Seth Gilbert, 03-21-2007
Yesterday I looked at the way marketers have been exploring both interactive tools and user-generated content sites in order to create broad multimedia campaigns. The couple examples from TV and publishing showed advertisers/marketers creating fake companies, or websites, or aggressively using User-Generated-Content (YouTube etc) sites to hype and promote their products. There are a multitude of other examples from Film, Television and other products; even luxury car brands like Audi are not immune. Anheuser-Busch is getting in to the arena too. BudTV, which launched after the Super Bowl, provides several channels of Net TV video content created to help promote Budweiser for user who register to use the site.
The efforts to plug in to the viral marketing benefits of user-generated-content and willingness to embrace new technologies are notable. Ultimately, I think they help legitimize the technology platforms as much, if not more, than they help promote products. But hijacking sites like YouTube, or MySpace, for advertising purposes (and creating hoax content) borders on problematic. Today’s focus is those problems:
There is a fine line between content that is entertaining or engaging to fans versus content that irritates potential viewers/customers with misleading information. Consumers are constantly inundated with marketing materials and have grown sensitive to the tone and nature of what’s directed at them. A small misstep could significantly harm a campaign, or taint a potential fan/customers reaction. Marketers needs to ask themselves if their efforts are clearly fun and entertainment, or more likely to be viewed as misleading.
In 2004, Sci Fi Channel demonstrated what not to do with an effort that was clearly misleading. Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert, 03-20-2007
The first days of spring are just here so it seems a bit premature to look ahead to summer. But summer is not too far off and with it, come the summer blockbusters – the big, spectacles that often define a movie studios financials for the year.
In line with Hollywood’s tendency to try and milk as much from established franchises as possible, this year’s scheduled slate includes an unusually high number of sequels. Among the highly anticipated titles there will be one Part 5, one 4th installment, at least 6 movies which are the 2nd sequel (or 3rd installment) and at least two true sequels (2nd installments).
Here’s a brief look at some of these titles which marketing machines have been promoting since before the holiday lights were even put away. Here is also a look at just how lucrative the franchises have been (e.g. why they keep getting green-lighted for new installments):
(Note: These numbers, from BoxOfficeMojo.com show only the Box Office returns for the franchises, they don’t include numbers for the DVD sales and merchandising/licensing revenue which are (for most of these movies) equally substantial)
Seth Gilbert,
Question: What do fake blogs, phony or misleading websites, promo MP3 releases and even dummy MySpace accounts have in common?
Answer: They are all part of sophisticated New Media, multi-media marketing campaigns for Television, print and other entertainment content.
Following on the heels of books like Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point (which theorizes about how trends develop), and no doubt influenced by the increasingly rapid viral growth and acceptance of web properties from MySpace to YouTube, media marketers are embracing new technologies and techniques to hawk their offerings.
Some efforts go so far as to create fictional stories, or companies and full interactive environments around them. These efforts don’t just promote a Television show or book; they’re also helping legitimize the technology platforms they’re built on. Traditional Media was slow getting to the ball during the first wave of Internet activity; they’re looking like they don’t want that to happen again.
NBC’s popular show Heroes probably leads the pack of current offers when it comes to this kind of creative interactive marketing. Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert, 03-16-2007
According to sales released by NPD Group, it was another solid month for the Nintendo Wii. Almost all consoles available in North America for the month of February were bought: More than 335k units. Among other premium next-gen gaming consoles, Sony sold only 127k PS3 consoles. Microsoft sold 228k units. The leading game console among portables and larger platforms for the month was the Nintendo DS which had sell-through of approximately 485k units.
The NPD Numbers for hardware and software:
North American hardware sales — February ‘07
- Nintendo DS – 485K
- Nintendo Wii – 335K
- Sony PS2 – 295K
- Microsoft Xbox 360 – 228K
- Sony PSP – 176K
- Nintendo GBA – 136K
- Sony PS3 – 127K
- Nintendo GameCube – 24K
North American software sales — Feburary ‘07
- Crackdown (Xbox 360) – Microsoft – 427K
- Wii Play w/ remote (Wii) – Nintendo – 371K
- Diddy Kong Racing (DS) – Nintendo – 262K
- Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii) – Nintendo – 130K
- Guitar Hero 2 w/ guitar (PS2) – Activision – 130K
- Gears of War (Xbox 360) – Microsoft – 119K
- Major League Baseball 2K7 (Xbox 360) – Take-Two – 113K
- Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (Xbox 360) – Capcom – 111K
- WarioWare: Smooth Moves (Wii) – Nintendo – 109K
- NBA Street Homecourt (Xbox 360) – Electronic Arts – 102K
Seth Gilbert,
Imax (NASDAQ: IMAX), the maker of giant screen movie technology, announced it was unable to file its 2006 annual on time. The 10-k needs to restate results due to accounting errors over a 6 yr period. The errors, according to the company, are related to incorrect expense accounting for legal services in asia, mistaken capitalization of expenses for co-produced films and unrecorded branch level interest taxes of approximately $750k.
The issues were characterized as minor and are expected to be corrected by March 30th.
More detailed press coverage on Imax’s finances can be found at:
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Marketwatch
Seth Gilbert,
There are almost more rumors about Google’s activities than there are gossip column reports about Paris Hilton or Britney Spears.
For several weeks the latest buzz has hinted at Google following Apple’s footsteps and developing a mobile phone that integrates features and function with their web services (Gmail, Google maps etc). Much of the speculation has been fueled by Google’s hiring of high level analog engineers and mobile hardware/software developers. It’s certainly possible. It’s another possibility (which makes a lot more sense) that Google is not interested in building or selling phones but rather is working on phone development to better optimize Google services and products for use and distribution to the wireless world. A Google-phone may never hit the market but development on one could help Google integrate Gmail into the next line of Motorola or Samsung phones.
Others rumors have swirled that Google is looking at acquiring Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert, 03-14-2007
Yesterday, I noted that I made my first foray into the blogging world two years ago by way of few comments on Roger McNamee’s blog: The New Normal. At the time, Mr. McNamee was promoting his new book and writing regularly on the site. There were some ongoing discussions that intrigued me. As a passing experiment I wrote a reply to two of Roger’s posts, one on Sarbane–Oxley and the other in reply to a post of Roger’s about the direction Internet video. My replies were an experiment of sorts for me, and I wrote them anonymously. After recently seeing what I wrote in some old files, I decided to reprint my posts as well as links to the original discussions here on Metue. Yesterday I re-printed the piece on Sarbane–Oxley
Today, Internet Video:
Roger’s original discussion can be found here
In his post, Roger began what was to be a multi-part examination of Internet Video, its delivery models, and how he envisioned the market shaping up.
My reply, as with my Sarbane–Oxley posts, ended up being in two parts, first to Roger’s comments and a reply by Marc Andreeson, then to clarify a misunderstanding and add more to the discussion:
Reply 1:
Whenever I evaluate an early stage business, or new idea, there are a number of questions I ask well before I dig into numbers, the quality of the team, and the analysis. The first, is always the same thing: “Is this a real solution to a real problem (a problem that potential customers are aware of)..or is the solution just for its own sake?” I know the marketing burden of convincing a customer that your solution is the best is already an expensive obstacle. But having to first convince the customers that they have a problem and then educating them about the solution is a whole different level of risk.
With Internet video, one of the core promises is broader programming and customer choice. It’s hard to argue that these advantages are not saleable. On the other hand, Click to Read More
