You’d be forgiven for thinking that today’s holy marketing grail is to be talked about (a lot) in social media. Unfortunately, social buzz doesn’t necessarily translate into either attention or sales.

That discontinuity has now been clearly illustrated thanks to a just-released U.S. report from Networked Insights Inc called “SocialSenseTV”, which correlates the buzz on popular US television shows with their actual Nielsen ratings.

The report covers the period from the 1st of February 2010 to the 25th of April 2010. Unsurprisingly given that timeframe, the Number 1 most-discussed show across the social networks was “Lost”, counting down to last week’s final episode. However, despite its Number 1 social status, the ever-mysterious saga could only average 10th place in the Nielsen TV ratings (amongst those 18-64) across the period.

American Idol, second most talked-about TV series, was actually the top-rating TV show in the US for that time period according to Nielsen; Glee, third most buzzed, sang and danced its way into fourth in the ratings.

Further down the list, however, the disparity between the two metrics becomes far more evident. The Simpsons, still buzzworthy after all these years, ranks Number 4 on the social-o-meter but rates 44th most-watched series according to Nielsen; the Number 5 social show, Heroes, only manages an asterisk in the report (which means in this instance that the show is ranked lower Nielsen’s 50 most-watched shows).

Other socially-superior shows that fell into the Nielsen realm of the asterisk included Saturday Night Live (9th most social), Cold Case (11th), So You Think You Can Dance (16th), Chuck (17th) and How I Met Your Mother (20th).

What implications can we take from all this?

Firstly, that just because a topic hits water-cooler status doesn’t mean that talk will translate into action. In fact, it may well be that in many cases social newsgatherers can get enough out of the virtual buzz to avoid bothering to engage with the product at all. The next best thing to being there may well be listening hard enough to be able to bluff your way through in future conversations.

Secondly, those who stalk the corridors of the social networks, numerous though they may be, are not yet representative of the population at large — they’re younger (and tend to spend less time engaging with traditional media and more time interacting with each other). And when it comes to disposable income their share of purse still tends to be lower, except for core categories of importance to their demographic.

Thirdly, buzz about any particular event or TV show AFTER the event is just too darned late. Yes, TV operators might gather a few viewers to their Replay TV service, but for most other applications, it’s already over. The time to drive buzz is beforehand.

And finally, especially when it comes to TV shows that have been around a while, many of us carry a symbolic understanding of at least the most popular shows in our heads. Episodic television being what it is, where things don’t change much from week to week, all we need is a few fragments of current information to update our cerebral files and we don’t need to see the show to have the experience.

In summary:  it’s nice when they’re talking about you (especially beforehand) but it’s no substitute for the ka-ching of the cash register.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Apple Inc. is [reportedly] in discussions with television networks to lower the price of downloaded TV shows when the company begins selling its new iPad tablet computer.

Apple has already been testing a price of 99 cents—half the price of standard-definition TV episodes—for certain shows on its iTunes service and [again, reportedly] wants to finalize a deal to offer that price more broadly along with the iPad, which is expected to go on sale in late March.

All that speculation makes for a great story, probably with at least a grain of truth. And selective leaking might well put more pressure on TV programme producers to do a deal.

But the underlying subtext is even more interesting — and potentially game-changing. When the iPod came out, it (more than any other device) turned music listening from a shared experience to a predominantly single-user moment. Whatever your musical taste, you were no longer obliged to negotiate with other members of your household before firing up the stereo. You could dance to the beat of a different drummer in the privacy of your own earbuds.

Now the iPad threatens to unleash the same single-user phenomenon with television. YouTube already brought us part of the way — the iPad will complete the circuit with quality television available in a one-person device. Content comes in through WiFi or Mobile, and exits through one pair of eyes.

As marketers, are we ready for a new generation of massively-multi-set households?

There have been some epic television commercials for Guinness.

This probably isn’t one of them.

Take a look for yourself.

Not that any expense was spared.

