POSTS TAGGED : Media

Chrysler’s New Car Launch Spells Doom For Newspapers

Much has been written and said about how much Craigslist is contributing to the demise of the newspaper business. While Craigslist is single-handedly killing the print classifieds business, there are other storm clouds brewing that are just as worrisome for newspapers.

Car makers launching new models are increasingly putting more and more of their spend into digital platforms and newspapers are getting less and less. So it’s not just the auto classifieds that are disappearing, but the big newspaper display ads to introduce new models are becoming endangered species…

Chrysler is about to embark on a major launch campaign for a car called the Dodge Journey, but for the newspaper business they might as well nickname the car Dodge Doom. The upcoming advertising campaign serves as a microcosm on several fronts. It illustrates both why newspapers are seeing a drastic cut in revenues, and also why internet advertising revenues will continue to grow despite a weak economy.Chrysler is spending $35 million to launch the Dodge Journey which is the same amount they spent last year when they launched the Dodge Nitro. The big difference is not in the total ad spend, it’s where the money is going or not going. Two years ago, Chrysler allocated 5% of their launch budget to online/interactive media. This year, that number is 29% which marks the single largest online ad spend for Chrysler to date.

The reason the company likes online is that it gets so much direct feedback from web consumers — it says it has already made 400 changes to 2008 and 2009 models based on customer web feedback.

Television is still getting the most allocation at 54%, followed by 29% for online, 9% for print and 4% for radio. Of the 9% for print, the majority of it is going to magazines, not newspapers. Now you can begin to understand the gravity of the situation for the newspaper business. For a major automaker to spend $35 million to bring mass awareness to a new product and then subsequently choose (for the most part) to do it without targeting newspaper readers, is a major shift.

And let’s not forget Porsche is promoting its Boxster and Cayman sports cars this month. The campaign is using magazine ads, online banners, and micro sites. The company says that going into 2009 interactive and magazines will continue to be its focus. “Online is a big part of Porsche going forward,” said Marshall Ross, the chief creative officer of the Cramer-Krasselt agency developing the campaign. “If we can bring that personality online in a compelling way, you will see a lot more of it.”

Full article: Chrysler Is Spending Some $35 Million To Launch Its 2009 Dodge Journey Crossover Auto, But If Newspapers Are Lucky They May See Around $1 million Of That Spend

Internet as a video-centric medium

When Walt Mossberg speaks or writes, a lot of people listen and read. So when Walt Mossberg says the internet is fast transforming from a text-centric medium to a video-centric medium, it carries some serious weight and echoes genuine consumer behavior. Walt was recently asked to speak about the rise of online video at a Beet.tv power event at the Embassy of Finland in Washington, DC and had some strong opinions (no surprise there) about the current state of video delivery on the web, and where it is headed. To put the emergence of video in some perspective, chew on this – in December 2007 there were more videos streamed online than searches performed. Yes, you read that correctly. Video overtook search in December ’07 in U.S. volume. While revenues derived from online video are paltry today in comparison to search revenues, many see the writing on the wall – video advertising will eventually usurp television advertising and could overtake search advertising at some point as well.

Eisner predicted that within five years the internet will be as important content-wise as cable or satellite – Michael Eisner; ‘The Time Is Right’; Internet Content To Equal TV In 5 Years

Walt goes on to suggest that the broadcast business ie, television networks, Hollywood studios etc. are where the newspaper and magazine industry were 5 years ago. In other words, offline video creators, producers and distributors need to get serious about web video or watch their influence and revenues erode at an accelerated pace going forward.

Dumb pipes, smart pipes

As mobile devices like the iPhone gain in prominence and usage, one has to wonder if the telecom company’s worst nightmare is indeed coming to fruition. Will flat-rate data plans and sexy mobile computing interfaces turn telecom carriers into a bunch of dumb data pipes? While I can understand on a very ‘old skool’ business level the fear of losing grip over their customers mobile user experience – was this not inevitable? Which is precisely why the iPhone is seen as both a boon and a boondoggle for cellular carriers.

On the one hand it’s a boon because better devices will lure new customers and speed adoption of mobile data consumption. On the other, it is a boondoggle because without the constraints of a limited/controlled experience the customer no longer needs to be shackled to the paltry content offerings and archaic tools the carriers want to force-feed to their customers handsets.

Q: What does this ultimately mean for telecom companies?
A: Extend your brand – acquire content companies / destination brands.

Scott McNealy, former Sun CEO (now Chairman) appears to agree.

