August 28, 2006

Message From Michael                    
                                                  August 28, 2006                                                                                                         

• KATRINA


• NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T


• NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU SEE IT


• BLACK AND YOUTH CREATED CONTENT


• MOVE OVER, JULIA ROBERTS


• THE EMMY ALTERNATIVES


• COCKTAIL CHATTER


• FOLLOWUP – PRESTIGE AND TRUST

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• KATRINA:  It is the one word that says so much.  On this day one year ago, at 1:00 a.m. CDT it was declared a Category 4 hurricane.  Six hours later it was upgraded to a Category 5, the highest possible rating.  The next day, August 29th, at 6:10 a.m., Katrina made landfall near Buras, Louisiana, as a Cat4 hurricane with winds of 145 mph.  The rest, as the cliché goes, is history.  


• NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T:  The cryptic headline refers to ads.  The first part refers to a study by ad agency Initiative Worldwide which reports a 16% increase in TV ads over the last four years.  As reported in Media Life, the study says TV watchers around the world see an average of 70 ads a day.  Not surprisingly the U.S. had the highest number with viewers here seeing an average of 113 ads a day.  But Indonesia, Spain and Canada were not far behind.  The second part refers to a report by media research firm PQ Media which says product placement jumped 42.2% worldwide last year and is expected to grow another 38.8% this year to $3.07 Billion.  PQ Media president Patrick Quinn says product placement “has evolved from a novel marketing tactic to a key marketing strategy.”  The U.S. accounts for the largest part of that growth, in part because other countries restrict such advertising.  Other countries, including China, are looking at restricting the number of TV ads as well.SIDENOTE:  While researching these reports, I found an old study by Initiative Worldwide on the cost of buying advertising.  According to the report, the most expensive advertising on a cost per thousand ratio is cinema with a global average CPT of $59.43.  The least expensive is outdoor at $5.37 CPT.  The Internet was the second most expensive at $16.38CPT, followed by magazines ($11.14CPT), Newspapers ($9.23CPT), Television ($7.06CPT) and radio ($6.32CPT).


• NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU SEE IT:  The first part this time refers to IPTV – Internet Protocol TV.  As of last year, there were only 300,000 IPTV U.S. subscribers and 14 Million subscribers worldwide.  But market research firm eMarketer predicts that number will increase to 8.7 Million by 2010 in the U.S. and 139 Million worldwide.  More critically, the report says IPTV will shake up both TV and the Web worldwide.  As reported by Shankar Gupta in Online Media Daily, the report analysts say the combination of high quality video and search and retrieve capability of the Web will “radically disrupt” the TV model.  The second part of the headline refers to a report in Forbes.com about Sling Media’s Slingbox.  The technology allows you to watch and control your television remotely through the Internet.  You’re at work or traveling.  Just “dial up” your home TV or DVR on a broadband connection and watch your favorite shows.  Now they’ve added wireless capability.  The article calls the Slingbox “the sleeper hit of media technology.”  An acknowledgment:  Raycom Media CIO Dave Folsom was the first to tell me about this.  He has been touting the wonders of this technology for more than a year.


• BLACK AND YOUTH CREATED CONTENT:  Atlanta-based Black Family Channel (No, I hadn’t heard of it either) is adding a citizen journalism television program to its line-up.  The channel which has a strong religious theme to its programming says its mission is “to give television back to the family.”  Part of that is to tell stories “from and about the urban community” and which it says are ignored by the mainstream media.  As reported by Journalism.co.uk, the cable channel which claims 16 Million U.S. households is hoping to eventually produce four half-hour weekly shows made up entirely of viewers’ reports.  The reports will also air on the Internet (blackfamilychannel.com and urbanvoicetv.com) as podcasts or video blogs.  Not quite the same but somewhat similar is a website designed to be youth created content.  Called Uth TV (uthtv.com), the reports are supposed to be 100% youth created.  It’s described as YouTube for an even younger set.      


