Notes From The Road

VoloMedia recently attended and sponsored Limelight's Digital Media Innovation Forum in Phoenix, AZ and Digital Hollywood Fall in Santa Monica, CA. I was fortunate to particpate on a few panels as well as sit in on many great sessions, so I thought to share my notes.

• With all the talk of convergence, the audience is actually fragmenting into what Michael Gordon of Limelight called 'content microclimates.' With the growth of portable devices, social networks, blogs and affinity sites, the audience is definitely on the move more so than ever before. In reading Apple's latest earnings announcement, they sold 6.9 million iPhones and 11 million iPods just in the last quarter. 2008 could be the year when US notebook sales exceed desktop sales for the first time. And the growth of blogs and social networks is well documented. In fact, I read a stat that web portals lost 5% of online ad dollars last year to narrower content sites and search engines as spending followed consumers. We at VoloMedia believe in this portable economy, so I was happy to see someone else serving the kool-aid!
• A Forrester study commissioned by Veoh was shared at the Limelight event relating to longer-form video. For those who watch long-form video in comparison to those who only watch short-form clips:
• Are more likely to pay full attention to the videos they watch
• Are more likely to interact and rate the videos they watch
• Are twice as likely to recall in-video ads and post-rolls
• Agree more readily that advertising helps pay for their free experience
• Consider banner ads and ads that come in between videos most effective
• Try to replace the TV experience by looking for things "they wish were on TV"
• On one Limelight panel titled Creating Engaging Online Experiences, Ron Berryman, SVP & GM, FIM Stations Group, Fox Interactive Media, mentioned that in order to move more $$'s online, they must address a $0.30 value gap between the broadcast and online viewer (the b'cast viewer is valued higher just to be clear!). While it's great that Fox has actually valued the online viewer, this continues to speak to the need for sales force education and integration and better metrics. If these conditions had existed this year, who knows, maybe the gap would have been smaller or even trended towards online. It will be interesting in 2009 to see how broadcast advertising deals with the Olympic and election hangover. Certainly these two occurrences provided them a revenue boost (as it always does), but they also cemented the importance of new media within our culture. Assuming the upfronts occur, it would be great to re-define this from 'television' to 'video' thereby creating an alignment of distribution platforms and higher value.
• During a Digital Hollywood session, Advertising Social Media, a great point was raised about how even within online/digital advertising, there are gaps in what can be executed and measured. Meaning, what one can accomplish in an e-mail campaign will differ from display ads, which will differ from in-stream ads, which will differ from download/podcast ads, etc. Therefore, it's important to know your goals for the campaign, such as audience segmentation (e.g. age) and your objectives, such as awareness, influence, intent and/or action.
• Rich media and video/audio metrics continue to be a much discussed topic, and there are a lot of companies (including VoloMedia!) that claim ownership over delivering solutions into this complex landscape. It continues to interest me how Nielsen television ratings, which are based upon very small sample sizes in relation to the overall viewing population, are used with much greater confidence than that of online. Certainly the abundance of Internet metrics combined with lack of standards creates a lot of confusion, so it's understandable that people flock to what they know (or think they know). But with all the progress and innovation happening in media-based metrics, I have no doubt this is about to change.
• Creative standards, or lack thereof, are mentioned quite a bit particularly when discussing video and audio advertising. And everyone bashes the pre-roll. Well, guess what, the pre-roll happens to be the standard right now and is selling. 
• It seems as though in each session regarding content and economics, an indie or non-major media content producer stands up and asks 'where's the money?' While all of us repeat with great conviction the research (even the revised research) that billions will be made in online video and audio advertising, it's important to acknowledge that it's a struggle for all at the moment - from the likes of Fox and YouTube to the indie producers. We have witnessed pockets of success as we're waiting for this sustainable and repeatable business model to emerge, which is a healthy sign. Content is still what drives the audience. And the audience is attracted to great content. The audience cross-over from television to Internet to devices is also happening. We plan to have a discussion about this cross-over and how to turn these digital pennies into dollars during our sponsored workshop at NewTeeVee Live next Thurs 11/13. Please attend!
  
  

Jeff