Telecommunication companies need to go beyond just providing bandwidth and look into acquiring Internet destination sites … I think the telcos have to make sure they don’t get marginalized to being just bit providers and bandwidth providers … There will be some very interesting challenges of who owns the subscriber and who owns the financial and advertising rights to those individuals. … Stay tuned, the landscape’s going to change enormously..

via network world

nextMEDIA 2007

845613-media_httpwwwdailypixelcaimagesnextmediabadgejpg_eylcuonEgeyCHIhThe nextMEDIA: Monetizing Digital Media conference has come and gone, and it was a great experience from start to finish. We are really happy to have been a part of this event and are already looking forward to the next iteration currently scheduled for June 2008 in Banff, Alberta. Here is a brief snapshot of some of the ‘greatest hits’ from my perspective:

William Travis from the boutique creative firm ATTIK gave a case study presentation on their noteworthy Toyota Scion branding campaign and the impetus behind the creation of their ‘little deviant‘ marketing concept they crafted around the Scion brand. He really focused on understanding your consumer/audience and the nuts and bolts of putting together an immersive experience for the target demo. This agency really put themselves in the mindset of their target demographic, developed an intimate understanding of what motivates them and created a virtual world where their target consumers could truly ‘live the brand’. William was a passionate communicator and had the conference audience thoroughly engaged from start to finish.

Bryan Segal from Comscore Media Metrix did a fabulous presentation on the depth and breadth of the Canadian online advertising market. He did a great job giving an overview of the market data and current trends and communicated it all in a clear and concise fashion. Bottom line: the Canadian online ad market is growing at a rapid clip as advertisers are shifting their money and attention online as their audience is clearly moving in that direction, in addition to the added benefits of increased accountability and measurements that online advertising campaigns have over traditional forms of media.

David Carson from Heavy.com gave a terrific presentation on the value of branded entertainment as an alternative to the standard ‘ad ghetto’ formats of leaderboard and skyscraper banner advertising. Heavy.com is one of the long-standing pioneers of branded entertainment on the web, and David really put together a well-rounded and enjoyable presentation that highlighted stellar examples of this niche form of advertising put into practice. David also touched on the increasing role that consumers themselves can play in the branded entertainment arena. Perhaps the best example of a user-driven unsolicited ad campaign was the Diet Coke/Mentos viral videos done by the Eepy Bird guys.

Lloyd Alter from the environment-focused TreeHugger.com gave one of the conferences best presentations. He talked about the origins (btw: founder was born Canadian) of the TreeHugger.com site and how the company grew their idea from concept to their recent acquisition by the Discovery Channel. Lloyd is one of those special communicators who speaks from a deep reservoir of passion for his subject, and his willingness to discuss not just the things that went right, but also the things that went wrong or were ongoing challenges for TreeHugger was really refreshing. I wanted to give him a hugg after his presentation. Outstanding.

Will Pate from Conceptshare, spoke incredibly well about the do’s and don’ts of online promotion/marketing techniques. Will covered a wide range of tips/warnings on both sides of the ethical fence and I think anyone in the audience (ie, just about everyone in attendance) who wanted to learn more about promoting/marketing themselves, their companies and their content or brands got good value from Will’s presentation. Will has great charisma, and emanates guineness. It’s no wonder he’s a sought-after community ambassador.

Dick Soule, Head of International Sales for YouTube talked about YouTube’s recent move toward internationalization and specifically their move into Canada. Dick’s a great guy and YouTube’s move into Canada is a really big boost and affirmation for the Canadian online video space.

Pierre Karl Peladeau from Quebecor announced the launch of Canoe.ca’s foray into the online video space. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this presentation was PKP’s heavy criticism of the subsidies handed out to the Canadian Television Fund and openly questioned the value of this practice going forward by saying programming created via CTF funding produces shows that “in general, nobody watches”. PKP is committed to doubling Canoe’s investment in Canadian content creation by working with independent producers of video content. Pierre clearly has a strong vision for Canoe and it will be interesting to see how they are able to execute. Perhaps Canoe’s biggest challenges are not so much in their ideas or execution, but rest squarely on a major balance sheet issue. Canoe/Quebecor is currently saddled with $2.4 billion of debt and cash-flow is declining not increasing. Canoe/Quebecor is by no means alone in facing this big-media equation, but when you listen to his ambitious plans and his committment to double investment in a given area, one has to wonder where will the money be coming from to fund it all?

