Christian Louboutin : quand l'ego prend le dessus sur le talent (de réalisateur)

Rien à dire sur le chausseur talentueux. Et si le brand(ed) content a le vent en poupe chez les acteurs de la mode et du luxe, cet engouement ne doit pas pardonner toutes les initiatives des égos qui fleurissent à foison dans cet univers.
Psycho-Logic pour l'ouverture de sa nouvelle boutique à Hollywood

D'un côté, n'est pas Lagerfeld, par exemple, qui veut.
De l'autre, même Olivier Dahan ne nous fait pas toujours rêver

Rien de mieux pour moi, encore à ce jour, que la virée nouvelle vague de Zoe Cassavetes pour Lamarthe. C'était en 2007.

Bebo launch online fashion program

Bebo has unveiled plans to launch an online fashion show, The Closet, in partnership with O2, from the end of the month.

Brokered by ZenithOptimedia, The Closet will be created and produced by Twenty Twenty Television. O2 will use the platform to support its new Load & Go card from O2 Money.

The Closet will be hosted by former model Jameela Jamil and feature makeovers, style guides and challenges, fashion-insider interviews, and celebrity closet rummages.

“The Closet and the partnership with Bebo is a key element of our marketing campaign for Load & Go,” said Alistair Johnston, marketing director at O2. “Given our target audience, the campaign has a strong online focus and we believe this is an ideal partnership through which we can communicate the benefits of Load & Go.”

Bebo Originals are funded by brand integration, an advertising revenue model developed by Bebo in which products and services are offered a sophisticated blend of plot integration, traditional product placement, and on-network online advertising. As sole sponsors of The Closet, O2 will be integrated seamlessly throughout the series embarking on a number of in-store high street giveaways and unique promotions around the new Load & Go card.

More on Bebo's projects under "Bebo orginals" HERE and HERE

CBS, Pepsi and Entertainment Weekly: First Video In Print Ad

Innovate, to lead and...survive

PepsiCo will join with CBS to promote its Pepsi Max diet cola for men in the print ads and sponsor the fall debut of CBS's Monday-night comedies on Sept. 21.

It's here

Brand Content, Le Livre !

Sortie 7 Octobre

Merci à Matthieu et Daniel pour leur confiance.

Pour en savoir plus, c'est ici

Social buzz video marketing by Samsung

L'utilisation de la vidéo comme élément central de l' "interactivité sociale"et du storytelling
Ici la démo pour Samsung Mobile's HD camera phone

ZAC 16 , we've got a problem...

Bravo à Leo Burnett Chicago et P&G: ces "lessiviers" qui osent
Daring, Innovative, above and most off all, well scripted and written
But let's see how buzz tranforms: as till now, it's still confidential...

and forget all the sexists critics on Adage !!

GREEN EYED WORLD, when a star in the making meets Sprite (of course it's the other way around)

C'EST LONG,
C'EST LENT,
MAIS CA VIENT...
du bon advertainment ???

Hasbro to Create Branded Cable Channel through a joint venture with Discovery Communications, to launch in late 2010.

Ce sont les enfants qui vont être contents

"Today's announcement speaks once again to the power of Hasbro's brands and affirms the company's strategy of providing innovative and immersive entertainment experiences for consumers of all ages in any form or format where and when they want it," he said. "We recognized that if we were going to reach our potential both in terms of satisfying interest in our brands and enhancing shareholder value, we knew we needed to extend our value beyond our games."

Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner

Agrégateurs de contenus de marques: du nouveau

A noter les initiatives plus ou moins anciennes, sur des registres quelque peu différents, celles d'ADICTIZ d'un coté, pour les addicted en effet (infos bourse etc...) - mais où est le fil RSS pour que les annonceurs présents s'abonnent ? - et qui se rapproche d'ailleurs dans le mode collaboratif/appel à création d'EYEKA, et, LA TELE DES MARQUES de l'autre, la vitrine de l'actualité vidéo des annonceurs (Hugues, ça bouge !)

Crise ou pas, les marques montrent leur potentiel en inspirant notamment les entrepreneurs du web, qui vont même "chatouiller" les bastions de la création

Marques pas mortes !

