THE BERLIN OFFICE – TBO Digital Strategies

johnsonLAB is on the move towards teaming up with some of the finest digital media strategists available on the European market. Together we will start THE BERLIN OFFICE – TBO Digital Strategies, a consulting company specialized in digital media and content strategies. Watch out for your invitation to the opening event!

THE BERLIN OFFICE: Surf The Digital Tsunami!
Coming Summer 2010

Until then, we will continue to integrate highly skilled specialists for social media, information design and multimedia into the johnsonLAB team. Just to ensure you get this innovations job best done by us.

BTW: Check out latest digital media news on our twitter-stream written by Steve Johnson-Wozowiecki.

Quality Now! – Online Video Metrics Reloaded

In between we all know that online video requires a new approach regarding key performance indicators.

To measure …

To measure and analyze how video content is consumed you have to check on engagement, consumption and how viewers interact with their content.

For an overview on the most established performance indicators, let’s check on the statistics Streametrics’ Vstat offers us:

- Active Video Sessions
- Videos Being Watched Right Now

- In Streams | Out Streams
- Access [referrers, auto-referrer, partners, direct, search engines]
- Video – Entries | Video – Exits

- Number of unique videos
- Connections
- Completions
- Completion rate
- Unique viewers
- Returning viewers
- New viewers
- Number of video sessions
- Total time (viewing)
- Average Time by Viewer
- Average Time by Video
- Average Video by Viewers
- Average Video by Session

- Video Audience Rates from 0% to 100%

- Geolocalization [countries, regions, cities]
- Organizations
- Internet Providers

And now

And now, after all this is listed, let’s see what Jaffer Ali, CEO of Vidsense, thinks of metrics [as written @ Chiefmarketer a few days ago]:

“For my money and hopefully yours, results are better measured by the true end user —the advertiser—in terms of quality, not quantity. Who cares how many millions of impressions are generated if the message falls on deaf ears?” [...]
“The explosive emergence of online video offers us a fresh opportunity to take up the gauntlet thrown down years ago by Turner and put the quality horse before the quantity cart once again.” [...]
“I propose a simple new term to describe the online marketing experience, one that is increasingly video-driven: Value Per Engagement (VPE), which is not a metric per se. VPE describes whatever litany of metrics such as duration, customer satisfaction and conversion an advertiser might deploy in any given campaign to determine the quality of the engagement.

If you want the perfect online video - delivering highly involved customers to your doorstep - give us a briefing, we’ll get it done. From outstanding concept development via effective production and publication to perfect image values and revenues.

The online video market is hot - blast it!

Blippr Like A Twitter

Blippr-Beta Out Now

Some still shiver down the 2.0_river. You may prefer to blippr like a twitter. At least when it comes down to micro-reviews.

Blippr is a microblogging service for user reviews of products, allowing users to discover, discuss, and organize products that they are interested in. Blips are reviews in 160 characters or less.

Bottomline
Micro-blogging on entertainment products to the point.

Or: Welcome to short message age. If you can’t say it in 140 something characters and a link, it’s not worth mentioning it.

Good Blipp And Good Twitt!

It’s Bonnie+Clyde, not Jekyll+Hide: TV and Online work best together

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

International TV- and 360° producers know it by heart, now Thinkbox and IAB proof it to be true for advertising as well:
- TV & online work best together,
- TV & online are used mainly for entertainment (TV 80%; online 56%)

 

 

 

 

 

In their actual research Thinkbox and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) show that using TV and online together in advertising campaigns is significantly more effective for advertisers than using either in isolation. Their combined use produces major benefits for advertisers, including dramatically increased positive brand perception amongst consumers – some 50% higher – as well as significantly greater likelihood of purchase.

 

The Thinkbox/IAB survey focused specifically on ‘digital consumers’; people who own a digital TV and use broadband internet, and are medium to heavy users of each (about 25 % of population).

- 64% of the sample said they sometimes watch TV while using the internet, while 48% said they did this most days
- Using TV and online together results in 47% more positivity about a brand than using either in isolation
- The likelihood of buying or using a product increases by more than 50% when TV and online are used together
- Two thirds of the sample have watched TV via online providers, mainly as a way to catch up with broadcast TV, and mainly from TV broadcasters’ websites
- Both TV and the internet are used for entertainment (TV 80%; online 56%) and both have a significant influence on driving purchase (TV 75%; online 52%)

 

TV and Online campaigns need to have a consistent theme/message

- The strength of each media need to be maximised:
   > TV – excitement and impact,
   > Online – interaction and personalised engagement.

- Needs to be a high level of visual synergy.

- Rather than use online as a reach extension medium, it be used to target those who have seen the TV advertising to extend the message of the campaign.

The Worldwide State of the Mobile Web

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mobile web has reached a “critical mass” this year according to a report Nielsen Mobile just published.

The US is the most advanced nation with nearly 40 million Americans – 16% of all US mobile users – using their handset to browse. The UK and then Italy come second and third in the 16 countries surveyed.

