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The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. We are a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and marketing skills. Check out thousands of cutting edge examples at our web site. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
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Graeme Newell
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In This Issue
The Dangers of Building Brands on Oversimplistic Research
Who Watched the Olympics?
Conan Out-Twitters Leno
Stern a No-Go as 'Idol' Judge
'Family Guy' Raking in Indecency Complaints
UK Urges TV to Curb Raunchy Music Videos
It's Showtime for Interactive TV App
Health Care Meeting Draws Hearty Online Audience
Zucker, Roberts Face Questions Over Comcast/NBC Deal
Zucker Defends NBC's Diversity
More Commercials On Web Videos Inevitable
Happiness Makes Us Adventurous, Study Finds
Quotes
"Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation."
- Saint Augustine
"Advice is like snow; the softer it falls the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning -- in other words, of absurdity --the more energetically meaning is sought."
- Vaclav Havel
The Dangers of Building Brands on Oversimplistic Research
by Graeme Newell
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Twitter: gnewell
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Turn on early morning television these days and you will find a zillion lawyer ads. Almost all follow the hackneyed lawyer ad script just like this ad, "Trust us. We will fight for your rights." But this morning I saw one that impressed me. Take a look at this ad. Sure, the production values stink but the message is custom-designed to resonate with the customer. "When you sue the hospital, it isn't just a grab for cash. You're saving children."
By focusing on the idea of "litigation as public good," he brings a sense of nobility and trust. Potential clients looking for an attorney will probably have a lot of trust issues. He sends the message "you can trust me" without ever using those words. He proves trust by deed, not by endlessly repeating the phrase "trust me."
Like most advertisers, lawyers have done their research, and they know the hot-button words and phrases that resonate with their customers: Trust us. Insurance companies will victimize you. Don't be a chump. But every lawyer has the same research, and most of them foolishly choose the parrot approach to brand implementation. They simply spit back the exact same words that show up in everyone's research. Everyone looks the same. This ubiquity creates a brand message that sells the category, not the individual business. The takeaway becomes, "you should get a lawyer," not, "you should choose me over all the other lawyers."
The same is true for a lot of television marketing. For the most part, we all have the same quantitative research studies. "What are you looking for in a weathercast?" "Accuracy, trust, reliability, technology, power." Just like the lawyer ads, selling these price-of-entry attributes brands you as just another nameless face in the herd. Just take a look at this example and you'll see a branding uniformity that is poisoning TV marketing.
I do a lot of research work with cable companies and Fortune 1000 types. Most of them have a finely honed one-two punch of quantitative research followed by qualitative research. Quantitative research can do a fine job finding out how customers feel about your product, but it usually does a lousy job of finding out how your brand fits into their life and their own personal identity. The truth is that most people don't really know how they feel about the weather. Sure, they will spit the buzz words back at you when you ask them naively simple questions like "is severe weather coverage important to you?" What do you think they're going to say? Our feelings about weather are all jumbled up inside of us, mixed in with feelings of family responsibility, annoyance, safety, fashion, fun and worry.
There is a saying in the research business that if you want to find out how someone really feels about something, one of the worst things you can do is ask them. Television has a love affair with quantitative research. It is what we know. We have done it for years and we are very comfortable with it. Quantitative research is important, but it has limited ability to help you navigate the tenuous world of feelings that surround brands. When there isn't much difference between your product and your competitor's product, that is when qualitative research becomes a necessity.
How did Dove get from something as sterile as soap and cleansing to this ad about the hope and pain of adolescent love? It was smart enough to know that a quantitative study that asked women about their soap needs would not cut it.
Take a look at this ad for Allan Gray, a South African investment firm. How did they get from the dry topic of cash flow and quarterly dividends to James Dean? Good qualitative research. Do a quantitative study where you ask an investor what he wants in a counselor and you'll get the standard list: trust, smarts, customer service, etc. By doing a qualitative study, this company uncovered his deepest held hopes and dreams. Take a look at it's web site and you'll see the same adventurer archetype featured prominently. This is not how he feels about stocks. This who he dreams he'll be.
So take a look at your own marketing. Are you parroting back quantitative research buzzwords while showing endless vanity images of your own product? When was the last time your customers were featured prominently in your marketing?
