of the 1930s, the eventual realisation of HG Wells world brain. Whilst previously the more overbearing your online presence ,the higher your status, current thinking has concluded that oversupply of yourself results in a reduced market value. Laughably, however, nobody yet seems to have addressed the fundamental philosophical paradox underlying Philos claim if to be chic is to be anonymous, how will anyone know whether or not youre chic? Absolute anonymity may thus be more accurately described as the unobtainable goal. So what does this trend mean for advertisers? Brands will inevitably be forced to employ smarter tactics to keep consumers interacting with them online to avoid a downturn in market penetration in social environments. Customisation is key, and personality must also prevail; effective targeting will become ever more important, and content must engage and therefore entice individuals to divulge their closely guarded personal details to the world wide web.

the7stars I Whats Hot I June 2013

TV tracking looks towards VoD

It has been announced again that for the first time ever BARB will be able to track VoD content, yet this time it would appear that the wheels are finally fully in motion. Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) has appointment Kantar Spring to collect census data for TV viewing through all services, including 4oD, BBC iPlayer, Demand 5, ITV Player and Sky Go. Though it has been in the pipeline for quite a while, from Autumn 2013, BARB will measure IP delivered TV services as well as over the air transmissions, which still represent the majority of television viewing in the UKs 26 million TV households. This is much welcomed news for TV buyers everywhere. Richard Brooke, BARB board member and Senior Communications and Buying Manager at Unilever UK and Ireland, is quoted as saying: This is a positive step forward towards measurement of this tremendously complex area. We are optimistic that blending census data with more comprehensive behaviour tracking in the BARB panel is the right way forward. Given the shift in viewing habits there has been a certain inevitability to this new means of measurement. VoD has become a standard inclusion in the majority of TV plans as a vital means of catching light TV viewers and increasing reach. The market also reflects this with this digital video advertising spends increasing by 46% in 2012, according to the latest digital ad spend report produced by PwC on behalf of the IAB. The technology to track the data has been made possible by the pledge of UK broadcasters to embed metadata tags into their programme content and these new sources of measurement will combine to produce a TV Player Report at the end of year. Further down the line other portable devices will also be included in such measurement. BARB are currently testing an app this Summer which should lead to a solution of measuring the BARB panellists viewing on a tablet and smartphone by the end of this year. This decision also reflects a necessary trend of combining online and TV measurement of media campaigns. This week it has been announced that Unilever and Mondelez are the first brand owners to measure multiscreen reach via a new Nielsen product (Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings) that claims to measure combined TV and online ad audiences. These new means of measurement will also tell us more about viewing habits and patterns ,rather than just total viewing volume across platforms. Ultimately this will lead to greater insight allowing for smarter planning and the delivery of richer broadcast campaigns. This will enable brands to reach their target audience while watching, regardless of viewing platform, with minimum wastage.

the7stars I Whats Hot I June 2013

The value of advertising: A view from Cannes

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half. Said about a century ago by US department store merchant, John Wanamaker, this famous quote is about as relevant today as it was back then. Despite this , every year for the last 60 years the sunny south of France hosts the world's biggest get-together of people interested in creative communications, all of whom gather in celebration of the 1 or so per cent best of the best ads that may (or may not) work. So the question is, is it worth it? As an independent media person stepping out onto la Croisette of Cannes, the first impression can only be that it certainly is. This year across the stretch, media owner after media owner had stepped up their presence, and the conference was jam packed with the global herds of creatives, producers, planners, corporates and, this year more than ever, celebrities too. But, ironically, it was also an occasion for some of the biggest challenges to advertisings value, made by some of the very people that have benefited from it, or succeeded without it. Music mogul P. Diddy in announcing his hew media launch Revolt TV proclaimed on stage, I hate watching TV commercials, just like everyone else. The truth will set you free, and I'm here to tell the truth. The founders of messaging app WhatsApp published a blog piece titled Why we dont sell Ads with acute timing also, proclaiming: We wanted to spend our time building a service people wanted to use because it worked and saved them money and made their lives better in a small way. We knew that we could charge people directly if we could do all those things. We knew we could do what most people aim to do every day: avoid ads. And Google didnt show us the driverless car, or let us wear their glasses, but they did make it known that they existed, and as yet had no interest in advertising or advertisers on those products. All this is true. However we must remember that advertising in its purest most relevant form is never considered advertising. Our recent Daft Punk Get Lucky 100 commercial recorded 21% more impacts that the ad break average it actually prompted people to rewind the ad and view it more than once. The reality is that this wasnt an advert; it was a relevant tasty piece of content, fed to an audience that wanted to see it. It was so not an advert that Clearcast made us stamp the words This is an advert right over the top of it, yet people still watched it. A lot. And here lies the challenge to advertising. Creativity has never been so ubiquitous, yet its acceptance, value and appreciation is almost entirely dictated by the audience, context and time in which its presented within. When advertising agencies think about the media, they win awards, but surely its time for media agencies to start thinking (and get more of a say on) the advert that will do the media justice. We can only agree with the celebrities, and those that gather to celebrate the 1% of advertising that works. However lets also raise a glass to the brands that think beyond the spot and aim to deliver 100% relevant communications, in whatever form that may be.