Conceived and developed at AMV BBDO London by creative Paul Brazier, and agency producer Yvonne Chalkley, this latest commercial ["World"] was shot on location in Canada, New Zealand, Fiji and the UK.

The Independent lapses into rather poetic retelling of the story behind the scenes:

This is the story of the making of the most anticipated advertising campaign of the year. It involved a trip to the other side of the earth and a brief to simulate the creation of the world. In a 90-second film.

And so it came to pass that the Manchester-born director Johnny Green, having taken on the greatest challenge of his career, found himself in a New Zealand field facing disaster. Green had been commissioned by Guinness, the client with the greatest creative advertising legacy of them all, to make the campaign intended to reposition the world-famous brand and change the habits of millions of drinkers.

In the back of his mind was some of the greatest advertising of all time: the horses emerging from the waves in Jonathan Glazer’s 1999 Surfer, Frank Budgen’s epic Snail Race from 2000, Danny Kleinman’s Cannes Grand Prix-winning story of the evolution of the Guinness drinker, Noitulove from 2006, and Nicolai Fuglsig’s Tipping Point, showing dominoes, fridges and cars toppling through a South American village, two years ago. “I know it all inside out,” says Green of this back catalogue. “But you can’t get too involved because you get intimidated if you start thinking ‘I’ve got to live up to all those guys’.”

The other commercials all featured the famous endline “Good things come to those who wait”. Green was tasked with ushering in a brand new era of Guinness drinking, built around a fresh line: “Bring it to life”.

His big scene was to feature a vast, lush carpet of green turf, which would be dragged into place by his planet-building group of untrained actors. Except, in growing his turf he hadn’t bargained for the New Zealand weather. “It rained so heavily the grass ended up disintegrating,” he says. His response was to assemble a team of 45 local New Zealand women and set up a small factory where, over six days, they stitched together an artificial lawn. Last Wednesday, during coverage of the Champions League, millions of viewers saw this green tapestry being lugged over rocks and through the rain by a man whose day job is as a New Zealand fireman.

The Inspiration Room blog, meanwhile. points us at a “Making Of” video clip:

So does it work? The Independent reports on industry reaction so far, channelling the Brand Republic website:

The reaction in the advertising community is mixed. “This is like being served a Guinness by an Aussie barmaid just off the plane; it’s flat and lifeless,” was one comment on the Brand Republic website. “I think this is epic. Guinness is a big powerful drink that really does come to life before your eyes,” was a more positive response on Creative Review’s site. “It’s beautiful cinematography but the message is lost,” said another.

THE BRIEF

So how did this all come about?

Back to The Independent and some words from the client:

The story of how Guinness chose the “Bring it to life” endline stretches back two years and involves exhaustive research of the target audience. Paul Cornell, marketing manager for Guinness, says: “What has become clear is that a lot of our volume is coming from the guys who love the brand, love the product and drink us on many occasions.” But the more occasional Guinness consumers had become convinced it was only a drink for special moments, while watching a rugby match, say, or on St Patrick’s Day.

Which somehow led to:

Anxious to widen the appeal of his product, Cornell analysed previous Guinness advertising work and decided three elements were crucial to success: epic production, a positive resolution and a shared experience.

And from there, for no obvious reason, to:

After countless hours of thought, Brazier finally came up with the new endline on a taxi journey to the Guinness office for a crucial meeting. “I don’t know if it’s nervous energy but creativity comes out of that last-minute panic. I was in the cab going down there, and I just interrupted the conversation and said, ‘I know – it’s ‘Bring it to life’!” He snatched a pencil to scrawl down the line and presented it to the client on a Post-it note. From there, the team went through around 60 storyboards to get to the finished version.

Which is all very well. But, with all due respect, may we point out that if one pauses the commercial just before the end frame, there is absolutely NO connection with the product. And, for that matter, there’s no connection between “Bring it to life” and Guinness either. Perhaps Mr Brazier should have told the cabbie to keep driving aroung the block a few more times.