Graeme Newell is a broadcast and new media marketer who specializes in core emotional drivers. He guarantees that his teasing seminar will immediately increase your news ratings or his workshop is free. Find out more here.
Who Watched the Olympics?
Grandma and grandpa must like their curling--NBC’s strong ratings for the Vancouver Winter Olympics have apparently been driven by older viewers. Olympics ratings among viewers 55 and older are 82 percent higher than the national average, according to Nielsen. The grandkids aren't nearly as into it; ratings among teens are 57 percent lower than the national average, while their parents are slightly less indifferent. Ratings among viewers 18-49 are 20 percent lower than the average. Overall the Olympics have averaged 24.9 million total viewers through the first 13 days of competition, up about 20 percent from 20.7 million at the same point during the Turin Games in 2006. Minorities seem to share teens' indifference toward the Games. Ratings among Hispanic and African-American viewers are each 74 percent below the national average, while ratings among Asian Americans are 15 percent below the average. Viewership has been highest in the West Central area of the country, with ratings in that region 24 percent higher than the national average, with ratings in the Southwest 28 percent lower than the average.
MediaLife Magazine
Conan Out-Twitters Leno
Well, he's got nothing better to do, has he? Conan O'Brien, he who was treated almost as badly by NBC as the Winter Olympics, seems to have become one of the microbloggerati. Not only has someone called Conan O'Brien joined Twitter at twitter.com/ConanOBrien, but the legendarily slow site has already given his feed the hallowed status of Verified Account. With just one tweet, O'Brien has, at the time of writing, amassed more than 180,000 followers. (Naturally, being a star, he is following no one.) You will be wondering what words decorated the bouffant one's first tweet. Well, it was a simple affair: "Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me." When the intoxicating yard of ale that is nightly TV fame is taken away from you, it can be a very difficult experience. You can suddenly gain a sense of your real self and that is not necessarily a sense that you enjoy on a daily basis. Still, O'Brien set up his account at around 2:30 p.m. PST Wednesday and within not too many seconds he had already blasted his way past Jay Leno's meager following of around 30,000. Who could fail to imagine that this is merely the first step in a vast socially networked marketing campaign? It will keep on reminding you, firstly, that O'Brien is still alive and might eventually be funny. And secondly, that he will be back on some kind of television channel very, very soon.
CNet
Stern a No-Go as 'Idol' Judge
You may be upset or relieved to hear my news that Howard Stern definitely won’t be joining American Idol as the judge replacing Simon Cowell. According to my sources close to the show, the new judge will be announced at the end of the current run. Whoever gets the gig will have a sweet deal: 19 Entertainment, the London-based company which created American Idol, has a budget of $38 million to spend on Cowell’s replacement.
DeadLine
'Family Guy' Raking in Indecency Complaints
If you think Santa Claus gets a lot of mail, that's nothing compared to the Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau, the part of the regulatory agency that handles indecency complaints. Tim Doyle, a reporter for industry consulting firm SNL Kagan, went to the trouble of filing a Freedom of Information Act to get a little information about just how many complaints the FCC is sifting through and what shows are the biggest offenders. Before we get to what shows are getting the most complaints, let's look at the backlog of indecency complaints at the FCC. Doyle reports here that at the end of last year the FCC had a walloping 1.45 million pending complaints and 12,049 open cases. The program that is keeping the FCC most busy is Fox's animated sitcom "Family Guy." A March 2009 episode alone generated almost 200,000 complaints, according to Doyle's arithmetic. I missed that episode, but Doyle's story on it said the show included a plot line involving horse semen. We don't know if that was the one that got the show an Emmy nomination or not, but either way the folks at "Family Guy" probably don't have a lot of friends in Fox's Washington, D.C., office at the moment. Usually, if a show generates that many complaints odds are it had some help from an advocacy group that got its membership to take part in a mass mailing. We're not playing connect the dots here, but the first quote in Doyle's story about the high number of complaints involving "Family Guy" is from Dan Isett, a director of the Parents Television Council, a media watchdog group that is no fan of the show. But a complaint is a complaint in the eyes of the FCC. The high volume around "Family Guy" could become a big headache for the network if the commission were to go after the show. A Fox spokesman said, "We take any inquiry seriously and respond to each in an appropriate and timely fashion." Of course, the above-mentioned episode of "Family Guy" is not the only one that's been noticed by the FCC. There are thousands of other complaints about various episodes of the show piled up at the regulatory agency.