Last but most definitely not least was a panel discussion headed by Canada’s best mainstream voice on everything web, Globe and Mail’s Mathew Ingram. Mathew was joined by a fantastic panel that included CEO of NowPublic.com – Leonard Brody, VP of NBC Digital – Mark Lukasiewicz, and CBC‘s director of digital programming – Jonathan Dube. This was one of those panels where you just sit back and enjoy listening to a lively and intelligent discussion on topics like citizen journalism and the every-changing role, influence and consumption of news media. Everyone involved in this discussion brought a unique perspective on the topics covered and all had something intriguing to say. This was a great panel to finish off this conference.Like most conferences, there were highlights (networking opps, impromptu hallway debates and friendly chats ie, it was great chatting with Jeremy Wright of B5 Media/the aforementioned Will Pate/David Peralty of Splashpress) and lowlights (ie, spotty internet access throughout and frozen toes as a result of a heating issue on the first day), and several stand-out singular moments where the value of ‘being there’ was worth whatever resources it took to attend.

As a growing Canadian new media network, this conference is a must-do for us and we got tremendous value out of the entire two-day event and a follow-up trip back to Toronto is already in the works as a direct result of the networking connections made at this conference. A special thank you to all of the good folk at Achilles Media and Julie Giles from GreenHAT Digital for putting together an awesome 2-day event. nextMEDIA Banff 2008 can’t come fast enough!!

cross-posted from dailypixel.ca

‘Journalist’ with a capital ‘J’

I came across this article today about the Iraq war and in particular, how deadly it has been for journalists.

But one landmark which passed virtually unnoticed was that the Iraq conflict has become the deadliest by far for the media trying to cover it, with more than 200 journalists killed to date. To put this in perspective, two were killed in the First World War, 68 in the Second, 77 in Vietnam and 36 in the Balkans. And the toll in Iraq shows no sign of declining. It is, if anything, rising. Five journalists were killed in separate attacks in just one day last month. “Covering Iraq,” says Chris Cramer, the president of CNN International, ” is the single most dangerous assignment in the history of journalism.”

Among many things, this article really drives home the point that as much as ‘citizen journalism’ has been talked about, blogged about and become a buzzterm in the web 2.0 paradigm, it really is bogus. Citizens are not journalists. Citizens can be storytellers, citizens can record original footage of news, citizens can have opinions, offer spin and frame debate, but at the end of the day – citizens are not journalists. Journalists are journalists. Journalists are trained, highly skilled news gatherers and communicators who make their living and in many cases, put their lives in harms way to get a story told. After reading that article, I can understand even more why a trained journalist might cringe when someone uses the term ‘citizen journalism’. That’s one web 2.0 term that needs to make its way to the deadpool in a hurry.

Digital is where it’s at

In the tech world we see no shortage of ‘hype’ these days. The internet/digital spaces are sizzling with M&A activity and innovation is at an all-time high. However, lurking on the fringes of all of this hype are people who have lived through the dot-bomb era and are consistently warning everyone that a ‘correction’ or a full blown ‘bubble burst’ may be on the way. I’m a big believer in paying attention to ‘breadcrumbs’. Breadcrumbs are little morsels of information that act as signals or indicators in support of (or not) for a larger trend.

If we are indeed in a ‘bubble’, I have to say that I am not seeing many breadcrumbs to support that notion. In fact, we are consistently seeing signals in the marketplace that support the continued rise, growth and valuation of digital media.

One such breadcrumb that I stumbled across today was news that one of my favourite ‘Canadian-founded’ digital marketing agencies Blast Radius was acquired by a worldwide traditional (direct) marketing company. Blast Radius was founded in Vancouver in 1997 just as I was in the middle of my New Media diploma course at the Vancouver Film School. If memory serves me correctly, a VFS alumni was one of the founders of the agency. The CEO of the acquiring company had some brief but revealing comments regarding the logic behind the acquisition that in my opinion, just continues to support the notion that we are not in a bubble, but simply experiencing the rise of all things digital and web.

“I’m surprised at the speed at which clients are moving real communication dollars into the [digital] channel,” said Wunderman Chairman and CEO Daniel Morel, adding he expects the history of advertising will one day be divided into “before search” and “after search.”

ClickZ: Wunderman Acquires Blast Radius

Stop the presses?

BusinessWeek has an article that focuses on the plight of newspapers, and specifically suggests that a wave of newspapers could/should consider quitting the paper business altogether and publish exclusively on the web. It’s an interesting perspective, but one I would argue is flawed.

