It’s a sad, but unsurprising day: Comcast has decided to kill the group that I helped to launch back in 2005, the NBCU Digital Studio (http://bit.ly/lbAMaC). This was an innovative, forward-looking vision, initiated as MySpace was being bought by NewsCorp and YouTube by Google; a time that, I would argue, was the beginning of mainstream digital content.
When I was there, the group was filled with immensely talented folks, from video, design and interactive, and I can say that we created some really game-changing work...that rarely saw the light of day. The tragedy, and the reason I left, was that the NBCU brass didn’t buy into the vision that they had approved and funded. The bureaucracy moved too slowly and various execs didn’t want to rock the boat, as they were comfortable with the ancient model. I’m not surprised that the support didn’t increase over the years, leading to this ultimate demise.
Since I left, several of my former colleagues, such as Ryan Noggle, have continued to produce great video series, all for brands, nonetheless. However, these projects were few and far between, as they only greenlit projects that were fully sold through to brands, who would underwrite the production and an interactive experience around the series. This makes sense, from a business standpoint, but I assume that their hands were tied by the restrictions of network television advertising – an old-school approach to the pairing of brands and content – and were, largely not supported by the rest of the network. Once in a while, a digital series would receive an on-air mention or be featured on NBC.com, but largely, these initiatives seemed to be treated as isolated digital brand campaigns, disconnected from the NBC Entertainment entity. I am sure that the pitches heavily played on the sexiness of making a show with NBC, but as a consumer, I believe that they weren’t given the prominence or context they needed to truly succeed.
To me, this means that the Digital Studio was essentially a creative digital agency, yet it was being run by entertainment professionals, not advertising professionals. That’s not all bad (heck, I started out as an entertainment guy), but to succeed in our business, an organization needs leaders and team members with deep expertise and understanding of the advertising business and the way that marketers think, along with the talented storytellers and entertainment pros. Even more importantly, it needs real, long-term commitment from the company's executives, which comes from an understanding that this is still an emerging business; one that requires time, innovation and experimentation to develop a profitable business unit.
When Comcast acquired NBC Universal, I’m sure they had to take a hard look at every department, analyzing it for its profitability and value. Even more than that, I’m sure the NBCU execs had to think about which initiatives they were willing to fight for, an even bigger risk than normal in the face of such a massive acquisition. I’m not surprised that they didn’t fight for the Digital Studio; they never did. Honestly, I’m surprised that it lasted this long.
Fortunately, there are other companies that are fully committed to this mission and to finding that appropriate balance between content and marketing. There's one in particular that I'll be speaking about very soon. Stay tuned.
What do you think about this decision? What do you think killed the promise of the NBCU Digital Studio? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
As a member of the original NBC Universal Digital Studio (I ran creative development from 2005-07), I was pleased to see that they continue to produce high quality entertainment content for brands. Using their storytelling expertise, the Studio is creating original video series based in brands' core ethics, which allows them to create deeper connections with their core audiences. As anyone who knows and/or works with me knows, there's not much I believe in more, in this space, than the idea that the best way to develop ongoing, positive relationships with audiences is to offer them content that adds value to their lives and a community to discuss it. Props to my friends and former colleagues Ryan Noggle and Krista Punsalan on this great work, as well as Cameron Death (VP of the Studio) and Cori Anger (Director, Distribution & Marketing for the Studio) who I met at their IAB Innovation Days workshop.
*NOTE: You probably hear a video beginning to play. That's because NBC set one of the players to autoplay and I couldn't remove that. So scroll down and press "pause" to stop it so that you can enjoy this nice post. If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know.
Three of the Digital Studios' current projects:
Dial* ("Dial Star")
Sponsored by AT&T, this is a Gossip Girl/Hills-style scripted pseudo-reality series, focused on a wannabe LA actress. The three minute episodes launch every Tuesday and Thursday (premiered yesterday) and will run for four weeks.
In their words:
Dial Star chronicles the adventures of Celia Bishop (Audra Griffis), a 20-something small-town girl whose dreams of fame bring her to Los Angeles. As a struggling actress, the door to Hollywood unexpectedly opens for Celia when AnnaLynne McCord's cell phone lands at her feet. But will her relationship with best friend Natalie (Cara Santana) and new crush Austin (Justin Wilczynski) survive her newfound access to A-list parties, auditions and red-carpet events? What happens to Celia when fame comes calling?
The Digital Studio has built a number of interactive features, including:
Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare accounts for the characters with ongoing content, synched up with episode events
realtime social feed next to the video player of SMS messages, tweets, Facebook updates and Foursquare checkins from characters
Opt-in SMS component, where audience can receive about five SMS messages from the show each week
Content incorporated into AT&T's digital and social platforms
In addition, the Digital Studio partnered with AOL for the show launch, reaching a relevant audience, and is leveraging NBCU properties for promotion, such as Celia's upcoming appearance on The Today Show.
It's a solid property. Well produced and well thought out. The key is to convince AT&T to continue beyond four weeks, or else the audience is going to be left cold, just as they start to warm up.
Here's Episode 1:
Garden Party
Sponsored by Hidden Valley Ranch dressing (a Clorox brand), this six month campaign features a lifestyle video series hosted by 90210's Jennie Garth. To reach their mom target audience, the series focuses on a new vegetable each month, offering easy tips to incorporate them into your diet. The program is supported by:
Full disclosure: I know that my friend Ryan Noggle has had a big hand in creating and writing this one. However, I wouldn't taint my blog with something I didn't genuinely respect, just to promote a friend. Unless he paid me. Which he hasn't. Yet...