ABC is introducing a new feature aimed at “encouraging viewers who stream their favorite shows online to make the experience more social”. Right, like we needed encouraging to talk amongst ourselves.

This Saturday, according to MediaWeek:

… the network will launch ABC Social: Episode Commentary on ABC.com. The new tool allows Web viewers to add their two cents by commenting on the show in an adjacent window to the left of the site’s video viewer. Users can log in to this feature using their Facebook accounts and can instantly share their personal commentary with their Facebook friend circles if they so choose.

ABC is using this week’s premiere of the sci-fi remake V to kick off ABC Social—as the show’s debut episode will be the first to incorporate the functionality starting this weekend. To make ABC Social more compelling—and to stoke the passion of sci-fi fans—the site will include commentary from V executive producers Scott Peters and Steve Pearlman. ABC plans to include such “insider” commentary alongside other shows down the road—potentially including commentary from actors, network executives and show staffers, journalists and even bloggers.

Executives at ABC see Social as a differentiator in an increasingly cluttered online video landscape, according to Alexis Rapo, vp, digital media, ABC Entertainment. “This definitely allows us to engage with a deeper, broader audience,” she said, comparing the experience to the “DVD extras” model. “It’s so wide ranging in terms of the commentary that might be available. We have lots of interesting ideas keep coming into play.”

Why bother?

ABC is testing inserted ads within the stream of comments within the ABC Social feed. “We think this is going to be a compelling opportunity for our advertisers,” Rapo said.

Ah yes, of course. The search for the mighty dollar.

The notion of providing extended commentary is appealing, especially for SciFi fans — the BBC has done a sterling job of catering to that community with its DR WHO CONFIDENTIAL companion series to the rebooted DR WHO, which takes fans behind the scenes. But we’re unconvinced that a social stream is needed, especially one with ads.

All very fashionable, we guess.

Deloitte was quoted last week by South Africa’s BizCommunity.com as reporting that “an average of 9% of all radio ads booked [on South African radio] are not broadcast as scheduled. Based on an estimated spend of R3 billion on radio advertising in 2008, this error equates to R270 million [USD $35.6 million] erosion of ad spend per annum.”

“Through our research and market testing of this concept, it’s become apparent to us that there are significant operational inefficiencies in radio and television broadcast where advertising campaigns are flighted incorrectly. The scope of errors which we verified were not aired at all, broadcast in the wrong time channel or flighted as scheduled but the wrong material was used,” commented Audine Brooks, business leader for Deloitte’s Advertising Broadcast Certification service.

In the last month, some of the Deloitte findings show:

• Client’s radio campaign ran at a 24% error rate – resultant compensation claim was thirty fold the related certification fee
• Another major advertiser’s radio activity consistently results in an 8% error rate, damaging the reach and frequency intended by its marketing strategy
• Another TV campaign ran at 5% error rate, R149k in value booked but not broadcast accurately.

This report was quickly questioned by commenters on the BizCommunity website, suggesting that the results were not representative of the industry as a whole; and it’s perhaps fair to question Deloitte’s motives in releasing the data, given that they seem to be offering a broadcast monitoring and certification service that would address any such problems in a timely fashion.

Nonetheless the whole story is a useful reminder of the transient character of the broadcast medium, and the need for proof of broadcast in some form.

If a radio station broadcasts in the forest and there’s no-one there, can they charge advertisers for the airtime?

This Saturday’s World Cup Football qualifier between England and the Ukraine will be shown exclusively online in the UK for the first time, according to MediaWeek.

Live TV rights for the fixture, which takes place in Kiev at the weekend (on 10 October) were previously held by Setanta, which exited the UK earlier this year

However international football rights agency Kentaro has been unable to resell the rights to a UK broadcaster.

Instead, the game will now be shown live online at Ukrainevengland.com for £4.99, a fee which will increase during the week to a maximum rate of £11.99 for purchases made on the day of the game.