Shutting down a diminishing or losing print business will save a media company plenty of dough on the expense side, but the paper business also represents (currently anyways) a much larger piece of the revenue pie than the internet side of the mainstream publishing business – and therein lies the rub. It’s not so simple to say, ‘stop the presses’, because doing so to a large degree also equates to ‘stop the cash flow’. In author Jon Fine’s point of view – it’s the San Francisco Chronicle that should be first in line to ditch paper, a notion that seems credible on the surface given that the Chronicle is currently losing approx. $1 million per week. Ouch, yes you read that correctly.

Vin Crosbie over at Corante has a good rebuttal to Jon’s ‘web-only’ newspaper fix. If newspapers ever do seriously consider making a web-only leap, they had better have a major strategy in place for brand extension on the web. As the web market continues to mature and saturate, you are going to want to have more than one brand-ball in play.

Historically speaking, broadcast mediums don’t die. Newspapers will be around for a long time yet, but the evolution process won’t come without its bumps, bruises, and inevitably, some casualties.

Canadians are replacing TV, radio with the web

CRTC released a new study, and it shows Canadians are spending less time with traditional media (radio and tv) and are replacing it with the web.

“It’s not as if TV is disappearing, it’s just that the Internet is really consuming it,”
Adam Finkelstein of Montreal’s McGill University

What is particularly interesting is how advertising dollars are still flowing (rising) for TV and radio despite dwindling usage. Having said that, while TV and radio are seeing a slight rise in annual revenues, Canadian online ad dollars hit $1 billion for 2006 which is almost double the $562 million spent on the web in 2005. Considering the online ad market in Canada is growing at approx. 35% per quarter, there can be no denying that the internet is ‘the’ growth medium in the media foodchain right now.  

This just in…online video is a big deal.

You’re going to be shocked when you hear this – online video sharing is a big deal. According to a new study by Pew Internet, 74% of people who have broadband at work and home watch and download online video. On the sharing angle – 57% of those who watch videos online share video links, and 75% say they receive links from others. The YouTube-Google sale may be a bit stale-dated at this point, but I’m wondering if all of this talk about a $10 billion Facebook valuation is making that $1.7 billion transaction look like a bargain? You can download the (.PDF) report here.  

Canadian New Media Awards Experience

The CNMA Finalist experience thus far has been everything I had hoped it would be, and so much more. We are now 2/3 of the way through the 2-day experience and have had the privilege to meet so many talented Canadians who are all doing amazing things on the web, film, gaming, arts, mobile etc.

Adam Froman founded the CNMA 7 years ago, and his passion for the Canadian interactive industry is truly infectious. Everyone involved with the CNMA has a genuine passion for celebrating Canadian new media talent, and every event is planned with the idea of maximizing the experience for the Finalists.

Our experience started on Sunday night with a BBQ at the Canadian Film Center. It was the perfect ‘casual’ kickoff event that got all of the Finalists warmed up, and introduced to one another. Previously unknown names and faces became friendly peers in just a few hours. Today (Monday) we had our second CNMA event which was at the Royal Bank Plaza on the 40th floor which sported a jaw-dropping view of Toronto and Lake Ontario. It was a bit more of a formal event, but again, the value of networking at this event was tremendous. This luncheon was clearly about bringing together the corporate sponsors of the CNMA with the Finalists.

I was incredibly impressed by the genuine interest at the corporate level for our Canadian new media industry. The companies involved with the CNMA clearly see the vast potential in the Canadian social/new media space and are eager to meet the emerging leaders in our industry, which is just another positive sign that our industry is on the rise and poised for continued growth.Tonight is the ‘big show’.

The Awards Ceremony kicks off with a networking cocktail event at 6pm which runs until 8pm, followed by the announcing of the 2007 CNMA Award winners. This may sound totally cliche, but our dailypixel Network has already won. Being a part of this event has been an incredible experience and it has already brought newfound awareness to our network from public relations, potential partnerships, creative alliances, business services and general interest from current and new users/readers. We are a big winner no matter what transpires this evening, whether our name is formally announced as a winner or not is just a total bonus to an invaluable 2-day experience.

To the Canadian new media community at large, I can highly recommend embracing this event. Get your names, companies and endeavours nominated for future CNMAs, and I promise you, it will be an experience you won’t soon forget. You will meet and share a bond with some of the most amazing Canadians that had it not been for the CNMA, you probably would not get exposed to. The Canadian New Media Awards are a win-win scenario for all who participate, whether you ‘win’ or not.

Needless to say, it has truly been an honour to be part of this year’s event.