Personal Branding: un vrai boulot

Une interview vidéo d'Olivier Zara autour du livre "Réussir sa carrière grâce au Personal Branding"
En cliquant su le titre, ou ici

Des Prix, encore des Prix

Après un Prix Spécial au Cyber Cristal du festival de la pub de Méribel en décembre 2008, Eco Emballages vient d'obtenir le Prix Marketing Digital du site Corporate 2009 : vosu pouvez retourner voir Stéphane Thébaut et "La Saga du tri" !

Emballée en 18' chrono ...

... "La Saga du tri" pour le site d'ECO EMBALLAGES

5ème gauche* m'a confié la mission de proposer une émission visant à convaincre le grand public des enjeux du tri et du recyclage, et de trouver une personnalité qui puisse animer le site et le programme
C'est donc à titre indépendante que j'ai pris en main l'intégralité de ce projet: recommandation de la réalisatrice et de l'animateur-présentateur Stéphane Thébaut, écriture - Angelica, quel souvenir ! - en étroite collaboration avec l'agence, direction artistique (pas contente du tout de moi !), tournage, montage, post-prod, devis, contrat, livraison clé en main

*C'est Xavier Tormès qui m'a appellée: les directeurs de création comme lui, c'est le rêve. Merci-merci Xavier !

Après une longue parenthèse, je reprends la parole avec cette actu; un nouveau blog à venir sans doute, plus complet avec l'ensemble des productions, revue de presse etc...

Il y a des OEF dans l'air...

13 avril- 20 septembre...j'avais bien lu que les blogs, un jour ou l'autre on s'en lassait.
je reprends du service pour la bonne cause sachant que vous êtes des milliers à "m'avoir" dans vos favoris (pourquoi ??)

FANNY GRANGIER est une SERIAL ENTREPRENEUSE Je pense qu'il est temps que le ministre du travail... la convoque fissa pour nous dire comment on fait pour monter une boite en 6 mois avec autant de succès, prometteur...

Alors voilà, femmes, hommes -qui aimez les femmes- FAITES DES BEBES, SEULE, A DEUX, A 10...si vous voulez pas, ben faites un effort (9 mois, allez...) car il y aura assez d' OEF pour toutes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I WISH YOU AN ENORMOUS SUCCESS, CONGRATULATIONS

Un air de Godard chez le maroquinier Lamarthe

Elettra Rossellini aux faux airs de Jean Seberg ... le retour d' "A bout de souffle" par Zoe Cassavetes, la fille d'un de mes réalisateurs préférés : superbe !
C'est LA

"Libre comme l'air" et "Deedee" : quand les shampoings s'y mettent...

J'en parle car c'est ce à quoi je me destine : proposer aux annonceurs de raconter des histoires sur le web, et les mobiles et puis pourquoi pas pour finir en télé : mais j'ai quitté

la télé car je crois plus aux web et
aux mobiles pour produire ces petites pastilles pleines de fraîcheur , servies chaudes et à

n'importe quelle heure du jour et de la nuit sur mon laptop...

Sunsilk/Libre comme l'air et Garnier/Deedee se mouillent : on attendait pas forcément aussi vite ce secteur d'activité préempter de cette manière les nouveaux médias : c'est à saluer, car ça met en confiance sur le potentiel !

C'était un poisson d'Avril...!!!!!

Suite à mon post du 29 Mars sur votre avatar à envoyer pour la 1ère publicité virtuelle dans le monde virtuel de Second Life... je me demandais où nous allions... et bien, c'est officiel: POISSON D'AVRIL !

Les apéros du jeudi : 1ers retours...

de la part de Janique sur son blog : le blog de la ménagère

les petites annonces interactives : à suivre

C'est ici pour l'annonce LIVE

Source : Transnets

Wanted // Avatars dans Second Life

Posté depuis cet après midi, 13h

MAIS OU VA T ON ??!!!!!

TriBeCa recherche 50 avatars dans Second Life pour le tournage d’une publicité virtuelle pour un annonceur très tendance. La publicité passera ensuite sur les écrans plats des lieux les plus branchés de SL.

