Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

How Do You Value Content?

When Channel 4's boss, Andy Duncan, writes in the FT, ‘The future must be about maximising the value of our content,’ he undoubtedly speaks for media executives around the planet.  So what’s the problem?  Why has the value of content suddenly become so newsworthy?  The answer lies in the media ratings industry and the challenges it faces from the web and digital technology.  Ratings in traditional media are vital as they allow the commercial world to work out what content they should be backing with their marketing bucks.  For example Nielsen's Television Ratings, the mother of all such services, which has reported on the TV viewing habits of 9,000 American households for more than sixty years, determines the destiny of $25bn of advertisers' cash annually.  Here in the UK the same job is done by BARB, which monitors televisual preferences in 5,100 homes.  Both are centralised systems that extrapolate trends from a relatively small group of individuals and use them to create a commercial marketplace, in which C4 and others have been able to operate successfully for many years.  However, as Duncan’s quote suggests, this marketplace is now under pressure because advertisers question the value of ratings services which have struggled to keep up with the web.  Or as one grand media fromage memorably told me: 'We know the bike is broken but it's the only one we've got.'  The difficulties arise because the concept of ‘ratings’ is very different online.  The goal is still to judge the value of content but the similarities stop there.  Online ratings services normally refer to...

Who Needs A Label?

The music industry remains fascinating from a marketing perspective as the distribution networks driven by its fans become increasingly influential and start to supercede the structures of the Big Labels.  This interview at TorrentFreak with a young musician gives a great flavour of what radical change looks like from the Y-Gen perspective.  “'Labels will complain and sue their very core audience just to make a dollar. I can’t blame them, it’s the way they’ve built their company. Change scares them, especially when they don’t control it. I honestly believe that I wouldn’t be a musician today if Napster hadn’t appeared. I think Napster fostered the incredible current musical culture and nobody gives them credit for it. I find it very hard for an upcoming artist to get any exposure without being willing to promote their music on p2p networks.'  The clash between artist and labels, and the ever increasing piracy statistics are forcing the big labels to rethink their business models. Nowadays, BitTorrent has the power to promote artists based on their music, not on the advertising budget. It is hard to deny that the music labels are in a crisis, however, music itself is more alive than ever before."  As Doc Searls says, 'in networked economies the demand side supplies itself'.

People Care About Markets, Not Industries

No one cares about the music industry.  But they really care about music, musicians - and the music marketplace.  They care about songs, singers, bands, DJs, gigs, clubs, forums, recommendations, discussion boards, MySpace, specialist dealers and obscure collectors.  And now the web lets people organise these things into the marketplace they've always wanted.  Which looks something like - free music supported by live gigs, merchandise and good quality recordings.  The music business (RIP) lost sight of the industry vs marketplace distinction along time ago.  After years of trying to protect their cathedrals, they ended up outsourcing the headache to Steve Jobs.  Who made a mint by ignoring the industrialists and rebuilding a lighter-whiter-brighter marketplace.  Now TV is trying to avoid the same fate of being stuck behind stone walls, throwing boiling oil at its customers.  TV's smart kids know no one gives a hoot about their industry.  But they do care about great entertainment, amazing actors, sensitive scriptwriting, powerful plots, celebrity glitz and inspiring drama.  In fact, they care so much that given the opportunity they want to get involved.  Just look at the success of the L-Word fanisode and LG15 (now EQAL), creators of the hits Lonely Girl and Kate Modern.  Both are examples of smart operators turning their backs on the industry, looking out into the marketplace (aka the bazaar) and reacting to what they observe.  But it's not all small studios hustling webisode craziness.  The Big Daddy of social networks - MySpace - has its own TV channel and just listen to its VP, Jason Kirk describe their approach: "We’re trying to decide what makes sense for our community. The video is often the catalyst, but it’s about how does it play into the community."  Or Amanda Goodfried, LG15 producer: 'The show is more than just a video series, it’s a universe, a full experience where viewers can become directly involved in the character’s lives.'  No industrial sentiment there.

"We Need To Protect The Music"

I don't have the mental capacity to unravel the levels of irony currently unfolding in the music business.  Explaining the strategy behind Universal using DRM-free music to create a new market that will challenge the omnipotent iPod is like Sudoku for marketeers.  However, the trigger is clear.  This year, 22 percent of all music sold in the US will move through iTunes.  Having spent gazillions on lawyers fees trying - and failing - to prevent such a DRM-free market being created, it's a remarkable twist in this story.  But in this fascinating Wired article we can understand that myopia created by quarterly reporting and reliance on the huge profit margins of previous distribution systems (ie CDs) were equally culpable in the industry's current desperate situation.  "We need to protect the music. I know that," says Universal Music Group CEO, Doug Morris.  Don't worry Doug, 'the music' is going to be fine.  When you gave it all to Steve Jobs he put it in his safe.  Now he only lets people use it if they pay him.

