Message From Michael -- November 19, 2007

SWEEPS – IN OR OUT

THE 51ST STATE

SHORT ATTENTION SPAN THEATER

BILLIONS AND BILLIONS

COCKTAIL CHATTER – VIRTUAL BEAUTY AND FAST COMPUTERS

A MARKETING CONUNDRUM


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SWEEPS – IN OR OUT: The Thanksgiving holiday (and Black Friday) falls in the sweeps period this year. So, do you keep it in or take it out? Most stations re-title the newscasts and take them out of the sweeps because viewership is so erratic and low. Just a heads up – something you should think about.

THE 51ST STATE: And no, I’m not talking about Puerto Rico. That’s what SEARCHER, the magazine for database professionals, calls the Internet in this upcoming election and says the Internet is ‘breathing down the neck of mainstream media’ when it comes to the elections and that 2008 will be the first true “Internet election.” Citing another study by iCrossing, the report says the Internet is the number two source for election information, after television, and tied with newspapers. However, before my mainstream media friends commit hara-kiri, the study notes that voters are not going to the candidates websites or to the candidates MySpace pages for information, but rather are turning to Web search engines and the online versions of the traditional media. However, political blogs like the dailykos.com, huffingtonpost.com and talkingpointsmemo.com are becoming increasingly influential. The report also notes that all of the candidates (except, for some reason, Rudolph Giuliani) have adopted social networking tools on their websites. By the 2012 election, the report says, the Internet will be so essential and mainstream to presidential politics that “it probably won’t even warrant an article like this.”

As a side note, the Democrats have two thirds of the Online Internet traffic. And of them, Barack Obama has the most Facebook contacts – 122,00 which is more than twice the combined total of all the Republican candidates combined. And John Edwards has the most social networking links – 23. And if you want to keep up with the presidential race online, the report recommends three sites: http://www.memeorandum.com, http://www.politicalwire.com, http://www.realclearpolitics.com.

And as a foot note, you may have heard or seen the study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania which shows that the number of poltical “adwatch” stories run by the media has more than tripled from the 2000 election cycle to the 2006 election cycle. The head of the center, which by the way sends out a weekly newsletter (mentioned in previous MfM’s) examining political claims, says it is now a matter of “Caveat mendax – let the liar beware.”

SHORT ATTENTION SPAN THEATER: Half of those between the ages of 18 and 34 are watching less TV than they did a year ago, according to a survey by advertising rep agency Burst Media. And a ‘plurality’ of all respondents (42.4%) say they are watching less. The decline is even more noticeable among women, with nearly half (48.3%) of those 25-34 and almost the same number (46.7%) of those in the age group 35-44 saying they are watching less. Those figures are part of a survey released by the company showing that four out of five (82.4%) Internet users are doing something else – multitasking – while they’re online. The most common activity – watch television. Three-fourths (75.6%) of those watching television while online say they go to websites related to the programming. Jarvis Coffin, the CEO of Burst Media, says the “short attention span of consumers poses a challenge to marketers,” but he says the solution is to deliver ‘coordinated messages’ across different platforms to get the consumer’s attention.

On the flip side of that, a survey by The Conference Board and TNS Media Intelligence finds that even though three-quarters of ONLINE households report watching entertainment on the Internet every day, four-fifths of them say web viewing has NOT cut into their traditional TV viewing. As noted before, TV shows have replaced news as the most widely viewed content online. And as a further side note, a study by the Wharton School of Business found that YouTube use may actually increase TV viewing because the clips act as a tease to get the viewers to watch more. And as a side note to the side note, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen says the service may start providing higher quality videos, using a system that detects the speed capability of the user’s net connection.

And as a footnote, New York Times tech guru Stuart Elliott says fewer viewers are watching the new fall television series and raises the question that it may be because of online video opportunities. Most of the online videos are much shorter than TV programming and, curiously, he quotes the head of one advertising agency who also talks about “short attention span” of online viewers. Elliott also raises the question whether the writers strike will fuel the growth of online video.

BILLIONS AND BILLIONS: If you’re old enough, you probably re-played those words in your mind with a heavy accent reminiscent of Carl Sagan. The United Nations annual Internet Governance Forum says it’s official – there are 1 Billion Internet users worldwide. One Billion out of a total world population of 6 Billion. The question is how does the next Billion get online. The head of the U.N. forum says that the next Billion users will be decidedly poorer than the first Billion. Internet use is growing in what the forum organizers call the “less well off” nations that comprise three quarters of the world’s population. The forum debate focused on whether the Internet access should be government mandated, as a public service, or left to private enterprise. In areas like Africa where fewer than 4% have Internet access and basic electricity is an issue, the organizers say mobile phones may be the answer. This is also where the One Laptop Per Child program comes in to play.

As a side note, I should remind readers that a Harris Interactive poll found that four out of five people now access the Internet in the U.S. That’s up dramatically since 2000 when three out of five (57%) went online and even more dramatic is when you consider that eleven years ago in 1995 only 9% of the population went online. Equally interesting is the fact that the survey says the Online population now reflects more of the general population demographics.

COCKTAIL CHATTER: MTV has announced a super model contest with a difference. The network, along with Ford Models and Elizabeth Arden, is looking for the best looking avatar, a virtual world supermodel. The fastest computer in the world is IBM’s Blue Gene/L at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, with the ability to perform 478 Trillion calculations per second – what computer geeks would call 487 teraflops. The second fastest computer is IBM’s Blue Gene/P sister computer in Germany. The winner of the most awards for creative director in the Gunn Report which ranks advertising around the world was somebody you probably never heard of -- Thanonchai Sornsrivichai, based in Thailand. A survey by Clarity and The EAR Foundation found that senior citizens fear loss of independence (26%) and moving into a nursing home (13%) more than they fear death (3%). For those of you who rent cars all the time, a little item in FreePint which deals with research matters great and small says you can tell which side the gas cap is on by looking at which side the filler hose is on the icon on your dashboard. (Although for some reason, this applies to all cars but Japanese cars.)

A MARKETING CONUNDRUM: So, explain to me, dear readers, how four auto parts stores within 500 yards of each other can survive. Driving through Abbeville, South Carolina, there were two local auto parts stores, Logans and Sonny’s, almost side by side and less than a hundred yards further down was an Advanced Auto Parts store and across from it was an O’Reilly’s auto part store. And just to prove that it isn’t a South Carolina thing only (although it may be a southern thing), there were three auto parts stores within four blocks of each other in Elberton, Georgia. (I know, you’re jealous of all the cool places I travel to.)

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