Internet Marketing and Digital Media Strategy Sydney Australia

The Disruptive yet Logical Convergent Media Landscape

We live in incredible times, just a few years ago it used to be said that Google flattens everything it touches - the disruptive but yet logical nature of search engines disintermediated ineffecient links in any information or supply chain, from a media perspective - 

• Newspapers and magazines have had to develop new business models to survive (from sacking staff, subscription models, adding value services and video content partners); 
• The music industry has also been changed forever by i-tunes; 
• The television industry is embracing Twitter to interact; 
• Social media conversations can make or break a new film 
• Celebrities can have more followers than the population of some countries (Justin Bieber has over 10m Twitter followers - Australia has a total population of 24m people) and 
• Gamers are now mainstream (more revenue than Hollywood).

What we've seen over the last ten years is a continual convergence of media, communications, entertainment and technology layers - from the first PC's with their multimedia capabilities (hardware - note: innovation driven by gamers); then computing and communications (Internet connectivity and VoIP); through increasing mobility (mobile broadband) combined with a parallel evolution from text based email to social media and real time mass niche social video conversation.

Media-wise we've progressed from the old village community hall to the flyer to the printing press through to interactive Internet television - and back again to the digitally connected virtual village!  

But now that the fragmenting social media tide has spread across the communications landscape, that we're all "involved", what's after Social Media 101? What's beyond more Facebook "likes" and Twitter "Followers" and what does that mean for businesses - brands - advertisers - consumers?

Social Media Maturity - Television Convergence and Interactive Story Creation

The television and film industries have a long history of creating creating compelling content ie story telling but they are also being challenged by the digital revolution - the old business models from advertising through production to distribution are being flattened.  Every business today with a bit of creativity and talent, a video camera or smarthphone; an edit package and an Internet connection is now their own media channel - but do they have the reach and influence?  

Many are looking for that viral video which will skyrocket their brand success like a Justin Beiber Youtube video clip.

Creating Frameworks

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CLIVEvideo.com - leading Website Presenter and Internet Video Production company announces controversial Viral Video Director Chisholm Van Schwizer joins CLIVE to produce a new, community driven, social video branded web series.

Sydney, NSW June 16, 2011 To target corporate Digital Video Advertising, controversial Viral Video Director Chisholm Van Schwizer has joined Internet Video Production company http://www.clivevideo.com to produce a new, community driven, social video branded web series.

Chisholm was the creative director behind controversial adult entertainment industry documentary “It Won’t Suck Itself” and the corporate funded “Brad & Burt’s 2005 Surf Trip”.   “Internet video combined with social media has come along way in the last ten years and so have advertisers - with this show we want to create integrated social video marketing experiences for brands that people can participate in” said Chisholm

With US television upfronts (where networks sell their commercial inventory to advertisers) currently under way CLIVEvideo.com is targeting the increasing amount of television advertising budgets being allocated towards Internet Digital Video Advertising.  “Advertisers can no longer rely on owning the media space and pushing a message down a customers throat, they have to create compelling content that resonates and influences their target audience” said Sales Manager Ernie Cash “you need to create sports-team like passion for brands that customers love and want to share”

Internet video is set to skyrocket, there is an estimated 48 hours of video uploaded to Youtube every minute, online video consumption is forecast to increase 45% year over year and Digital Video Advertising is predicted to increase 22% over the next 12 months. 

CLIVEvideo Online User Behaviour Analyst Professor James Goodfellow , said “According to the IAB 'An Inside Look at Demand Side Perceptions of Digital Video Advertising' report, integrated video is set to explode”   Key findings were

• Advertisers are finding that their audiences respond better to DVA, with consumers showing a higher engagement rate with online video. 
• DVA is more trackable and targetable and DVA production is less expensive, making it more cost efficient. 
• Marketers will migrate TV ad dollars to digital video based on the belief it will deliver better ROI; 
• agencies and television decision makers will shift ad dollars in an attempt to follow their target audiences. 
• Among the different available DVA formats (pre-roll, in-banner, expandable banner, mobile video, rich media overlay and post-roll), agencies primarily use pre-roll while marketers are not committed to any specific format.  Most respondents believe the appropriate length is 15 seconds. 
•  A majority of marketers and a majority of agencies believe they should each be responsible for deciding whether to use DVA and how much budget to allocate to it. 