 

Check the complete paper @: http://www.nielsenmobile.com/documents/CriticalMass.pdf

YouTube’s U-Turn + The Power of Online Video

 
YouTube does U-turn, plans to intro pre-roll ads

After trying to monetize the video site with a variety of new-style ad programs, Google may be caving in and giving the green light to good, old-fashioned pre- and post-roll advertising on YouTube.
by Helen Leggatt, BizReport
“It appears that buzz targeting, demographic targeting, AdSense for Video, geo-targeting and even revenue share couldn’t bring in enough ad revenue to keep pre- and post-roll advertising from YouTube’s door.

Things really must be tough if recent reports are true that the online video site is to adopt an advertising format that, according to its own survey, most of its audience dislikes. [...]

It will be interesting to see whether this move will see a backlash from YouTube users or perhaps a migration to other online video sites.”

[Also read: "Hulu is kicking Youtube's Ass" from Marc Cuban, Jun 16th 2008 8:30PM]

 

The holy trinity of traffic, conversion and repeat visitation demands your attention on:

Benjamin Wayne on the “Power of Online Video” (Chief Marketer):

[...] Take Big Plush, for example. The retailer—which makes giant stuffed animals such as seven-foot teddy bears and six-foot gorillas—has a unique market niche. They wanted a way to communicate not just the product, but also the reaction of new toy owners to their giant fuzzy friends. To do this, they built out an entire video “vault” complete with clips of the production process and the reactions of astonished recipients of their oversized toys.  [...] The result was dramatically increased sales and pass-along, with visitors sharing videos and enticing new customers to experience the product and the brand.
[Nobody said we appreciate the style - but we do appreciate the essence of the concept.]

Location, Location, Location
There are three places publishers need to think about getting their video assets—the site itself, search engine placement and viral propagation.

Within your site itself, consider the home page, galleries and calls to action. Video on the home page will attract clicks from more than half your users, and can be a great tool to draw visitors deeper into the site. Consider including videos that are instructional in nature, or include a message from the company to introduce a new visitor to the business. [...]

[...] Most publishers understand the importance of SEO, but few realize search crawlers are incapable of reading Flash tags, meaning that despite the fact search engines now feature videos in their results, most videos fail to appear. In order to take advantage of SEO opportunities in video, publishers need to submit their video assets via MRSS, a service provided by many video-hosting providers. Since the pool of videos currently indexed is small, this is an opportunity all should explore.

And don’t neglect viral propagation. [...] Viral reposting of video puts your brand, your watermark, your video and a link to your site into locations, blogs, wikis and forums you could never reach on your own. Some publishers see over 50% of their video viewership through viral propagation.

Implementing a video strategy doesn’t have to mean big bucks. Today’s Web visitors are looking for clips that help them understand a product or service, not a lengthy infomercial or short film. [...]

The Mobile Ecosystem (2): M-Commerce is not a Lovesong + Leaders in Mobile Search + Payment via NFC Mobiles

 

 

 

Nine Million U.S. Mobile Users Have Used Their Mobile Phone To Pay For Goods Or Services

Nielsen Mobile presented an overview of the opportunities in mobile commerce at the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition in Chicago, IL (June 9 – 12, 2008).  Among the findings presented:

• As of Q1 2008, 3.6 percent (9.2 million) of US mobile subscribers use their phone to pay for goods or services
• Men are more likely than women to use their phone for commerce: 4.5 percent (4.9 million) of men and 3.0 percent (4.3 million) of women say they have made a purchase using their phone
• Adults ages 25–34 are the most likely to have made a purchase using their phone: 5.4 percent (3 million) of adults ages 25–34 have made a purchase, compared to 3.6 percent of all mobile subscribers

Mobile websites are one popular way consumers make purchases over the mobile phone.  Of the 40 million active US users of the mobile web in April 2008, 5 million accessed mobile shopping and auction websites – up 73% from April 2007, when just 2.9 million mobile users did so. Auction site eBay.com is the most popular shopping or auction destination on the mobile web, with 3.4 million unique visitors in April.

Purchasing items via text messaging is another growing form of mobile commerce.  Some services allow consumers to send text messages to a phone number or mobile shortcode in order to be charged for goods or services directly on their mobile phone bills.  Already, 6.5 million US mobile consumers say they’ve used text messaging to purchase an item.

Nielsen’s study reveals that security is the number one concern among those mobile data users not yet participating in m-commerce: 

• 41 % of data users who do not participate in mobile commerce say security is their biggest concern
• 23 % say they worry about being charged for the airtime
• 21 % say they don’t trust that the transaction will be completed

 
Nielsen Mobile provides Google and Yahoo! Mobile-Search Data as Well

Google leads in mobile Internet search provider share followed by Yahoo!, together accounting for 79% of the mobile Internet search market.