the7stars I Whats Hot I June 2013

Aligning all screens

When planning any TV campaign, dual screening has been a supplementary consideration for quite a while now. But in the fast paced world of modern technology, nothing stands still for too long. We felt it timely to have a quick update on how both the social media landscape and the wider industry are adapting to embrace this phenomena, and how dual-screening is now looking at much bigger screens too. Last month, Twitter unveiled a suite of new ad targeting tools that it claims will allow advertisers to enhance their TV campaigns and capitalise fully on the potential offered by dual-screening. Via a new TV ad dashboard, an advertiser can now target users tweeting about specific television shows and then serve them a branded promoted tweet or Vine. Another new functionality Twitter Amplify offers the opportunity to sponsor real -time, dual-screen specific video clips that are tweeted by broadcasters. For example, a brand could now potentially sponsor an instant replay of a sporting moment that is played within a broadcasters Twitter feed, and then insert a link to their own site or content. These developments allow brands to move away from being a bog standard 30 ad, and move one step closer towards weaving themselves into relevant content that their target audience are actively consuming. In recognition of the increasing overlap of TV and digital consumption, industry bodies are collaborating to gain a true understanding of this consumer behaviour and the potential synergy it creates for advertisers. This week saw Nielsen, the global information and measurement company, announce a 'major step forward' for multi-platform advertising measurement in the UK, with the commencement of beta trials for its Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings service. Integrating TV viewership data from BARB, Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings will, for the first time, combine the commercial exposures from a brands TV ads with its online ads and report on the combined audience for the campaign. The report will detail how many people saw the ad, whether the ads were seen on TV, online, or both and the results will be delivered in terms of reach, frequency, Gross Rating Points, unique audience and impressions. As soon as testing is complete and this service is ready to be rolled out, we will have a strong grasp of how best to activate media campaigns to make sure that all screens are talking to one another seamlessly, and enable brands to land their messaging in the most suitable manner. Having seen the relationship between TV and mobile flourish, cinema media owners are now looking to deal themselves in on a piece of the dual-screening action. As the channel that claims the lowest ad avoidance of all media, cinema is hoping to leverage consumers focus on the big screen and use this to draw some attention to the little screen. DCM, who represents chains including Odeon, Cineworld and Vue, has just launched cinime an app that enables cinemagoers to use their mobiles to get more from the big screen. The app harnesses image recognition and bespoke audio watermarking technologies that will be triggered by the ad playing out on screen, to deliver and unlock brand and film-related content on smartphones. From a user point of view, it enables cinemagoers to opt-in to receive bonus content while, from an advertiser point of view, it is just one more opportunity to engage with their target audience in a relevant and timely way. As more developments occur and the lines between different screens continue to blur, the consistent theme here is that, while each device serves a different purpose, any brand looking to deliver a strong campaign should no longer consider TV, cinema, online, mobile or tablet as distinct verticals, but instead as complementary windows into the lives of the target audience they want to reach.

the7stars I Whats Hot I June 2013

HOTLINE
the stories that lit up our media world this month
The BBC is gearing up for its biggest weekend of digital coverage since the Olympics as it is set to deliver 360 hours of content this weekend, including coverage from Glastonbury, Wimbledon and the Formula 1 British Grand Prix. Apple has retained its place as the UK's most desirable brand, but Google suffered a 38% decline in desirability as the ongoing tax avoidance scandal impacted its brand perception.

Rupert Murdoch's News International, parent company of the Times, Sunday Times and the Sun, has rebranded as News UK as it seeks to move on from the phonehacking scandal..

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has today cleared the local newspaper joint venture known as Local World, which brings together over 180 local and regional newspapers and 60 local news websites.

Sony Mobile is taking aim at Samsung and Apple with the launch of a hybrid mobile and tablet device it is positioning as "the world's slimmest HD smartphone with the world's largest screen", as well as introducing a new "smartwatch".

Instagram has launched a video-sharing tool in a move that will place the Facebookowned company in direct competition with Vine, the Twitter-backed video app.

the7stars I Whats Hot I June 2013

Whats HOT and Whats NOT

Festival season The Returned en franais Djokovic & Murray Holly Willoughbys dress

Mud & rain George Osbornes burger Nadal & Federer Lions injuries