Si vous êtes disponible en semaine, merci de nous envoyer vos mensurations et votre photo le plus rapidement possible. Nous vous invitons à envoyer cela à : sylvain[at]tribeca.fr

Source : Blog Marketing Alternatif

...A Pékin, une clinique militaire désintoxique les « accros » au Net

On découvre aujourd'hui que les autorités chinoises réservent un traitement particulier aux jeunes accros à Internet et au jeu en ligne. Du moins, à ceux qui ont les moyens de payer, ou leur famille. Près de Pékin, une clinique militaire se propose de les désintoxiquer, moyennant 10 000 yuans (soit 1300 dollars, 974 euros) par mois, rapporte l'AFP

Depuis son ouverture fin 2004, l'établissement, situé aux abords de la capitale chinoise, a déjà reçu plus de 1500 patients (âgés de 14 à 36 ans). Dès leur arrivée dans le quartier militaire de Daxing, les jeunes sujets sont soumis à un régime spartiate. Réveil tous les matins à 6h30 et interdiction de sortir les dix premiers jours. Le tout étant agrémenté de sport, de séances de thérapie et d'une (re)prise de contact avec le monde réel (laver son linge, jouer avec de vrais objets...)

Pour les plus récalcitrants et pour les patients qui souffrent de troubles du sommeil, les responsables de la clinique ont prévu un programme intégrant des électrochocs de faible voltage, à travers des aiguilles placées sur le corps, en référence à la technique de l'acupuncture, précise l'AFP.

Selon le fondateur du centre, Tao Ran, cité par l'agence française, il existe en Chine près de 2,5 millions de « drogués » de l'Internet. Un chiffre important rapporté à la population d'un pays comme la France, mais qu'il convient de relativiser au regard d'un pays-continent comme la Chine, qui compte aujourd'hui 1,3 milliard d'habitants. Il y aurait, selon l'AFP, une trentaine de cliniques spécialisées dans le traitement de la dépendance au Net et au jeu en ligne.

Une fois leur traitement terminé, les patients ne sont pas à l'abri d'une rechute. Mais concernant ce point, les autorités de Pékin ont tout prévu. L'ouverture de nouveaux cybercafés est en effet interdite depuis le début de l'année 2007. Et pour les lieux déjà en activité, leur accès est désormais interdit aux mineurs.

Source : O1Net

Vote Different

Ah si nos candidats avaient de bons conseillers en communication...on se régalerait !

Le 29 mars, à partir de 19h30 à l'Arsenal, 4è

Venez prendre un verre et jeter un coup d'oeil sur ce que le projet d'une nouvelle chaîne de tv - qui promeut les valeurs d'une société impliquée dans la vie de la cité, concernée par l'avenir de la planète, au travers d'un mode de vie plus collectif - a inspiré aux internautes, qu'ils soient designers, musiciens, auteurs etc...


Pour en savoir plus, c'est sur le site des apéros du jeudi

Votez Marcel !

... sur le site très sympa fait par Chewing cum et son besognieux patron, Samuel Katan (hello !), pour l'assureur MAAF qui devient occasionnellement le Mouvement pour un Avenir Assurément Formidable...

En ces temps de campagne, en avant pour une promenade bucolique...

Eisner Promises Killer Content From New Web Studio

Qui a dit que le web était un truc de d'jeun's ?!
L'ancien patron de Disney veut faire oublier LonelyGirl...

FORMER DISNEY CEO MICHAEL EISNER on Monday officially opened the doors to a new studio geared to producing and distributing quality plot-driven Web video.

Dubbed Vuguru, and backed by Eisner's investment firm The Tornante Co., the studio's first series, "Prom Queen," is slated to premiere online April 2 with a roster of advertisers including beverage marketers FIJI Water and POM Wonderful.

The debut series aims to knock LonelyGirl15 off her perch as the queen of YouTube. "Prom Queen" is a scripted, serialized mystery told over 80 episodes--each running 90 seconds long--and set against the final two months of a high school class's senior year leading up to prom night.

"In the past few years, the development of exciting and innovative digital media platforms and technologies has outpaced the creation of truly great content," said Eisner, a veteran storyteller, in a statement announcing the launch.

The short-form episodes will be released daily across various Web platforms, and are aimed at young, early adopters of easily digestible media clips. The series will also have its own Web home at PromQueen.tv.

"The daily blast of short-form content has huge potential to create a tight bond between the show's characters, viewers and advertisers," said Douglas Cheney, co-founder of the independent production team Big Fantastic, which teamed with Vuguru to produce "Prom Queen."

