User preferences for a mobile lifestyle

From the OxfordForum
a recent study has the following as user preferences for mobile lifestyle
Mobile coupon redemption
Parking meter payment
Loyalty cards
Season tickets
Credit/Debit cards
Flight check-in
Vending machine payment
Retail checkout
Marketing communications
Using your mobile as a key.

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Posted in: 7th Mass Media, Culture, Darwin, Distribution, Economics, Engagement Mobile, Marketing, Mobile, Trends

Artic Monkeys – get hot through the blogosphere

Online publicity gives DIY pop stars first No.1

A reluctant rock band leapt straight to the top of the charts yesterday, propelled to unexpected stardom by a DIY marketing campaign on the internet.

To music promoters they are the proof of two troubling new phenomena ? acts successfully promoting themselves to the big time via a website and fans swapping their songs on internet forums.

This morning music PRs were adjusting themselves to a brave new world where emerging bands can market their product successfully before choosing a record label.

Interestingly a community of fans grew around the band

The Arctic Monkeys began their accidental trip to the top when they decided to put their songs on their website. ?It wasn?t for political reasons,? Turner said. ?There was no masterplan.?

The tracks were copied and shared by a burgeoning fan base on websites such as MySpace.com. By one estimate, there were 142 versions of their songs, some recorded by fans at concerts, being distributed on the web.

Band members kept up a dialogue with fans via their website.

Business models ripe for innovation, people redefining media, people redefining communications. The supremacy of the community over exisiting orthodoxies, technology and media is so clearly evident.

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Posted in: News

Audi launches its own TV Channel

Audi has become the first car maker in the world to launch its own TV Channel.
In order to do so, it first had to gain the first ever self-promotional licence, granted by Ofcom, setting a precedent in broadcasting regulations. Evidence of OfCom being prepared to relax its regulations around advertising funded programming
The company now becomes the first car maker in the world to capitalise on the phenomenal growth of digital television.
It gives the company constant access to over 7.6m homes and nearly 21m individuals. Audi Channel certainly opens-up a new and potentially important communication platform to a wide audience.
The Audi Channel will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The channel cost Audi ?2m to set up and the company is committing $?1m to ?2m a year programming.
Why has Audi taken such a step?

because the decision to extend from advertiser to broadcaster was born of growing frustration with a fragmenting media marketplace and concern that British viewers were spending less time engaging with the brand's television advertising.

I am surprised that more brands have not gone down this route already. Adam Singer convinced me two years ago that the costs of becoming ones own broadcaster were now so low that it was open to all players.
I think its a better way to go than product placement. For sure traditional advertising will not go away, but as we have demonstrated in Communities Dominate Brands a whole new set of marketing tools are required in a non-linear world. As well as a different mindset.
However, marinading advertising content with editorial is always going to be a touchy subject. Though I argue if its done well its a better model for those that are interested, lets say in this instance of buyiing a car.
Watching the Audi channel when one is actively in the market for a new car would be I suspect a more rewarding experience and certainly more informative than a 30 second spot.
And as John Grant said in his book after Image

Image advertising is the junk mail of the 21st Century

Alan Mitchell argues that for a great deal of marketing if it were a thing in its own right would anyone want to buy it? And we all know the answer to that.
So Audi investing in its own collateral makes so much common sense.
Now the challenge is, how does Audi completely move from a "push" model of advertising to one of "pull"?
The Financial Times reported

The extension from advertiser to broadcaster is a big step but one that a growing number of brands are assessing as attention turns from conventional advertising to so-called brand content – entertainment funded by a brand owner that can be exploited across a variety of media platforms: television, radio, live events, mobile phones and the internet.
Carling, for example, is a leading music sponsor and has examined the viability of launching its own music entertainment channel. Sony Europe, meanwhile, is positioning its new PlayStation Portable (PSP) as an entertainment channel in its own right in the UK, where it has recently moved into advertiser-funded television and is now producing television content exclusively for PSP.
Some industry observers see Audi's logical extension of this trend as an indication of things to come

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Posted in: Advertising, Broadcast, Engagement Marketing, iPTV, Marketing, Web/Tech

Zopa- A business model of our times

we've had disruption in telecoms – Skype and music – Napster.
Now its the turn of banking
I came across this company Zopa (Zone of Possible Agreement).
In my mind this is a first rate example of creativity, and people/communities coming together to do something that existing business structures just can't facilitate.
The Guardian says

A new company – based in London not Silicon Valley – has decided to take on the biggest oligopoly in the world, the banks. Called Zopa (Zone of Possible Agreement) the new company is an amalgam of a number of business philosophies. It is where eBay meets credit unions by way of easyJet, the peer-to-peer movement and Betfair.