LA Times Blog
UK Urges TV to Curb Raunchy Music Videos
Broadcasters should not be allowed to air music videos that feature sexual posing or sexually suggestive lyrics before the 9pm watershed, according to a Home Office review published today. The report on the growing sexualization of young people also suggests local authorities should vet public billboard advertising to ensure images and messages are not offensive on gender grounds. The research, carried out by London Metropolitan University psychologist Dr. Linda Papadopoulos, argues that the growing prevalence of sexualized images in magazines, television, mobile phones and computer games is having a damaging effect on children and young people. The report also calls for "lads' mags" to be confined to newsagents' top shelves and only sold to over-15s, as well as a ratings system on magazine and advertising photographs showing the extent to which they have been airbrushed or digitally altered. The report in particular criticizes lyrics by N-Dubz and 50 Cent for their tendency to sexualize women or refer to them in a derogatory manner, and singles out the rap artist Nelly for a video showing him swiping a credit card through a young woman's buttocks. But it adds that, while degrading sexual content is most apparent in rap-rock, rap, rap-metal and R&B, it is to be found across all music genres. It argues that such sexually provocative music videos are commonplace and easily accessible by children through TV and DVDs. A loophole exempting music videos from the 1984 Video Recordings Act should be closed as well as requiring broadcasters to ensure they are only shown after 9pm. Papadopoulos said: "As a psychologist and as a parent, I welcomed the opportunity to take a critical look at the sexualization of young people. I have spoken to young people, parents, teachers and professionals and it is clear to me that this is a very emotive issue." The home secretary, Alan Johnson, welcomed the report, saying government was already committed to some of its recommendations: "Changing attitudes will take time but it is essential if we are going to stop the sexualization which contributes to violence against women and girls."
The Guardian
It's Showtime for Interactive TV App
Showtime Networks is launching the first nationwide HD interactive TV application (iTV) with Showtime Sports Interactive, which Verizon FiOS TV customers will have access to first. Using EBIF (Enhanced TV Binary Interchange Format), Showtime Sports Interactive will allow subscribers to access fighter stats, records, bios and quotes, along with the ability to vote in interactive polls, play trivia games and check the schedule of a fight calendar, all while watching Showtime. The features are all interactive, unlike the static on-screen stats displayed with traditional televised sporting events. Shawn Strickland, the VP of consumer strategy and planning for Verizon, said, "We're thrilled to partner with Showtime and offer more value to our FiOS TV subscribers. With custom stats, voting capabilities and more, combined with FiOS TV's amazing picture-and-sound quality, our customers will get a truly high-def, real-time interactive experience. Once again, Verizon is first to offer our customers the most value for their premium subscription."
WorldScreen
Health Care Meeting Draws Hearty Online Audience
The White House says it counted nearly four million live streams of its health care summit meeting on Thursday. Macon Phillips, the White House director of new media, said on Twitter that its servers logged 3.9 million-plus streams of the bipartisan meeting, which took up most of the day at the Blair House. Most people were apparently tuning in for brief periods and then clicking onto other Web pages, because Mr. Phillips said the site saw a maximum of 60,000 concurrent live streams. Still, the total number of streams suggests that many people were curious about the lengthy summit meeting. The cable news networks “lost interest as time went on,” the Associated Press noted, so “online streaming was the best option for people who wanted to watch the session uninterrupted.” Major news Web sites like CNN.com, MSNBC.com and Yahoo News were not able to provide stream information for the meeting on Friday afternoon. For a comparison, Mr. Phillips said President Obama’s State of the Union address earlier this month logged 1.3 million total live streams, with a maximum of 85,000 concurrent streams. So far the archived video clips from the meeting have not had much of an impact on YouTube, the dominant video Web site. The White House clipped the meeting into five parts, and each part has received 300 to 2,000 views.