CLIVEvideo.com CEO Franklyn Un Curruthers said "we're all very excited to have Chisholm on board, he’s been involved in many of the most successful Internet viral video hits ever produced so we knew we had the right man for our clients and this new project".

To see CLIVE in action visit http://www.clivevideo.com

Collaborative Creation

The next phase is to involve fans and brands in a near real time collaborative creation process. 

Also, more mobility, geo location data and contextual advertising.

This blog is the ongoing chronicle of our own application to our business of the theories; ideas and lessons we are sharing and recommending with our clients.  

Taking Risks

If you're not taking risks then you're playing it safe.  It's one or the other.

Yes, it's hard for some people/ companies/ brands to take risks - there's the natural fear of failure, but today, the paradox is it is more risky to maintain the status quo - you risk become commoditised and irrelevant - easily replaced.

"If you or your brand does not have relevance and create passion from your customers and fans then long term you're in trouble - you're no different than washing powder."  Franklyn Un

Much of the current marketing talk today is about online social media, building and connecting with fans but social media is more than just about setting up a Facebook fan page or Twitter account.  It's about creating social objects says Gaping Void's Hugh MacLeod.

Facing Problems

I faced a problem with the CLIVE stuff we were creating - namely potential customers where comparing us with inferior produced competitors.  Our key messages were not being heard.

The reason - our website - (which is where most of our customers find out more about us)  did not clearly communicate our unique selling points - we looked like our competitors - ie just selling the technical video production ability instead of where we wanted to play - our creativity, our online marketing understanding, our script writing, our production quality, presenter coaching, technology platform and analytics. 

We had to change the way we sold and move from a volume production view of the world towards a very customer centric, creative, niche approach.  Less how many video jobs but more about developing the whole of customer experience - right through to their customers experience.

Seeds take a while to germinate

It took a very long time (in web years) for my team to actually understand what I was saying (and I suppose my deeper understanding of the space and ability to communicate).

Lonely Girl 15 (2006)

We'd all seen the Lonely Girl thing way back in 2006 but what was the end result today? Did it eventually ever sell anything beyond building the Directors profile? Was/ where's the long tail benefit to fans?  What's the point if those no end in sight?

Beached As

I'd seen the clips years ago but the guys appeared on one of the national morning TV shows - I sent the interview to my guys - it's when they saw the commercial return from the books "they got it".  In many ways many businesses are like this - they need to see someone else successful before they have a go - it reduces their perceived risk - they need to be sold and convinced.

For every huge success there will tens of thousands of failures - today there's 37 hours of video uploaded to Youtube every minute.

"It ain't viral till it's viral" but there are some common elements to viral video success - low budget; humour; topicality; provocation; surprises and strategies - piggybacking on trends or celebrities; kids and cute animals.

If you focus purely on the $$$ then customers will soon see through your work.

2010 - Doing Incredibly Boring Work and the Creative Stuff that inspired.

My video guys were stuck on a very boring government job - we done a hundred simple presenter to camera CLIVE clips, it was the creative ones like Wendell's Dancing Reebok that got the most Click Thrus and results - social media was focused on how many fans or Twitter followers - the next metric is engagement. 

2011 - Focus on Creative Inspiration 

Less now on volume and more focused on customer experience.  The development of characters to deliver key communications messages to targeted audiences; a platform for companies and brands to engage online; a framework for new talent to be involved.

Introducing The Characters

Each character went through a behavioural profiling approach (60 questions) used by Human Resource consultants around the world - developed to hopefully resonate with each customer segment.

The Hard Arsed CEO	The Punchy Salesman	Online Presenting Diva	Viral Video Expert	The Nerd
Facebook	Facebook	Facebook	Facebook	Facebook

Each character a Facebook fan page; Twitter account created and behind the scenes video element created. 