Kentaro has appointed online sport specialist Perform to market and stream the match online on a pay-per-view basis.

The game will also be shown via the websites of The Sun, The Times, News of the World, Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Daily Star and The Independent.

Virgin Media and Orange will also air the game.

James Richardson will present the live coverage, alongside ex-England manager and Notts County director of Football Sven Goran Eriksson. Commentary will come from David Pleat and Tony Jones.

In addition, Kentaro has also struck a deal to screen the game in key cinemas across the country.

It’s been brewing for the last couple of years, but now it’s official (based on data reported by the UK Internet Advertising Bureau) — UK spending on internet advertising topped £1.75 billion in the first half of 2009, a rise of just 4.6 per cent compared to the same period last year. But the increase was enough for online advertising to pass declining TV spend, which sits at £1.64bn, for the first time in a major market.

Online advertising now accounts for 23.5 per cent of all UK ad spend compared with TV’s 21.9 per cent.

Five key drivers for this precedent-setting result, as identified by the IAB (with our own views added in italics):

1. Advertising networks boosting the market: Alongside the major portals, advertisers are increasingly turning to networks to book their online campaigns. According to Econsultancy research, 70% of online advertisers and their agencies work with three online advertising networks or more. Almost half (46%) the say they are working with more ad networks than a year ago, an average of 31% of online display advertising budget is believed to be spent on online advertising networks. As a result, UK agencies and advertisers are enjoying significant operational efficiencies that make life easier when it comes to placing advertising online.
2. Online as a direct response medium: 2009 has seen marketing budgets being stretched to their very limits, and online has proved its worth. Improved planning and insight tools have seen more advertisers flock to the medium to take advantage of its targeting, accountability and measurability. It’s very much a sign of the times: in recessionary environments, when CEOs are looking for cuts everywhere, it’s much easier for CMOs to justify expenditure where there’s demonstrable accountability. Conversely, television (despite its many acknowledged strengths) can usually only offer a very murky relationship between spend and sales.
3. Growth of new display formats: With the proliferation of video, the internet has become a highly engaging entertainment medium. Alongside tried and tested methods such as rich media, pre and post roll online video advertising is showing strong growth (a 195% increase year-on-year). This indicates advertisers’ willingness to experiment and invest in more engaging and interactive multimedia content. Yeah, maybe. Mostly, however, it’s about comfort and convenience. Advertisers and their agencies understand (or believe they understand) the power of moving pictures. Online video is finally widespread enough that advertisers can simply take their existing TV materials and (often for a fraction of the cost of broadcast television) simply transplant them to the internet. Job done, no thinking required.
4. Ecommerce booming: In a time of recession, people buying and shopping are taking to the internet for the best deals, making online the best place to reach bargain-hungry consumers. The continued annual growth in the online retail market is evidence that online is withstanding the challenges of the economic downturn and the retailers that continue to expand and improve their online presence. Say it with us: disintermediation. Cut out the middle man, hand over the savings to the consumer.
5. Faster, cheaper broadband: 92% of people now have a broadband speed on over 2MB and 56% of home broadband users now have wireless broadband driving audiences online and allows advertisers to provide consumers with richer branded content (BMRB Internet Monitor May 2009). Or, to put it another way, consumers with decent broadband don’t complain as much about over-indulgent advertising that sucks up bandwidth.

The emergence of online as market leader in the UK advertising world is a significant event, to be sure — paradigm shift and all that. But we should acknowledge that the UK marketing environment has some unique characteristics — for starters, the very existence of the BBC as a dominant but non-commercial television broadcaster means that advertisers have long been restricted in their ability to reach British consumers through the small screen at the levels taken for granted in other markets. As a result, alternative communications offerings have perhaps enjoyed readier acceptance in the United Kingdom than elsewhere.

In other words, it could be a while before other key markets reach the tipping point we’ve just witnessed in the old country.

