June 26th, 2006

Message From Michael                    
                                                  June 26, 2006                                                            

• SPENDING MORE BUT ENJOYING IT LESS


• A NAME TO REMEMBER


• TEENS, TIME, TV AND THE INTERNET


• CITIZEN JOURNALISM LIBERATES


• $MILLIONS VERSUS $BILLIONS


• COCKTAIL CHATTER – WHYVILLE, DUTCH BEER AND CONNIE CHUNG


• CONGRATULATIONS

We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael.  But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.  

• SPENDING MORE BUT ENJOYING IT LESS:  That pretty well sums up marketing executives, according to a report by marketing research consultants Blackfriars Communications.  The firm uses a marketing index which projects 2006 spending compared to 2005.  Second quarter 2006 was set at 146 – 46 points above what was spent in 2005.  Despite that, the survey says a quarter of all marketing executives are either not very or not at all satisfied with their marketing efforts.  And the percentage who report being extremely or very satisfied with their marketing efforts has fallen to 38% which is down from 53% in the first quarter.  So, even though spending was lower in the first quarter, satisfaction was higher, but in the second quarter it was the reverse with satisfaction lower but spending higher.  Online advertising grew to 15% of total market spending with those same marketing executives saying they plan to put a quarter of their budget on everything online.


• A NAME TO REMEMBER:  And the name is Frank Maggio.  Regular readers of MfM will remember he is the guy who tried to buy Nielsen Media Research from VNU.  Now, he is launching his own TV ratings service along with his own Cable TV channel.  The rating service uses “a census” of digital cable set top boxes, which means it aggregates a lot of data, although that data does not include satellite, broadcast-only, or analog.  His pitch to the Advertising Research Foundation was described as more of an anti-Nielsen diatribe than a true research presentation.  Maggio is also launching ReacTV which is described as an Internet-TV convergence model but which is sort of like Home Shopping Network with games.  Viewers can win prize money by “interacting with challenging games and rewarding ads.”  As part of the channel, he is launching a different version of advertising buying in which advertisers can click on spots available and just add them to their shopping cart a la Amazon.com.  


• CITIZEN JOURNALISM LIBERATES:  A large television broadcast group has launched its own online version of citizen journalism which it says “liberates viewers in an era in which most mass media is owned and dominated by a few mega companies.”  The Pappas Telecasting Companies which own 27 television stations launched the program communitycorrespondent.com where people can post stories, pictures and video about their community.  The best of the stories will be selected to air on the local station, which some stations do now, but the difference, according to the news release, is that everything will appear on the website.  The site is only up in the station’s Nebraska operation at this point, but it is supposed to be expanded to other stations in the group.  Side note:  One of those stations which has a successful program of airing pictures from viewers is client station WECT-TV in Wilmington, North Carolina.  (Disclaimer:  MfM friend Desiree Hill is VP of News Development at Pappas Telecasting.)


• TEENS, TIME, TV AND THE INTERNET:  Two separate surveys came up with the same, un-surprising result.  Teenagers spend as much time on the Internet as they do watching TV.  According to a survey by BurstMedia, more than a third (39.9% of the males and 34.7% of the females) of the teenaged web users (note, the survey focused on those already using the web) say they spend more than three hours a day on-line and that’s not counting time spent on-line while at school.  A telephone poll by CBSNews.com echoed that, reporting that teenagers spend an average of 2.9 hours a day on-line – the same amount of time they say they spend watching TV.  In both surveys, the teenagers say half the time spent on-line is spent doing homework.  Both surveys also found that about two-thirds of the teenagers either posted to a social networking site like MySpace or Facebook, or at least visited the sites.  The Burst survey also reported that more than two-thirds (69%) say it would either “ruin” their day or make their day “not as good” if they had no Internet access outside of school.A former undercover cop specializing in online crime for the Ontario police department has put together a teen speak Internet guide.  The book, “Staying Safe in a Wired World,” by Rob Nickel shows the short-hand phrases such as F2T (free to talk) and P911 (Parents are coming), FYEO (for your eyes only), IAD8 (it’s a date), and YIWTGO (yes, I want to go private.)


• $MILLIONS VERSUS $BILLIONS:  Which would you rather have?  Seems a pretty stupid question, doesn’t it?  Not according to the folks at Craigslist.com.  The Internet classified site is the seventh most popular website in the world, alongside giants Yahoo and Google.  Yet while they are raking in Billions of dollars in revenue, Craigslist took in a “paltry” $25 Million last year even though analysts estimate the company could make 20 times that amount.  (That’s $500 Million for those math-impaired amongst you.)  According to an article by Brian M. Carney in the Wall Street Journal, the reason is the company refuses to adopt the banner ads approach of its behemoth brothers.  Its prime source of revenue are the job listing classifieds in San Francisco and Los Angeles and job listings and apartment listings in New York.  Other users can post free of charge, according to CEO Jim Buckmaster, because, “we’re more comfortable charging companies than individuals.”  


• COCKTAIL CHATTER:  An on-line variation of Dr. Seuss’s Whoville called Whyville is an interactive, virtual world designed to help kids aged 8 to 12 learn math and science through games.  “Whyvillians” number 1.6 million and has proved popular enough that Toyota corporation is advertising its Scion line of vehicles on the site, to get the kids to convince their parents to buy as well as cultivate future buyers.  As many as 1,000 Dutch Soccer fans had to turn in their pants before entering a World Cup stadium game because their orange lederhosen carried a logo for a Dutch Brewery.  Budweiser owns exclusive beer advertising and promotional rights, and the Dutch brewery apparently had the fans wear the pants as a gimmick to attract attention.  Okay, if you haven’t seen it, you have to watch Connie Chung’s swan song parody performance of “Thanks for the Memories” on the farewell episode of Weekends with Maury and Connie.”  It’s on all the sites iFilm, YouTube, Break.com and on the TV Week website -- http://www.tvweek.com/article.cms?articleId=30111.


• FOOTNOTE/ CONGRATULATIONS:   There’s a phrase about “battered but not beaten.”  That certainly applies to WLOX-TV which recently won a national Edward R. Murrow award for its continuing coverage of Hurricane Katrina.  WWL-TV in New Orleans won the award for large television markets.  And as long as I am handing out congratulations… MfM friend Frank Volpicella’s KVUE-TV won in the Videography area for photographer Todd Rogenthien’s feature on the sport Le Parkour… MfM friend Mark Pimentel’s WTVQ-TV won hard news feature for Protected to Death… MfM friend John Hendon along with John Cogdill won for a feature report The Star Who Fell.  The complete list can be found at the RTNDA website, and with a little searching, as I did, you can actually see many of these amazing stories at the station websites.    


• SUBSCRIPTIONS:  If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM from 2006 are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com.