The rest to unfold - I'll keep you posted.  

S*x Sells - Setting the Scene

The room is very dark that you can only sense it's small size by the steamy confined heat and the short re-verb of the pulsating sounding background beat.

Each beat the sound gets louder.

Through the dark a single light beam shines cutting through the dense smoke. A body lies near naked - a voluptuous and scantily clad woman.

Camera cuts to a man, he's all green, standing over the body.

He pours liquid, much like maple syrup, over her body - she awakens and screams with delight.

The camera zooms onto the jug label - "Create Compelling Content" scrawled across its bright label.

Cut to green man taking a photo with his new Smartphone.

The man laughs loudly and smiles devilishly (even though he doesn't have a mouth) - he looks for a pocket to put his phone but he doesn't have one - fade to black -

title card - "capture the moment".

"Cut", the camera pulls back wide to capture the whole studio. Chisolm explodes!

Note: Reminder to self - need to add something so that potential clients understand this is a marketing vehicle to promote products or services using brand ambassadors. The key to all of this is developing characters and stories that resonate with your audience.

Reflection

OK - maybe the ad concept above is not going to work for most (any) potential client but that ad is not designed for everyone - that's the key message - as guru Seth says "it's about products for customers not customers for products". We explore characters and ambassador authority.

Developing Characters

We finished shooting the last few CLIVE clips this week - Sales guy Ernie Cash, CEO Franklin Un and Creative Director Chisolm Van Schwizer. We'll have the very short, professional corporate CLIVE clip and then a background behind the scenes video where you learn a bit more about the team. As Ernie says "it's people and stories that sell" and Franklyns swear jar rises quickly - I'm not sure how well this will go?

Filming, Scripting and Creativity

We look at the draft edits - they're amazing - you just couldn't write those sort of dynamics quickly (I don't think). Chisolm tells me the sytle is called "Dogma" - yep - I'm sure there is some academic out there who will tell me what the term is for what we've done - the approach we've taken. My thoughts are that by doing we learn - by sharing we understand. There's a continuous cycle here somewhere.

Roll out

I'm still playing with ideas on how to roll the whole new site - the phased roll out gives us the ability to easily add layers more layers and elements as we go. As you know the web is not the big bang media launch but a long tail customer and fan engagement strategy. Don't get me wrong we still need to develop some promotion element at the front end to get word spreading faster. Ideas take a while to cystalise.

It was February 9th so says the Google Apps shared document but my thoughts and discussions go back many months earlier.

This series of blog posts aims to chronicle the development of how a dissatisfaction of the status quo manifested into challenging our approach to what we do.

We were sick of the "hard sell", we were bored with our own brand approach, we wanted to focus on showcasing what we do best, less production focus and more strategic creative.  

I reminded of a quote  "The riskiest thing we can do is just maintain the status quo"  from Bob Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Walt Disney Company.

I suppose there are many factors that instigate a need for change - either internal or external motivations - some we force upon the world and others are forced upon us.

Whatever the motivation, the one guarantee is there will be change.

When interviewing Ted Johnson, CMO, Minnesotta Timberwolves last year I was reminded that "attitude" is the one that makes the most difference.  "Attitude is Everything"

My dear dad (RIP) also said that it is not money, size, education, or privilege but the focused team that gets the greatest results. 

So my CEO challenge is to create a highly focused, innovative team with great attitude that resonates with our customers.

From a business perspective I suppose "attitude" is about culture - your people, your products, your customers experience,

It prompts the question what's the attitude and personality of your business?  Is it Friendly? Risky?  Innovative?  Conservative?  Arrogant and so on.

I'm suddenly back to snoozy Marketing and Psychology 101 lectures of Pavlov's dog, Maslow and Jung (Freud was just a sex fiend ).

In my current world of online advertising and media there's much discussion around online behavior and contextual advertising.

But I think it's less about sophisticated targeting algorithms and more about connecting with people, of dealing with customers who appreciate, like and advocate your work. 

How does your brand personality resonate with your customers?  Do they like you?  Do they share their experience with the friends?