Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

Digital Britain At NESTA - Just Don't Call It The Carter Report

Stephen Carter may have snaffled a Lordship for his trouble but he has also got a horrible job.  In a notes-free talk at NESTA this morning, the UK Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting explained (confessed?) the painful process of assessing the mangled mix of vested interests, unreconstructed government, personal privacy issues and recession politics that is the reality of Digital Britain - a plan 'of government'.  Indeed, at one point he asked for 'forgiveness' about those areas of the report that he admits are too 'quiet'.  His basic message to the many detractors of the report who say it didn't go far enough in supporting or aligning itself with emerging web culture?  'Not my job, guv'.  He is sticking to the role of policy in shaping the country's web infrastructure.  All of which may account for his bristling at the suggestion that the exercise should have been called the Carter Report.  He may not be in a great rush for his name to be forever linked to such a labyrinthine process.  Peter Bazelgette was also on the panel and posed the more provocative points of the morning.  "Media companies don't know what their business models will be in ten years time," said the chairman of TV production company Endemol UK.  He also seemed to encapsulate the themes of the morning when describing the need to realise the economic benefit from the 'digital dividend' by building 'new organisations', instead of supporting old industries, "like we did with ship-building in the 70's."  For instance, he said in a world where it's no longer possible to, "sell stuff (IP) by putting it in shop windows," we need to explore and support new economic models.  Bazelgette's own view is that in the future content will be paid for, "with attention and access to personal data."  Mr Big Brother also pointed out that yesterday's FT carried a story with a picture of the 'wrong' Lord Carter.  Judging from the look on Lord Digital Britain's face this morning, I bet he wishes the other Lord Carter would step up and navigate a path to the UK's digital nirvana.  It's a long way off.  (Check out the man for yourself on the new Digital Britain blog.)

Are You Reading Or Sharing?

Thanks to everyone who added their thoughts to the last post about the ongoing confusion in marketing metrics.  Typical of the helpful comments was this one from Nick Buckley from Gfk NOP : "We should stop trying to measure our ability to control and transmit the message - since the ultimate implication of this is that the message has to depart from 'the truth' about our products and services, in order to compensate for the gap between 'the truth' and what we desire people to think and do.  Instead - assuming that social media, and related developments, create ever more transparency and scrutiny of our claims and our performance we should; be open and honest, make good things, provide good services, and *listen* as if our livelihoods depended upon it. [Which they do]."  Nick also liked Charles' idea that we should be thinking, "about the different engagement experiences," to understand better the contrasts between people reading media and the sharing activity that takes place in social environments.  All of which Kevin thought could be explored as different reading "modes".  Whatever the answer, Eaon would like it sooner than later because if he can't offer, "engagement metrics that clients can buy," then search and display models are the ineffective defaults that fill the void.  However, Rory MacDonald suggests we might need a more radical change of viewpoint, possibly viewing all social activity as being too complex to measure in the normal way.  "Do you think Nike are worried about the metrics on Nike Plus?", he adds?  (Evidently not.)  Thanks to everyone for the input - genuinely inspiring.

The Metrics Vacuum

A few weeks ago I met up with a Grand Media Fromage to chat over the state of the social web.  "So where's the money?'" he began.  "Compared with what?" I replied defaulting to my standard line.  However, Mr GMF then took an unexpected tack by saying he thought Social might be at a similar stage to Search (aka Google) when it was 'pre-revenue' (aka skint).  And that it could easily go the same way as the Big G, snaffling many media executives' luncheons along the way.  This was an observation that I've been mulling over ever since.  I've long held the view that we are measuring tomorrow's world with yesterday's tools.  It seems we are now waiting for a social operator (aka Facebook) to find a market mechanism that can unleash the vast latent demand within the media industry for techniques in keeping with modern customers' P2P lifestyles.  Nick Gonzalez gets it just right for me: "There’s currently a metrics vacuum in the social media space and it’s being filled with traditional metrics pulled from search and display. The only problem is that these metrics don’t make sense for brand campaigns in social media."  Which essentially makes it impossible for brands or anyone else to invest at scale.  Gozalez goes onto say: "Branding campaigns don’t have a conversion event, like search advertising. Click through rates and impression volume used to gauge display campaigns are radically different on social media properties. Blogs average a little over one page view per visit, while social networking properties average in the tens or hundreds. It’s not apples to apples. While impressions do adjust behaviour, clicks and conversions also carry a whole different meaning within social media. People click to send messages, make friends, comment, and share."  Of course, the answer could come from anywhere but Facebook's vastness means it bears the weight of expectation.  Which it has tried to meet through Beacon and more recent innovations.  Maybe Zuckerburg & Co. will just follow Google's lead and keep an eye out for smaller entrepreneurs and *ahem* take their lead.  Either way the stage is set for a new marketing sliderule and it will be fascinating to see if and how one develops.  But in the meantime the vacuum grows...

P2P Is TV's Wonderland

Today, the Competition Commission decided that Kangaroo, the UK web-TV platform looking to match the success of Hulu in the US, will not be allowed to move forward.  The reason being that, 'it is a threat to competition in this developing market and has to be stopped'.  What can you say?  The world of copyright, DRM, piracy debates and web legislation seems increasingly out-of-touch with the networked world.  A few years ago I saw Doc Searls make a presentation in which he noted, 'In networked environments, the demand side supplies itself'.  It’s a statement that sums up nicely what is happening in today’s TV industry - all beyond the legislators' gaze.  People aren’t satisfied with what broadcasters are offering.  So they use P2P systems running on free BitTorrent services such as Limewire, eMule, Pirate Bay and Mininova to create ‘services of their own design’.  This allows them to watch whatever they want, whenever they wish, often with the advertising stripped out.  All of which is illegal file-sharing activity of course and therefore hidden away in underground darknets. But it’s increasingly the new norm with more than one-third of broadband users admitting to downloading video content and two-thirds saying they didn’t see it as being wrong.  (Try doing a quick poll in your office about Limewire and watch the shifty glances as a few honest souls slowly raise their hands).  However, despite being largely invisible these systems have now reached a scale and sophistication which dwarfs the professional, mainstream broadcasters.  Mininova, for instance, which launched in 2005, has served more than seven billion downloads, many of which are well-known shows.  Requests for content from the file-sharing network currently runs at ten million downloads a day - almost ten times greater than the BBC's iPlayer.  And while the industry wrings its hands, the Torrents continue to grow and innovate.  An 'invisible' YouTube anyone?  P2P video is creating a vibrant, Alice-like world which is testing the normal rules of the TV industry.  But it seems that the policy wonks and lawmakers don't want to peek down the rabbit hole, in case what they see is too strange.  In the meantime, P2P TV becomes curiouser and curiouser...

[Update : The Doc adds some thoughts here: "Pretty soon the 'TV' you buy will be an Internet file and stream tuner and recorder, with 'must-carry' set-top-box features, so it can still get cable, satellite and over-the-air TV 'channels'. In the world that makes, old-fashioned TV will look as antique as the telegraph".]