(...)

Pour lire la suite

MSN Creates Online Content That Actually Draws People

Quelques case studies américains toujours plein d'enseignements...


... et un lien vers un contenu qui illustre à nouveau, sur une thématique pas des plus sexy, l'énorme potentiel des contenus de marque
Il y a 3 ans j'étais allée voir YahooFinance pour leur proposer 4 émissions de vulgarisation de l'univers de la finance... un peu top sans doute; bravo à Barclays pour Bienvenue chez les Barclays !

Heineken Skypecasts Concert

Heineken is known for its innovative approach to marketing and like many brands it's active in the area of music. That activity includes sponsorship of music events and venues and it's always looking for new ways to get in touch with its target audience.

In recent years, it's worked closely with Qi-ideas to develop online innovation to help break through the clutter.
Last September, it took that approach to a new level.

Internet telephony brand Skype introduced Skypecasting in August 2006, a new feature that allows up to 100 consumers to be in direct contact at any one time. Heineken on Sept. 8 became the first to host a live concert broadcast via Skype throughout the world. Dutch band Johan broadcast an exclusive acoustic gig to an audience who had won their right to participate via a contest on Heineken's website.

The great advantage of the Skypecast is that unlike a webcast, it's possible to have a two-way interaction with listeners asking questions and applauding.
While the gig only lasted a short while, the activity also created video content for the brand that could be viewed online for months after the actual event.

Heineken generated a host of free public relations placements from the global media first as well as garnering early learning about a new medium that could become an important channel in the future.

Je suis fan du travail de James Nachtwey depuis longtemps : il est un des 3 lauréats des TED Prizes

Ci-joint une vidéo des 3 gagnants

Pour retrouver l'oeuvre de cet immense photographe de guerre, son site

What's the Biggest Trend or Challenge in Digital Media?

In case there was still any doubt, digital is emerging "as the hub of marketing," and it's changing the ad world at a rapid pace. Advertising Age's Emily Tan asked some of digital's top movers to identify the biggest trends and challenges that lie ahead.

For These Execs It's All About Video -How to Make It, Monetize It, Distribute It

Here are excerpts from their e-mail responses.

Source: AdAge.com

Requiem pour NIKE

The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat are physically felt in a 60'' spot for Brand Jordan.
Set to Mozart's Requiem, the ad promotes the Air Jordan XX2 shoe
An other jewel from Wieden&Kennedy NY

Scion rolls out second branded film

Toyota Brand's 'Stomping Grounds' Sticks With Storytelling, Not Ad Message

Toyota Motor Sales USA's cutting-edge, youth-centric brand Scion is rolling out its second branded-entertainment film, the 22-minute, documentary-style "Stomping Grounds." If you don't catch a screening at a film festival, the short will be airing on Scion Broadband, the car brand's online TV network.

Source : Madison&Vine

Video Plays Key Role In Digital Magazine Future

ALTHOUGH ONLINE VIDEO ISN'T YET a profit center for many magazine publishers, it should achieve profitability in the near future, according to a panel of magazine executives discussing online video at "Magazines 24/7," a conference hosted by the Magazine Publishers of America in Manhattan on Tuesday. One key was closing the gap between online video ad rates and those of traditional TV.

Paul Maidment, the editor of Forbes.com and executive editor of Forbes magazine, noted that Forbes.com's video streams reach more daily viewers than CNBC's traditional TV ops. But "they still get ad revenue in multiples, and multiples of multiples" of what Forbes receives, Maidment said. Even if online video doesn't achieve parity with traditional TV, the disparity suggests there is "a big pot of money out there" for magazines delivering online video.

In the short term, magazines will continue delivering and expanding their online video content even if it isn't a big profit center, said Todd Unger, senior vice president of Time4 Digital, recently acquired by Bonnier. "If we don't provide it," he added, "there are people in these verticals" that will. Likewise, Ann Shoket, editor in chief of Seventeen magazine, warned: "If you don't have video, you can't have viewers. It's as simple as that."

Asked what form effective video advertising will finally take, Maidment conceded, "no one has yet found a workable advertising model. At the moment, we're mimicking TV." However, this is already changing, he noted, predicting that ads will "get shorter and shorter ... you're now seeing pre-rolls getting down to three seconds. You'll see more things heading that way."