The business model is fascinating, and also the notion of transparency which is lacking within financial institutions.
Zopa even has its own blog
And this is how Zopa expains itself

Here's the way the world works (and it must be right because it's been like this for hundreds of years…)
People who have spare money give it to a bank. Banks then do whatever they like with it. Some of it they lend to people who need to borrow. Some of it they give to their shareholders. Some of it they gamble on the price of tin, or the dollar going down, or whether there'll be floods in Asia. Banks make lots of money from all this, a fraction of which they give back to their customers.
Zopa though lets people who have spare money to lend it directly to people, like them, who want to borrow it. No bank in the middle, no huge overheads, no unethical investments.
To minimise any risk, the money each lender puts in is spread amongst at least 50 borrowers (and likewise each borrower gets their money from a number of different lenders).
Zopa is, therefore, for people who want to be a part of something new. Who want to join a community of like-minded individuals and lend to them and borrow from them in a trusting but secure way.
Zopa is for people who are looking for a better rate of return. Zopa's interest rates aren't squeezed by middlemen (the banks) because there are no middlemen – that's the Zopa idea.
Zopa is for creditworthy people who earn money in new ways, in ways that banks don't always recognise. People who are self employed, people who have peaks and troughs to their income, people who would be invisible to a bank's credit rating system but are seen and validated by Zopa's.

So good luck Zopa, Tomi and I hope that your venture is a success to demonstrate that communities can truly dominate brands. We love your theory that

people are better than banks

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Posted in: Culture, Darwin, Distribution, Economics, Engagement Marketing, Marketing, Social Networks, Society, Strategy, Trends

Zopa – A business model of our times

I came across this company Zopa (Zone of Possible Agreement) and went yes yes yes.

I my mind this is a first rate example of creativity, and people/communities coming together to do something that existing busness structures just can’t facilitate.

The Guardian says

A new company – based in London not Silicon Valley – has decided to take on the biggest oligopoly in the world, the banks. Called Zopa (Zone of Possible Agreement) the new company is an amalgam of a number of business philosophies. It is where eBay meets credit unions by way of easyJet, the peer-to-peer movement and Betfair.

The business model is fascinating, and also the notion of transparency which is lacking within financial institutions.

Zopa even has its own blog

And this is how Zopa expains itself

Here’s the way the world works (and it must be right because it’s been like this for hundreds of years…)
People who have spare money give it to a bank. Banks then do whatever they like with it. Some of it they lend to people who need to borrow. Some of it they give to their shareholders. Some of it they gamble on the price of tin, or the dollar going down, or whether there’ll be floods in Asia. Banks make lots of money from all this, a fraction of which they give back to their customers.

Zopa though lets people who have spare money to lend it directly to people, like them, who want to borrow it. No bank in the middle, no huge overheads, no unethical investments.

To minimise any risk, the money each lender puts in is spread amongst at least 50 borrowers (and likewise each borrower gets their money from a number of different lenders).

Zopa is, therefore, for people who want to be a part of something new. Who want to join a community of like-minded individuals and lend to them and borrow from them in a trusting but secure way.

Zopa is for people who are looking for a better rate of return. Zopa?s interest rates aren?t squeezed by middlemen (the banks) because there are no middlemen – that?s the Zopa idea.

Zopa is for creditworthy people who earn money in new ways, in ways that banks don?t always recognise. People who are self employed, people who have peaks and troughs to their income, people who would be invisible to a bank?s credit rating system but are seen and validated by Zopa?s.

So good luck Zopa, Tomi and I hope that your venture is a success to demonstrate that communities can truly dominate brands. We love your theory that

people are better than banks

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Posted in: Trends

Video on Demand or TV-by-ultimatum

Wayne Friedman writes about the issues surrounding Video on demand or VOD
Friedman writes

But networks are not there yet. There are real money and other business issues to tackle. For networks, that means not biting the hands that feed them, including that of their affiliates. When and where does an original or repeat episode run on VOD? How does it affect the network's advertising sales? Do its affiliates get compensated? What about union issues?
Some of those last concerns have already come to the surface and caused headaches surrounding Walt Disney's decision to let some ABC network and Disney Channel shows be sold on a per-episode fee via Apple's iTunes Music Store. Immediately after the Disney news, ABC affiliates complained loudly that they weren't advised of the move ahead of time, since the arrangement could conceivably affect their bottom line in years to come.