• MOVE OVER, JULIA ROBERTS:  Make way for Christine Dolce.  What?  You haven’t heard of Christine?  Well, you’re obviously not one of her 900,000 “friends” on MySpace.com  The Southern California cosmetician has just landed a deal with Unilever to promote a new deodorant called Axe aimed at young men.  Described as the “quintessential bleached blonde dominatrix,” but with great marketing savvy, she is expected to appeal, as the Economist.com put it, to “lusty lads.”  More critically, observers say the move could signal a new advertising approach for the under-performing (financially anyway) website.Also, in the online world, two other “stars” from sites that have become underground hits are lonelygirl15 and funtwo.  Lonelygirl has developed a cult following, even to the point of having sub-websites and generating online debates about whether it’s real or a hoax.  It’s “just” – and that word is in quotes – a young girl talking about her life, but it has struck some kind of emotional chord.  Funtwo strikes a chord of a different sort.  The site shows an unidentified guitar playing an incredible – notice, that word is not in quotes -- 5-minute, 20-second riff on a rock arrangement of the 18th Century classical composition Johann Pachelbel’s Canon.  (I know it sounds obscure, but if you’ve ever been to a wedding, you’ll recognize it when you hear it.)  The video has made it to the top ten of video websites scoring 7.35 Million downloads, according to the New York Times which has now identified him as a 23-year-old Korean named Jeong Hyun Lim.  Lonelygirl15 remains unidentified.


• THE EMMY ALTERNATIVES:  Not only should Julia Roberts move over, so should Tony Shalhoub and Steve Carell.  Make way for Will and Derrick.  What? Here I go again – You haven’t heard of Will and Derrick?  They’re the stars of the YouTube online comedy Nobody’s Watching which, the best way I can describe it, is today’s version of Wayne’s World.  And as long as we’re on a roll, move over Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.  Make way for DailyComedy.com and Heavy.com.  Daily comedy is just that.  Various videos that are sometimes and supposedly funny.  Heavy meanwhile is like website Break.com aimed at young males in particular.  The difference is that Heavy has started its own satirical news show starring a hand puppet with a microphone.  The website’s slogan is “because TV sucks.”  Of course, it is also loaded with ads for movies and TV.  One that the marketers amongst you will particularly like is VeryFunnyAds.com which, as the name implies, is a website with funny ads.  Even long-time humor website TheOnion.com has decided to get into the video business.  FOOTNOTE:  In case you’re wondering what’s the point of these two articles, let me repeat two figures:  900,000 “friends” and 7.35 Million downloads.


• COCKTAIL CHATTER:  In keeping with the Hollywood theme of this week’s MfM, the top money-making star is… Harrison Ford whose films have grossed $5.86 Billion since 1965.  Tom Hanks was second with $4.61 Billion, followed by Eddie Murphy ($4.17 B) and Sean Connery ($3.85 B) and former Paramount star Tom Cruise ($3.85 B) came in fifth, according to figures compiled by the New York Sunday Times.  Only two women made the top twenty list – Julia Roberts at 14th with $2.88 Billion and Carrie Fisher at 17th with $2.84 Billion.


• A FOLLOW-UP:  From last week’s MfM on the Gallup Poll survey of trusted and prestigious professions, here are a few more facts.  For example, not surprisingly, doctors, teachers and scientists scored high in both polls with 85% saying they would trust doctors to tell the truth and 58% saying the profession has ‘very great’ prestige.  For teachers, the numbers are 83% (tell the truth) and 52% (very great prestige) while for scientists it’s 77% (truth) and 54% (prestige).  Doctors scored the highest with the public in the truth test, but came in second when it came to prestige.  As we noted last week, firefighters scored the highest in prestige with 63%, but nurses are also right up there on the prestige scale (55%).  The profession that has grown the most in prestige in the nearly 30 years since the poll started is teachers, from 29% in 1977 to 52% now.  The profession that has dropped the most – lawyers from 36% to 21%.  The profession that has shown the greatest improvement in ‘truthiness’ is accounting which gained 13% in the last four years to go to 68%, followed by bankers (up 11% to 62%), clergymen (up 10% to 74%) and scientists (up 9% to 77%).  The biggest drop in truth telling has been the President who has fallen 17% from 65% in 2002 to 48% this year, AND pollsters who have dropped 10% to a low of 34% in the last four years.  


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