In its just-released research study EUROPE LOGS ON – European Internet Trends of Today and Tomorrow (April 2009), Microsoft projects that “based on current growth trends, Internet consumption will outstrip traditional TV in June 2010, averaging 14.2 hours per week against 11.5 hours for TV”. Yes, that’s just June next year, just over twelve months away as we write this.

How is that possible? The Microsoft report delves into recent European Internet statistics and mounts a strong argument, going on on to observe that:

“The demand for non-stop connectivity will fuel the migration of online services from the PC onto other everyday devices – resulting in a shift towards seamless PC, TV and mobile experiences. Soon, it won’t matter what device you use to connect to your digital world – people will be able to communicate and get access to information on demand, anytime, anywhere.

“To continue to make the most of digital media and to engage with this digital generation, advertisers need to adopt new marketing strategies that create a conversation with the consumer, provide entertainment and fully embrace the new opportunities made available by technological innovations.”

Microsoft’s specific advice to advertisers attempting to engage in the digital arena:

1. Understand the environment
   Put the message into the right context. Research from Microsoft Advertising emphasises the need to overlay time, place, mood and motivation as digital is unique in delivering on so many different motivations and moods (Context Matters, November 07)
2. Move away from ‘push marketing solutions’ and join the conversation
   Information distribution is today driven by consumers and user generated content has given people a voice online. Digital is the only channel which can offer real-time conversations between brands and consumers – being at the same time both intimate and anonymous. Advertising that encourages interaction, input and community with this digital audience can help drive understanding of, and is more likely to be successful, in shaping consumer sentiment towards a brand, or having a direct impact on a new product launch for example
3. Reach out to the ‘creators’
   Identify the new ‘super influencers’ who are making the most of social media tools including blogs, video and podcasts. Online is the “point of influence” for many purchase decisions and the place where many brand associations are now being built or deepened. Recent Microsoft Advertising and Synovate research found that half of all 18-24 year-olds either review or offer opinions about products or services online
4. Provide content that is relevant, engaging and personalised
   Ensure advertising really appreciates this new role of the consumer as a “self regulator” – actively choosing content and messages relevant to them. Consider developing innovative and strategic marketing campaigns that go beyond traditional advertising formats. For example, rich media and audio/video which allow the creative community new ways to deliver emotional brand impact in the digital space.
5. Don’t bolt on digital
   Impactful and effective advertising content requires careful consideration and planning. Digital needs to be an integrated part of an advertiser media plan and marketing strategy. Embrace technology which is at the centre of enabling better integration of digital into the broader communications planning process.

All good advice as far as it goes, but our research indicates that marketers are out of their depth and unsure how to tackle most of the above five suggestions. We have a whole lot more to say on the subject in the current edition of MARKETING RAG. Subscribe now and we’ll send you that edition.

Addressable TV Advertising, a long-sought dream of television marketers, is about to become reality.

AdAge is reporting that Canoe, the [poorly-named] technology consortium backed by the six largest cable media companies in the US, will launch the television industry’s first national addressable advertising system next month.

What is Addressable TV advertising and why should it concern us?

Direct Marketers have long been able to slice and dice the country (any country) into different segments, typically based on income and whatever other data is gathered and analysed by census-takers and other researchers. Want to mail to higher-income households in a specified geographic area? No problem. But up until now it hasn’t been feasible to apply that same segmentation and targeting to television.

Even though the cable television operators have always known where you live — and could have matched that address against commercially available databases to deliver unique content just to your household (and to other households that have a demographically similar profile) — they haven’t offered that service in the past. The effort involved, and the technology cost, to offer micro-targeting to advertisers who only had the one national commercial anyway, meant the exercise simply wasn’t worthwhile.

Now, however, as video migrates to the web, it’s never been more important to offer bespoke targeting — especially when competing with organisations that offer geographic, contextual & behavioral targeting and even personalised targeting on sites where registration is required. As marketers get more adept at micro-targeting it’s inevitable that they’ll demand similar capabilities from the previously mass media.

One size, it turns out, no longer fits all.