Sponsored by American Family Insurance, main character Gayle is a broker for that company. Brand transparency is certainly not an issue here, as the sweet, humorous show follows this character as she discusses the benefits, addresses the concerns and criticisms and otherwise promotes AFI's products and positive brand attributes. This is certainly the most direct product integration of the three series, but with a dry, highly regulated industry like insurance, it makes sense to create an empathic character to, literally, engender trust.
They've created some nice interactive features as well, including a casual game (try it out below) and an interactive map.
Season one premiered in fall of 2009. Season two is due to premiere later this year.
Yesterday, digiday organized a gathering of advertising professionals from all sides to discuss "The State of the Digital Upfront." Everyone seems to agree that digital video is essential to most brand campaigns, at this point; the debate lies in how to approach distribution and what to measure. The general consensus, with which we agree, seems to be that digital video should not be viewed as cannibalistic of traditional media. Rather, digital content should be viewed as a supplement to further engage audiences from platforms like TV, and to engage new audiences that are spending more and more time solely on digital platforms, who are just as hungry for video. Finding the right balance certainly depends on the specifics of the brand, campaign budget and metrics of success, but to ignore or underutilize digital is now unacceptable.
Neo@Ogilvy's COO, Greg Smith, raised a key question for the day when he simply asked, "Why have a digital upfront?" Why, indeed, adopt the TV system, mostly based on cronyism, which benefits the sellers a whole lot more than the buyers?
On the buyer side, for Digitas' Margaret Clerkin, the value of an upfront lies in locking in advertising placements on premium sites. For Universal McCann's Cohen, it comes down to locking in the best rates. For Starcom USA's Chris Allen, it's about securing the commitment between his agency, on behalf of the clients, and the publishers; it's security that he'll have the inventory he needs.
The sellers, on the other hand, don't seem too compelled to change the game very much. Granted, this perspective was represented by major publishers (NBCU, CBS, CNN, ESPN and WSJ), but when they're selling out their inventory month after month, why would they take a risk with something other than pre-roll ads? WSJ's Brian Quinn said that pre-rolls are still a big growth area for them; he believes it's up to the brands and their agencies to develop win-win creative solutions. Making creatives cringe everywhere, he asked, "why are we always in a race for the next big thing?"
Fortunately, ESPN's Lisa Valentino is open to premium brand integrations, when they make sense. She emphasized digital and mobile as key touchpoints, especially on weekends, and agreed that agencies have to drive creative solutions; they have to "commit to programming the environment." NBC Universal's Peter Naylor emphasized that consumers are ahead of the platforms; the big opportunity lies in engaging the audience in the ways they want.
There was a substantial amount of discussion about what metrics should be measures -- what does success look like? There were many different views on this, but Valentino confidently told the crowd that buying solely based on CPM is a big mistake. CBS' Ken Lagana stated that brands are defining ROI as transactional (they bought stuff), but also by engagement (they watched, clicked, etc.). To that end, comscore's Tania Yuki presented recent research that 43% of audiences said they stopped watching a long-form digital show to click through to the advertiser's site. We'd be curious to know the specifics of the ads and platforms in that study, as that number seems a lot higher than we've heard before.
The rest of the day was devoted to conversations regarding content syndication, targeting, case study presentations and a number of solution provider presentations (pay to pitch). Some highlights below.
Mindshare presented a recent campaign for Poise, Kimberly-Clarke's adult diapers. The videos and print featured Whoopi Goldberg as various female historical figures experiencing bladder leakage, igniting conversation about a difficult, embarrassing topic. It was extremely well produced and they approached the issue with style and humor, making it OK for women to talk, laugh and not feel alone about this problem. ABC isn't usually open to this category of advertising during the Oscars, but because of its filmic nature and high production value, Mindshare was able to run their :60 during the pre-show. It also got impressive media pickup, including a segment on SNL's Weekend Update. This type of approach is something we're certainly passionate about; we created a similar campaign around Acid Reflux for Aciphex: http://www.acidrefluxusa.com
Download Tremor Media's digiday presentation on the State of Digital Video & full data from their state of the online video industry study here: http://www.dm2pro.com/ (password: tremormedia)
Adap.tv, and systems like it, enables extremely easy creation of complex online media buys. As we tweeted, except for premium deals, who needs a media agency anymore?
The infamous JK Wedding video was brought up; while it's rare that many amateur user generated videos will generate over 47.5 million views, it's an incredible case study of the potential.
Google's official case study, which states that Sony Music got over double their normal click-to-buy rates for the Brown song in the video as a result of overlays.
According to YouTube, content owners split the revenue share for any ads, if they choose to allow them, with YouTube.
Sundance showed a clip of their Green Porno series, hosted by Isabella Rossellini. It's great to see them get so strongly behind green programming and to take fun creative risks. They also showcased The Inspiration Sessions, sponsored by Infinity.
RockYou, one of the largest social media application and gaming companies, is creating opportunities for brand integration and game rewards for engagements, much like WildTangent, who we mentioned in last week's post about Social Media: IAB Marketplace. According to Lisa Marino, their Chief Revenue Officer, 97% of social gaming women prefer to earn virtual currency through a branded offer. That's a huge opportunity for brands that want to reach that audience with video, mini-interactive experiences and game integration.
Reviews, thoughts, images, articles and other content about digital media, real-time content, apps, advertising & technology that resonate with me.