I was having lunch today with a colleague and at one point we were discussing the future of big media infrastructure, monopolies and living in a world of increasing personalisation. Where does value lie, and how does one release them in a world which is de-coupling from our old safe static analogue one?
Who owns the distribution channels and who pays for what? I said I believed its about looking at and creating value propositions that release value for both customers and companies. Who pays depends on how that value is released.
And the thought that producers produce and consumers consume is considered passé by management theorists goes to the heart of this debate.
The issues that Friedman raises over VOD is one small example of this trend.
And all monopolies it seems are under threat.
As we say in our book

The new digital economics has removed the need to decide between whether one has richness or reach. Today, you can get both. This changes essentially everything. It changes the way customers can access information and changes the way they use it. It changes the way business can communicate with their customers and it also changes how a business might go to market. It changes the linking between channels, that link businesses, customers, suppliers and employees. It offers opportunity and it offers your once helpless competitors the chance to radically rethink their business strategies and attack vital parts of your business model. New and hungry players are taking every opportunity to enter the value chain, hoping to disintermediate you and your brand promise.
We are still observing the very beginning of this, business guru Gary Hamel says, "the least appreciated effects of digitization is the fragmentation of customer attention. Customers become harder to find and more difficult to keep."

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Posted in: Advertising, Broadcast, Convergence, Culture, Darwin, Distribution, Economics, Film, Marketing, Media, Strategy, Trends, Web/Tech

Democracy comes to China via a pop idol style show

Once again we see community power reflected via a commercial TV program

Chinese Pop Idol

Reported in the Guardian Mad about the girl: a pop idol for China

The article says

But it is not the social power of an unconventional tomboy, nor her challenge to China’s gender orthodoxies, that have some in China in a frenzy. It is that she (the winner) was popularly elected in a process that attracted the masses and made them feel included. Viewers could vote up to 15 times by text message. Millions did, and in the show’s final weeks, fans hit the streets to lobby for their favourite.

While the method was commercial, it was none the less mass selection, and it is difficult to avoid noticing that Li Yuchun is the most popularly elected person in modern China – more people having shown their individual support for her than for President Hu Jintao.

Once you have stormed the Bastille you don’t give up your day job. Strangely these ‘reality’ shows have a deeper meaning behind them. That we are as a human race a ‘we species by design’ A phrase that Mark Earls has used on several occassions. And one that has particular resonancy for me and Tomi.

The program unsricpted, authentic by design, inviting the masses to vote and milliions did has had a seismic impact on Chinese popular culture.

If everyone begins to feel that they too can be on stage and show off whatever they like then this is a development in our culture from social bondage to democracy.

comments Dr Cai in the interview.

400 million people watched the show. A massive community of interest.

And in many ways Supergirl the Chinese version of Pop Idol is not disimilar to Jamies School Dinners , which engaged our nation in a debate about what we feed our school kids on. Commercial motivations or not, such programs demonstrate that when you create context and meaning for people they will engage, either as a voting public attracted to the flame of celebrity and participation or around a social theme that means something to us.

Jamies School Dinners delivered 230,000 signatures to Number 10 Downing Street and as a consequence, the Government is now acting upon what food is given to school children.

So as a business or a brand how are you going to engage or develop a community of interest?

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Posted in: News

Embracing the digital Age

Tuesday October 18 2005 – The Financial Times ran a big article on Big Media's response to the recent developments of the internet.
Apparently last year internet advertising generated revenues of $9.6bn in the US. This is expected to grow at more than 20% per year, four to five times faster than the traditional advertising market. By 2009 this is expected to be worth more than $25bn.
Such numbers obviously get people salivating. Though click through rates have fallen through the floor, and the notion of putting all that interruption on the internet, I would suggest is going to put off a lot of people. Sure its going to happen, but we need a mindset shift in how companies think about how they market themselves to their potential customers.
Over tasty bits from the article
New media stocks such as Google and Yahoo have outperformed tradiitonal media stocks by 370% in the past four years.

Jessica Reif Cohen an analyst at Merrill Lynch says investors believe that traditional media companies have "nothing to gain and everything to lose" as consumers make the transition to online media consumption.

