USER GENERATED CONTENT or REALITY TV 2.0
You might agree that the one thing that dominated the world of advertising and marketing this year was ‘user generated content’. We saw the dramatic rise of MySpace and the mainstream acceptances of YouTube. Now virtually every main portal has some kind of function that involves content from user. It’s truly amazing to think that anyone with a video camera or even cell phone camera can broadcast around the world! A recent eMarketer report indicated that there are currently 60 million Americans regularly viewing video content on the internet and that number will GROW to over 150 million by 2010.
For some reason people LOVE TO WATCH regular people. Even ‘American Idol’ beat ‘The Grammys’ for TV audience this year. 30 million Americans tuned into watch amateurs entertainers compared to 15 million watching Madonna and the other Grammy talent.
BLOGGERS AND VLOGGERS
With well over 55 million Blogs online and a new one being created every second, it’s difficult to cut thru the clutter as a reader and increasingly challenging for publishers to increase readership. One of the techniques that we’ve used at MITCH TV is to keep the scope of the content narrow and the target relatively small. I use the blog as a marketing tool aimed at the 350 - 400 people in my direct contact list. Adding video to the site this year has proven to be a really exciting dynamic and with creative ‘tags’ and random posting to our links, we have been able to see a steady increase in traffic.
TV STILL RULES
No matter how you look at all of this exciting online activity, TV still rules as the number one advertising medium on the planet. The SuperBowl Broadcast is still considered the ‘benchmark’ of what is happening in the world of advertising and marketing. That being said, 2006 saw a rapid movement of mainstream TV-to-online as Disney, CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC and others all began migrating content in some way or another to the internet. When CBS began hosting clips of David Letterman online at YouTube.com, the ratings for the broadcast on TV increased. More viewers mean more money for the networks so 2007 will see an ever increasing migration of TV content to the web.
2006 saw a strong ‘upfront’ in National TV advertising sales in May. TV viewership is rising, TV sets are getting bigger and with High Definition they are getting better. In 2006 the number of TV sets in an average home is at it’s highest level ever.
WEBISODES AND SHORT VIDEO or THE OFFICE AT THE OFFICE
We can thank FLASH for this, or maybe we can thank our busy lifestyles, but the ‘webisode’ world is on the rise and we will see more short form content on the internet. Episode recaps, highlights and clips are the top viewed forms. Consumers still prefer a 52 inch PLASMA Screen for watching a full program and aren't ready yet to watch the SuperBowl Game on a cell phone.
HISPANIC, ASIAN ADVERTISING ON THE RISE IN THE US
The mainstream American advertising machine is just starting to wake up to the power of ETHNIC MARKETING. It's a simple concept, speak to people in the language that they understand and sell more products!
The 2006 SuperBowl had Toyota running the FIRST MAINSTREAM BROADCAST TV commercial with partial Spanish content. Other advertisers are getting on board the ‘ethnic’ marketing bandwagon as well.
Walmart is the number one retailer in the world and watching what they do is a good way to see into the future of advertising. They led the way in Ethnic marketing and create ethnic commercials for Hispanics, blacks and Asians. Chrysler announced a new multi-language marketing program to launch in the New Year.
Statistics show that many product categories like Cell Phones index high in certain ethnic groups and in some regions, over 30% of the target consumers are regular users of media in a language that is NOT English.
2006 say the Latin Grammy Awards run for their second year on the Univision Network in Spanish. The ratings were much higher with the program in Spanish and the programs had a lot less impact as an English program running on CBS up to 2004.
The NUMBER TWO Newscast in NEW YORK CITY is on Channel 41 Univision in Spanish.
Much more on Hispanic and Asian marketing to come in 2007!
PRODUCT PLACEMENT, ONE SPONSOR PER SHOW AND LIVE COMMERCIALS!
2006 was a year that advertisers took an aggressive look at new ways to get their message wrapped around content. We are seeing more product placement in TV and Movies and the new year will bring ‘one sponsor per show’ events. Phillips recently sponsored the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and ‘bought the whole show’. Microsoft recently launched their new video game platform with a complete sponsorship of ESPN’s Sport Center.
Get ready to see more commercials that are created by consumers and mainstream advertisers find ways to integrate user generated content advertising. 2006 saw more user generated content in Music Videos and the next step will be user content in commercials, TV shows and Movies! Chevy and Frito Lay and now running contest for users to help them create commercials for broadcast in the 2007 SuperBowl.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
Here’s a list of events that warranted a posting on MITCH TV this year.
- The King Of Cars TV show about a Las Vegas car dealer named Chopper.
- Muhammad Ali sells the marketing rights to his name and likeness for $50million
- Group of marketers develop an ad auction site with eBay
- Home Depot ads video to their web site and consumers love it
- TV Guide stops publishing their print edition and move solely to online
- Kurt Cobain tops Elvis as the top earning dead celebrity
- One in three Americans is Hispanic, black or Asian
Thank you for visiting MITCH TV. Good luck in 2007!
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