Archive for the 'Captive Consumers' Category

Here’s the idea. When you go to hulu.com, the website set up by NBC Universal and Newscorp to compete with YouTube, to watch a video clip you can choose what ad you want to watch with it. “You want a sports coupe ad with that clip from the Office, sir? Or perhaps you’re more in the market for a SUV? Let me get that for you straight away.” Hmm.

“It’s choose-your-own-adventure advertising,” enthuses Jean-Paul Colaco, Hulu’s ad guy quoted in today’s Financial Times. Yeah, JP, it’s a veritable adventure. One bad car ad over another, that’s real consumer control. He recognizes that online vid viewers (OVVs) get bugged by having to watch the same old “pre-roll” ad at the for the first 15 seconds of the video and hence the solution - a nod towards relevant content (rather than simply, you must be a young adult if you’re watching this stuff so we’ll plop an ad for a product targetd to you lot before the real entertainment begins).

But it is just a nod. And is a very blunt way of targeting. The viewers won’t, for instance, be able to forgo watching the an ad altogether; they can just choose from a very limited selection which one to play.

If they want to see the damned clip, they have to just grin and bear watching the godawful ad too! Got it?

YouTube’s approach, announced a couple of months ago, is a little different. There will be overlay ads on the bottom quarter of the video screen which viewers can expand to fill the whole screen or, thankfully, block out altogether.

This is better than forcing people to watch the ads, but is still a far from perfect solution; one that uses the medium as the interactive experience it should be. I always loved “Pop-Up Video” on VH1 - you know, the music video show in which trivial facts about the videos popped up as they played - and now dream that online video could do the same thing. For online video the pop-ups wouldn’t come up automatically - as, on a screen that small they would obscure the whole picture and only doesn’t irritate on much repeated content, such as music videos you’ve seen a hundred times before - but would pop up if you, the viewer, decided you wanted to know more: more about the character, the production or maybe even the stuff (aka “the products”) shown. Rolling the mouse over the cool car in the clip could give you a price and some specs, perhaps mention a promotion or invite you to click for a test drive.

Thing is, that technology is available now (see the demos on videoclix.com), it’s just that using it would take too much effort for advertisers to individualize the pop-ups to each different video. They like a one-size-fits all approach, treating the audience as one homogenous demographic, rather than recognizing that in this new Punk world marketers need to customize their messages.

Oh well, I’ll keep dreaming, and probably avoid altogether watching the online videos with pre-roll ads.

The Financial Times reported yesterday that Apple is considering launching an “all you can eat” iTunes service that would allow customers to get unlimited access to the iTunes library in exchange for their paying a premium for iPods and iPhones. This mirrors Nokia’s “comes with music” offer the Finnish company announced last December in which folks will be able to get all of Universal Music library of music by paying a premium on top of the price of a Nokia phone. The FT reported that Apple might also be examining a subscription service in which iPhone customers pay a monthly charge as part of their phone bill to get unlimited access to iTunes tunes.

What’s interesting about this is that Apple is proving itself once again to be adept at shifting and innovating as the market moves. Rather than simply sticking to the business model that has made them the most successful seller of music downloads (by far), the black turtle-necked one has recognized that being the biggest in ANYTHING is no guarantee of future success. Consumers don’t like being taken for granted and if something new and shiny comes along, such as unlimited music, they might easily be tempted to dump their iPods or iPhones in favor of a cool new Nokia phone that gives it to them. And data shows that consumers would be willing to pay a $100 premium for as device to get unlimited music over its lifetime, or $7-8 a month in extra subscription charges.

To be a Punk Marketer you have to put yourself in the shoes of the consumer (however smelly they might be) and imagine what they want and need. As a starting point, assume there is no brand loyalty, even for a brand as “cool” and iconic as Apple, and that consumers are fickle and will change allegiance as fast as it takes to say, “but this ones cheaper!” Research is useful for that, but so is intuition and common sense, and Jobs is a master at understanding what will appeal to consumers emotionally without having to see proof of it. And the other thing that Apple consistently does is to set its own standards, not be governed by those of the industry. Each product they come out with doesn’t just improve on the competition, it redefines the market. Sure, the iPhone has its problems (most of of them because AT&T’s network isn’t good enough), but it has set the standard for all future mobile devices leaving all but rival Nokia, with its new N-95 phone, scrambling in the dust.