Media Decoder
Zucker, Roberts Face Questions Over Comcast/NBC Deal
Jeff Zucker and Brian Roberts faced the House Judiciary Committee yesterday in defense of the Comcast/NBC Universal deal. Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast, and Zucker, president and CEO of NBC Universal, each presented the case for Comcast's proposed partnership with GE to take control of NBCU during the Judiciary Committee's hearing on competition in the media and entertainment. This follows their testimony earlier this month in front of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet. The executives fielded questions on the issues of diversity, local programming, competition and technology. Roberts noted that with the transaction, the goal is to "invest in local television, broadcast television, cable television, filmed entertainment, theme parks, [in] none of those businesses is Comcast a major provider today. There's not the overlap that...some mergers would have or if GE were selling to another one of the major media companies. They would have a movie studio, they would have a broadcast network, they might have a theme park or another entertainment channel like USA or a news channel—Comcast does not have any of those types of assets on a national level. I feel very comfortable saying that the goal here, the motivations are to build and to innovate." Zucker added, referencing the challenges of the broadcast TV model today, "With this commitment to broadcasting, with this commitment to investment, I actually feel better about the future of NBC and NBC Universal than I have in a long time, and gratified that this is not about synergies. I take comfort in that. Broadcasting has been under tremendous duress in recent years, as other forms of media like newspapers and radio have. This commitment to broadcasting the jobs that come with that give me good comfort." The Committee also heard from a range of other organizations, including the Independent Film & Television Alliance. The trade association's president and CEO, Jean Prewitt, called for strong conditions to protect diversity of programming and varied voices. "If allowed to go forward, the merger will give the American public far less choice in programming as more channels and distribution platforms are closed to independent content,” Prewitt said in her testimony. “This conflict between a corporate interest and the all-important public interest is at the heart of the larger issue…an issue that cuts to the core of American values of diversity, creativity and the free exchange of ideas.” Prewitt went on to argue that "The public loses when they are limited to 'major conglomerate brands' and cross-promotable programming produced by the gatekeepers—and are not exposed to the diversity and breadth that independent programmers offer." She continued that as a result of the merger: "Comcast is able—and apparently ready and willing—to define a marketplace that is merely a closed system. This is a step that can deprive the American public of meaningful choices in the content it is offered and that will undermine the ongoing viability of independent production in the new media environment.”
WorldScreen
Zucker Defends NBC's Diversity
I wonder if Jeff Zucker knew that when he testified before Congress this past week about the merger between NBC and Comcast he would be talking about Tyler Perry. But that's what happened this past week when Rep. Maxine Waters asked Zucker, "Is there some assumption that black programming is not profitable?" This is probably a question that Zucker wasn't expecting, and I'm not sure if he answered it in the best way that he could. He said that NBC has a great history of black shows on the network, and when Representative Steve Cohen mentioned that Al Roker is on 'Today' (to defend Zucker, I guess), Zucker mentioned that NBC also has Lester Holt. Zucker was probably in an odd position, having to defend his network's diversity by actually pointing out specific people one by one (you never win when you do that), and I'm not quite sure what Waters' point has to do with the NBC/Comcast decision. Does Waters just think this about NBC or would she confront CBS and ABC about their programming, too? Waters also asked Comcast execs why they didn't have more people of color or women on their board.