Ignore the new delivery opportunities at your peril Cohen warns.
The big debate it seems is where to bet the farm – Distribution, services or content?
The FT quote Leo Hindery of Intermedia Partners

Many of these services (search, email, instant messaging, email and voice) could become commodities (like water or petrol) in the future. Increased competition could even make search, currently the biggest money spinner on the web due to search-linked advertising, into less of a differentiating factor. "Applications – telephony, broadband access and even video itself – will dramatically drop in price, in some cases becoming free (think SKYPE) as competition to provide them increases and as technolgy advances continue. In the process, power will shift back to the content companies and also to the portals

Disney are building their future around their content. Rather than building another portal. Which is a smart strategy

Our view of the world is that we're extremely well positioned to drive value on new media platforms because we have incredibly well known brands that mean something to people

The more people I talk to the more it seems the future is uncertain but exciting – dangerous and exhilarating.
Our insight is that digital reveals something deep about human nature our need to belong and to share. Technology is key for media companies of the future, but it isn't to customers.
As big media companies Ask your self this simple question
How can we make our customers more successful?

Then you get a clue as to what you might do next.

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Posted in: Convergence, Culture, Darwin, Distribution, Economics, Film, Law, Marketing, Media, Strategy, Trends, Web/Tech

The ‘hard yards’ for the shelves in your home

Its a term that we all know in sport, 'the hard yards' is all about the necessary effort required to achieve the sliver of advantage that enables your team to deliver the killer blow.

The grunt and the grind, the sweat and power plays enbaling the fleeter of foot to turn that effort into points.

So why is that analogy relavant to BskyB buying its way into a broadband future?

Because its about the tantalising opportunity for local loop unbundling and the battle for the last 1 metre of cable into peoples homes. Providing the opprtunity for companies like BskyB to offer to their customers; broadband, cable and telephone bundles.
There is certainly some hard yards being fought for at the moment.

So BskyB's wish to buy easynet which operates out of 232 telephone exchanges. Is no surprise.
Once you get into the home then it is a battle for the shelves. What digital box and services that will be provided and used!
Freeview has had a rapid uptake and once that enters a home evidence is that people are less inclined to take pay-TV.

BT I think have fought a fierce rear-guard action to defend its old monoply status, an inch at a time. Until OfCom comes and raps it on the knuckles and flexes its regulatory muscles.
Unbundling has taken off in France and once again demonstrates how we have decoupled from our old familiar analogue world into a more uncertain, at this point, digital one.
The issue is over value creation – companies will need to think very hard about the value propositions they offer, to make these hard yards fought over today will be compelling for customers tomorrow. Because this will decide who ends up with the keys to access.
There are more hard yards to be fought over and won.

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Posted in: Convergence, Darwin, Distribution, Economics, Media, Strategy, Trends, Web/Tech

Artists First – a new distribution model for music

Linking the many to many, passionate fans etc. Is something that Tomi and I passionately believe in. And that also today businesses are required to rethink how they go to market otherwise they face outside players coming into their once stable industries and significantly disrupting them. For example, Skype vs. BT or the mobile operators, Amazon vs. WH Smith etc.
I said as much in a recent opinion piece in NMA this week.
In the same edition of the paper Peggy Anne Salz, writes a main feature entitled doing it yourself Peggy mentions an interesting business called Artists First.
Peggy explains

Artists First, a UK based firm of muscians-turned-technicians that enables artists to create, package and sell their content directly to mobile users and collect payment via reverse SMS. After launching in March, the service is live in over 25 countries.
The company is also working on a peer-to-peer application and developing a range of content-creation tools that will allow artists to rip a snippet of their content and deliver it as a realtone (ringtone?).

The CEO Mark Bjornsgaard says

Its all about empowering artists to communicate directly with their mobile audiences, limiting the role of the middleman who could get in the way of that exchange and generating revenue streams from a whole range of income streams over and above the music.

Apparently there are already 1000 bands using the service with 30 new bands joining every day.
But its not just music, video, pics, info can be made accessible. Artists First seem genuine and passionate about what they are doing. I wonder what the record labels think?
We have already mentioned the influential pitchforkmedia site that also is doing very well reviewing bands.
The times are certainly a-changin'

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Posted in: 7th Mass Media, Convergence, Economics, Engagement Mobile, Generation C, Marketing, Mobile, Music, Networks, Trends