On a Mission: The New Internet Mom

Chris Eaves did a great job reporting on this session, and in a much more timely manner. What’s my excuse for the delayed report? I headed out midday to head back to New York.

I won’t try to double up Chris’ report, but a slightly more complete partial transcript is also available if you want more of a contextual feel for Erickson’s presentation.

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Online Moms a Key Audience for Online Marketers

Ignore Moms online at your own risk. This group is a powerful force directing family spending habits. And for many Moms, the Internet is their most prefered source of information.

JoAnne Erickson, Director of Research and Brand Development at Disney Online described some of the key learnings from Disney’s study of 1,800 online Moms. They’ve developed an impressive set of information about the preferences and influence of this group.

There’s a TV Trainwreck Coming

Like a scientist in a disaster movie who can’t convince officials that doom is near, Geoffrey Meredith laid bare the impending disaster in the TV industry in his informative and thorough presentation, 2006: The End of Television as We Know It.

The facts aren’t pretty:

• DVRs are about to explode as cable companies install and integrate them widely.
• The consensus prediction is 50MM DVR households by 2008.
• DVR owners skip an average of 71 percent of commercials.

Doing some math:
20 percent HH penetration of DVR by 2006
x 50 percent ads skipped (conservative)
x $54 billion ad industry
= $5.4 billion in missing inventory

The impact of this loss will also not be evenly spread. Research shows that while only 33 percent of beer commercials are skipped a whopping 93 percent of fast food, credit card, and mortgage ads aren’t watched by DVR users.

Having laid out this grim scenario, the presenter then prognosticated about ways markers can be successful in this environment. The alternatives ranged from well-known approaches like product placement to an eye-popping demo of a demographically customized television commercial where video clips and special offers were stiched together on the fly to appeal to specific customer groups.

Special etymological bonus: Do you know what “TCK” stands for? The presenter used it to describe traditional product advertising. It refers to creative with “Two Chicks in a Kitchen” talking about dishwashing detergent, food prep, etc.

Streaming Is Here and Hot

Representatives from CNET, ATOM Films/Shockwave, and ESPN joined to talk on the panel about video content. CNET seems to have been the early pioneer, starting streaming CNET TV in 1996. This was all origional programming, but had a small audience due to lack of available broadband.

Now with 50 million homes using broadband connections, they’ve seen a huge rise in demand for their video programming. To monitize the site space used for video they are feeding video spots (15’s and 30’s) to the viewers before the content runs. He shared case studies from clients like Johnson & Johnson, which ran the same creative on TV and experienced an 80 percent recall to the online ads, while only about a 20 percent to the spots that ran on TV.

CNET is most excited about the interactive possibilities further boosting the online video spot’s already great response. The next generation for CNET will be 15 second spots fully integrated into the web programming in intervals much like TV… Bottom line: The future is bright for TV on the web and looks to be brightening.

Activate Your Influentials

Ed Keller, CEO of NOP World Consumer and co-author of The Influentials added to the rich fodder surrounding ideas like Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point, Seth Godin’s Idea Virus and other approaches to marketing with a well researched and reasoned look at the role “influentials” play in society.

Keller didn’t dig too deeply into just who influentials are, but he did indicate that they’re largely average, although more educated and prone to seek life-long learning and the new. He also spent quite a bit of time exploring how marketers can reach these people and work with them to get the word out.

In perhaps the most interesting insight offered, Keller touched on how the influentials are market multipliers. Because they are so highly connected and involved in disparate social and professional groups, they’re better able to spread the message far afield. “If most of us have a fairly close social loop, if we’re discussing a new product, it’s you and me and me and you. It doesn’t go that far,” he said. “With influentials, they’re in a conversation with a different group of people who are in a different social circle.”

(A more complete partial transcript of this session is also available.)

Maybe You Can Be too Rich (Media) and too Thin

Session: Rich media- Cost Justifying, Implementing and Tracking Across Flash, Pops and Overlays

I just got out of the Rich media: Cost Justifying, Implementing and Tracking Across Flash, Pops and Overlays. At first I wasn’t sure if this session would draw a crowd, as it was scheduled against Michael Tchong’s and Geoff Ramsey’s Interactive Outlook, but an enthusiastic crowd of about 60 assembled before the session began.

Rob Graham, author and founder of LearningCraft and Roy DeSouza, president of Zedo, kept the room engaged. When I asked Rob what the key to success in rich media was, he told me it was back to the basics: “You have to develop the right message to the right customer.” He went on to say, “The beauty of it is human behavior. You can track and measure like never before.”

Some topline stats they shared:
            Seconds     % Who View   Consumer Attention
Banner gif       0.6           48%          0.3
Flash Popunder   2.6           87%          2.3
Overlay         10             90%          9.0