TV Squad
More Commercials On Web Videos Inevitable
In the short history of online TV-watching, one standard has largely held fast: Shows that run online have significantly fewer ads than shows that run on the boob tube. But that could soon change. Starting this fall, Nielsen intends to start making available data that take into account viewing of commercials that run in a particular show, no matter whether they are seen online or on TV. The data will be made available for evaluation starting this September and are intended to become the basis for ad negotiations in February 2011. But here's the catch: For Nielsen to be able to provide the commercial rating, shows seen online will have to have the same group of commercials that run on TV. If this system were adopted en masse -- and it's not clear that it would be -- online viewing might be crammed just as full of commercials as the more traditional TV-watching experience. "That in itself is a challenge," said Rino Scanzoni, chief investment officer at WPP's Group M. "The consumer has been used to getting [online video] with either limited commercial interruption or no commercial interruption." Indeed, viewing programs on Hulu, the online video site owned by NBC Universal, News Corp. and Walt Disney, means encountering significantly fewer ads than one would see watching TV. And Disney's ABC.com has met with some success by running ABC shows with just a few ads, often from a single advertiser. But many TV executives say these methods don't bring much, if any, profit -- and therefore cannot continue. One way to make online viewing more financially lucrative, several TV executives suggested, is to use it to aggregate viewing of popular shows across TV, online and other emerging media -- and then use that rating as a means of negotiating for the cost of an ad against the program. What's lending traction to the idea of increasing the number of commercials in online TV runs is the "TV Everywhere" concept currently embraced by industry players Time Warner and Comcast, among others. Under the plan, cable subscribers would be able to watch their favorite shows via broadband for no extra fees, while non-subscribers would be blocked. If the media companies can use this idea to control how consumers watch TV programming, they may also be able to force a more traditional amount of advertising on them, too. One academic thinks consumers will, over time, accept more advertising in the digital realm. "It's not so much the ad load. It's much more about the convenience," said Tom Ksiazek, an assistant professor of communication at Villanova University. Research suggests that "viewers will watch those ads as long as the program is on the best available screen" for them at the time they want to view a program that is important to them.
Business Insider
Happiness Makes Us Adventurous, Study Finds
Feeling blue? You're more likely to stay in your comfort zone rather than venturing out to try something new, a recent study suggests. But as soon as you bounce back, so will that lure of exploration and adventure.
Scientists have known that we are drawn to the familiar, a phenomenon British psychologist Edward Titchener described as the "warm glow of familiarity" a century ago. But perhaps what we're at home with isn't always so enticing, the researchers surmised.
"We thought the value of familiarity would depend on the context," said study researcher Marieke de Vries, currently affiliated with the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands. "Familiarity signals safety, which is pleasant in an unsafe or stressful context but might actually get boring when all is going fine."
To find out, de Vries and colleagues presented participants with random dot patterns resembling constellations in the sky and made these familiar to them through exposure.
Then, the participants either recalled a joyous or sad event in their lives, which was meant to elicit a good or bad mood, respectively. During the remainder of the test, the good-mood participants listened to appropriately cheerful music while the sad group got an earful of music to match their moods.
Finally, the researchers measured the subjects' emotional and memory responses to dot patterns they had seen before and others they had not. Instead of just asking the participants if they were familiar with certain dot patterns and which they preferred, the scientists used physiological measures, such as skin conductors to assess sweat, and facial electrodes to detect frowns and smiles.
"When you recognize something your body rings an internal bell and you sweat a little bit more," said study researcher Piotr Winkielman, a psychology professor at the University of California, San Diego.
Participants primed to feel blue showed a preference for dot patterns they were familiar with from the first part of the study, even smiling at the sight of these dot arrangements.
A happy mood, however, eliminated that preference. In fact, these participants smiled more when looking at the unfamiliar patterns. "When you're happy, known things, familiar things lose their appeal," Winkielman said. "Novelty, on the other hand, becomes more attractive."
The finding may partly explain why we grab comfort foods when we're depressed, according to Winkielman. "You want to try new things when you're happy but when there is a signal of danger you go for the tried and true," Winkielman told LiveScience.
"In evolutionary times [long ago], when everything was going well, animals might try out new berries or new grounds to graze, but when there's the possibility of a predator being around, they will go to a familiar place to eat and drink," Winkielman said. "That is probably why our minds have evolved this trick of exploring when things are safe and wanting something familiar when there is potential danger."
The results, which are detailed in the journal Psychological Science, have practical implications. For example, when companies introduce new products, they may want to do so in settings that encourage a happy, playful mood. However, a doctor's office, which people visit rarely and in stressful circumstances, should probably stay away from edgy décor, opting instead for the comfy and familiar, Winkielman said.
The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the European Association of Experimental Social Psychology, Radboud University Nijmegen, and the Dutch Science Foundation.
LiveScience
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The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. We are a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and marketing skills. Check out thousands of cutting edge examples at our web site. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
Sent via TVSpy's email servers. Visit TV Spy's Marketing Matters.
Graeme Newell
602 Communications
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