20th Century Broadcast is not about community. 21st Century broadcast is

Shelly Palmer, makes some observations about how broadcasters seem to be hitting the problem of declining audiences with the same hammer.

Rather than understanding the benefits of living in a networked world - because networks are sticky in ways that the mass media never was.

the only commercial advertisements I saw this week were the two pre-roll ads on cbs.com. I had no choice, they were baked into the two video streams I chose to watch. Now, with a gun to my head, I couldn't tell what the spots were for, or anything about them. I don't remember the product or service being advertised because I instantly recognized it as an irrelevant piece of video content and automatically tuned it out. But, that fact is not measurable by any analytics tools yet invented, so cbs.com will get credit for rolling two spots that they can be sure were seen. They can report the C-class of my IP address, know my general location, report the duration of my "engagement," they can report all kinds of mumbo jumbo stuff that media types can model against specific econometric requirements. They can create an excellent post-buy report and count my views as valid and meaningful. They will!

On the other hand, they will have no way of knowing that I skipped every single broadcast commercial this week. ABC and CBS will still be able to charge all of their respective advertisers for me. I'm a viewer (though not a Nielsen Media Research Household), I figure into the sample and I'll be demographically counted and charged for. Oops!

So – nice metrics, shame they don't mean anything

Comments

[David Cushman]

One of my blogging colleagues on fasterfuture.blogspot.com draws our attention to a tie up between Reuters and Yahoo to publish UGC (see here: http://fasterfuture.blogspot.com/2006/12/yahooreuters-embrace-phone-photo.html )
He asks which brands will users run to with their scoops?

My best guess? You'll use the brands that meet three criteria:
1) Will make you famous 2) will make you money 3) Make it easy for you.
I'm guessing which element is most important will be your personal driver.
But lesson of social networking teaches us that No3 leads to No1 and both have more value for most people right now than No2.
That may change, but the brands that get 3 right fastest get to decide how and when.

[Engagement Principles]

Usage patterns have changed dramatically the last five years. Now - when I watch TV - I'm just as likely to have my laptop handy to putter around during the commercial breaks.

There's been some discussion about the need for reliable engagement metrics. It's seems to have become a barrier to engagement marketing for many.

What about revisiting many of the "voodoo" metrics that simply can't be take at face value anymore - broadcast "impressions" being one of them?

And finally, what about the attention span of the engaged mind vs. the un-engaged? Clearly, there's a bandwidth difference on the reader's end. I touched upon this in a recent post (the True Bandwidth of Engagement) and think it's one of the overlooked aspects of engagement.

Clearly, I'm a little peeved at the resistance I see from some regarding engagement metrics when so little is truly clear about other metrics - especially in the face of challenging new digital technology.

How are you speaking to your clients in this area?

[alan moore]

And why are they resistent? because it does not fit their model!

Two questions, does it drive commerce, and does it drive sharing? Does it drive activation?

worth counting perhaps -rather than all the nimcompoop doodah of other voodoo metrics which I so agree with

Alan

Thanks for posting :-)