"Apple Has Destroyed The Music Business"

In an interview intended to launch new social video site Hulu NBC Universal Chief Jeff Zucker said that, "Apple destroyed the music business in terms of pricing and threatens to do the same to video".  I might just stop there and leave you all to decide what type of reality-enhancing medication Mr Zucker is on.  But hold on - there's more!  “We don’t want to replace the dollars we were making in the analog world with pennies on the digital side."  Oh you don't?!  This is actually a very interesting case of a media giant realising that the world is actually changing and that there's a real possibility they've missed the bus.  It's also undoubtedly part of negotiations with Apple about the cost of video downloads. However, as I've mentioned before, it's staggering how the entertainment industry handed over control of a large part of its distribution system to Steve Jobs, who used it to build a massively profitable business that now underpins his company's huge share price.  All the more staggering that they are now moaning about him doing so! 

How Unilever Attracted An Alpha-Advocate

The supersonic Danah Boyd describes the moment when she realised that she had become part of the Dove Evolution campaign.  Very interesting to see the reaction of  such a hyper-savvy web brain and there's an interesting chat going on in the comments.  To my mind, this is the comment that communication strategists everywhere should peruse : "Collectively, this ad was viewed as important and because of this, various folks got involved in spreading it."

Is The iPhone Trojan Design?

Umair Haque offers a typically insightful view on the launch of the iPhone and how it might in fact be a kind of trojan design. He summarises the Apple strategy as: "1) Pick an industry which sucks (ie, imposes significant nuisance costs/menu costs/externalities on consumers).  2) Redress the imbalance by making something consumers love.  3) Which disrupts the long-standing industry equilibrium, and shifts market power.  4) Use said market power to redesign (a hyperefficient) value chain. Note that this is a repeat of Apple's iPod strategy writ large."  It's an interesting perspective and you can't put anything past Jobs.  Modern marketing is all about finding ways to innovate within ossified systems and surely there are none more rigid than those of US carriers.  And with 700k phones sold in three days Jobs might be about to do to the mobile market what he did to the music industry...

Music Industry's New Business Model: Paranoia

You know you are in trouble when the only publication that can provide accurate insights into your strategy is the satirical Onion which this week reports that: "the RIAA is going to aggressively prosecute individuals who attempt to pirate our property by generating 'buzz' about proprietary music, movies, or software, or enjoy same in the company of anyone other than themselves."  Which leaves the industry open to new blood such as the private financiers currently looking to trouser the ever-ailing EMI and its supersonic roster (Beatles, Robbie Williams, Coldplay, Norah Jones, Lilly Allen, Kylie) with the idea that, "a business model that pays more attention to the internet than previous owners," might change the company's fortunes.  Hardly a radical notion in a world increasingly driven by networked media, but it goes to show how difficult it is for music executives locked in their traditional silos to peek above the parapet without legal eagles sounding the alarm.  In fact the harder reality bites, the more terrifying change becomes as illustrated by this comment from Jupiter: "If you are a file-sharer, you know the likelihood of you being caught is very similar to that of being hit by an asteroid." 

Fact Realignment Experts

The consumer-in-control is one thing, people organising themselves into forums to share information about your products is another, but customers surveying each other about how lame they think you are and publishing the results is something else.  Especially if your product is the coolest thing on earth.  Has there ever been a marketing campaign as destructive as that managed, or should I say waged, by the RIAA?  "RIAA fact realignment experts have turned a straightforward commercial concept, copyright infringement, into a major crime on a level with robbery".  Innovate or litigate - the choice is yours...

Eternally Onstage

Great article in The New Yorker about the way in which the modern web is changing perceptions of privacy, particularly among younger groups, thereby creating a generation gap in the way people view public life.   (I call it the X-Factor-Factor).  "Your life is being lived in public whether you choose to acknowledge it or not. So it may be time to consider the possibility that young people who behave as if privacy doesn’t exist are actually the sane people, not the insane ones. For someone like me, who grew up sealing my diary with a literal lock, this may be tough to accept. But under current circumstances, a defiant belief in holding things close to your chest might not be high-minded. It might be an artifact—quaint and naïve, like a determined faith that virginity keeps ladies pure. Or at least that might be true for someone who has grown up “putting themselves out there” and found that the benefits of being transparent make the risks worth it." (via MintDigital)