Top 3 Mobile Internet Search Providers for Q1 2008 by Provider Share
1.  Google  (61%)
2.  Yahoo!  (18%)
3.  MSN  (5%)

• 65% of Google search users and 63% of Yahoo! searchers are male.
• At 9.0 searches per month, Google users search more frequently than users of any other mobile Internet search provider.  Yahoo! is the third most frequently-used provider, with Yahoo! users searching 6.7 times per month.

contextualize

NFC mobiles on track in Asia

Payment via phones outfitted with near field communications chips will happen, industry players assure, and Asia is expected to get the technology first.

By Victoria Ho, ZDNet Asia, Friday, June 27, 2008 06:41 PM

The day you can pay for goods with a wave of your mobile phone is nearing, slowly but surely–and this will likely happen first in Asia, say NFC (near field communications) industry players.

[...] Chia Yong Choon, regional marketing director (Asia-Pacific and Korea) at NXP Semiconductors said in an interview with ZDNet Asia: “NFC is very affordable. The cost is comparable to designing other features into handsets, such as GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM radio, et cetera. Certainly, cost will not be a barrier.”

The bigger barrier, say analysts, is the underdevelopment of the payment ecosystem around NFC-enabled phones.

[...]

M-commerce still three to five years away

By Victoria Ho, ZDNet Asia, Wednesday, June 11, 2008 07:54 PM

[...] According to Mehta, for many countries, regulation is often the deciding factor for mobile payment implementation.

“Regulatory issues will either hold back or propel mobile commerce, by either making it difficult to implement or make it mandatory…China and India are still struggling with regulations, for example,” he said.

In terms of technology, Mehta said an area that needs addressing is the standardization of payment interfaces across handsets. “Implementing Web standards will help ensure the experience is the same for everyone,” he noted.

Another issue, said Mehta, is security, which should be a top priority as hardware and software makers develop devices and applications for m-commerce.

Research firm Informa predicted early last year that m-commerce would generate US$359 million by 2011. Most of the revenues will come from the Asia-Pacific region, according to Informa principal analyst Nick Lane. [End of Article / Quote]

Format Development News (3): PC EAT TV – BUT NO – BUT YES

 

 

 

June 2007, London
“Good morning, Crane, Fool and Schmidt Consulting, we found out that PC EATS TV in Great Britain.  Change your way of media production and distribution. Shift loads of your marketing spendings to online video.”

January 2008, Berlin
“We just made a nationwide survey on video consumption. Guess what! We found out that ONLINE VIDEO does NOT EAT TV! Over-all media consumption time grows steadily plus people looking online videos are heavy media consumers meaning they look more TV than the regular TV conumser does anyway.”

May/June 2008, New York
Ipsos.com: PC EATS TV’s share of screen time! 
The amount of video consumed on TV has dropped 5 % among people who actively stream and download video content.

MOTION – the quarterly tracking study investigating digital video usage and behaviors in the U.S. by Ipsos MediaCT – shows that the percentage of video consumed on a TV among video downloaders and streamers declined from 75% in February 2007 to 70% in February 2008 – a small, yet significant drop.

In addition, the percentage of total screen time captured by movie theaters also declined significantly in the past year.

Adam Wright, Director at Ipsos MediaCT: “Streaming video online has become an activity many Americans aren’t just experimenting with, but enjoy on a regular basis.
About half of all Internet users aged 12 and up have streamed a video file online in the past 30 days.”

 

The uniformity of the trends observed with share of screen time among digital video users really underscores a much larger implication for the video entertainment industry: consumers who are engaged in video downloading and streaming today are indeed developing a more diverse set of needs with how they access and manage the their preferred video content.

Bottom Line: Convergence continously coming true.
We need high quality content. We need the distributor’s readiness to put it on any channel. We need development of convergence device technology. And of course securing (increase of) bandwith.

Go for a good weak!
And keep in mind: Content is King, Distribution is Kong.

Web Marketing (2): Make it a Royal with Flash

Royal Caribbean launched a flash-site to promote their new ship with extremely successful integration of all media. And they made an intro that works despite bothering. We even could ignore the charming but cheesy way of being taken care. Excellent virtual discovery site for a place we never would want to go in real life.

 

 

 

 

 
 

Go, have a look.
And while you’re at it, go check on ECODA – THE ECO ZOO as well. ENJIN and McCANN ERICKSON Japan made a fantastic combination of pop-up books and flash there. Remember that the first mechanic books appeared during 13th century while clicking it…

Have a good start into YOUR week!

Distinguishing Kick-Ass! (2): The New EMPEROR Has Finally Arrived!

Access to the new EMPEROR gets granted when the EMPEROR waggs his scorpion-tail. The EMPEROR will arrive with a webcam, THX dss, superb air filtering and some whimsical light therapy. In short: I’LL BE TOAST!

 

His Highness the EMPEROR’s traveling schedule according to it’s servants NOVELQUEST starts with release of specs, options und purchase prize [how truly ordinary] on July 24th, 2008. By end of October you should be able to buy one at the New York showroom. Buy one too, that is of course…

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR. Or else.