Source: OnlineMediaDaily

MISSION ZERO: because Power is nothing without control...

!!!!!!! TARANTINONESQUE !!!!!!
(click to watch the film)

You said Communitainment ?

INCREASINGLY, CONSUMERS ARE AIDING AND abetting the melding of communication, community, and entertainment in a trend dubbed "communitainment" in a new report from Piper Jaffray.

In the 425-page report entitled "The User Revolution," the investment bank describes the emergence of "communitainment," a trend involving consumers moving communication beyond a mere exchange of information to facilitate an exchange of content, ideas, and entertainment within an online social context.
As Internet consumption continues to steal time spent with other media, advertisers need to learn how to tap into online communities to reinforce their brands.

"Communitainment" is a type of content consumption that is new to the Internet, says report author Safa Rashtchy, who researched developments supporting the phenomenon for nearly two years. Rashtchy is managing director/senior analyst of the investment bank's Internet Media (IM), Commerce and Marketing practice.

The report suggests that "Communitainment" will at least partially replace other forms of content--i.e., TV, magazines, and even big Internet sites in favor of niche content sites.
Piper Jaffray projects that one-half of all content consumption will be "Communitainment" over the next decade driven by IM, social networking, photo and video-sharing sites--up from around 30% in 2006.
(...)
"Communitainment" and time spent on the Internet and on so-called Usites such as YouTube, Heavy.com, Facebook, Yahoo Answers, Google Video, and MySpace has radically redefined content consumption patterns, in the process "creating confusion for advertisers and agencies alike. In a way, we believe Usites are the Internet's democraticized version of the reality TV trend with users placed in control of content creation," the report states.

The implications of "Communitainment" are profound.
"Not only are these consumers not available to see commercial messages from other [media] channels," Rashtchy said, "but they're also heavily engaged in activity that they would not like to be distracted from by commercial messages."

When consumers watch TV, he observed, there remains an unwritten contract that they get commercials in exchange for free programming. Of course, this contract is subverted on a daily basis by DVRs.
With "Communitainment," Rashtchy noted, "there is no such contract available. Content is created and shared by users. It's a closed system and advertisers have to find a way to get into it. But once you get in, you're actually part of the family." Part of the family, that is, if advertisers can indeed gain consumers' trust.

The report suggests that advertisers need to become more integrated in the activities in which consumers engage, offering free content and services to align themselves with consumers' interests: "If done successfully, this type of advertiser engagement could have a significant long-term impact as consumers will be willing and eager distributors of the advertisers' message and brand to the rest of the community."

In addition, the report states: "The importance of the Communitainment trend is not just in shifting traffic patterns but, more importantly, in the way users view content as a free-flowing part of the communication spectrum. As such, many participants in communitainment view content such as music or video as an integral part of their experience and not as a distinct entity for which they have to pay," the report states, qualifying: "Of course, beyond communitainment, there are other contexts in which users are willing to either pay for content or, at a minimum, receive an advertisement in exchange for the content."

Source : OnlineMediaDaily

Mini Builds Expansive Campaign Around Quirky Webisodes

Taking a lesson from parent BMW, Mini USA is introducing a series of online short films that track the adventures of a character named Hammer and his sidekick Coop, a Brit-speaking Mini.

The "Hammer & Coop" project, directed by Todd Phillips ("Old School" and "Starsky & Hutch"), is also spun out across various nontraditional media: 15-second video-on-demand spots for mobile handsets, "Find Coop" contests in Second Life, a "Hammer & Coop" MySpace page, iPod video downloads and a red-carpet movie-premier-type event in Manhattan's Union Square.

Hanging from billboards
There's also a quirky outdoor campaign in three major markets: a mannequin of Hammer "parachuting" in and hanging from billboards and a life-size, fiberglass version of Mini. More traditional billboards in 80 markets will show the two characters under headlines such as "Kick Some Asphalt."
(...)
Trudy Hardy, marketing manager of the Mini, said the "Hammer & Coop" campaign for the redone 2007 Mini is aimed at men 25 to 54 years old. "But this will have a very broad appeal."

Innovative mag effort
In addition to the outdoor and online components, there's also a heavy old-media presence, albeit with a new twist: The car that was once a Playboy centerfold took its case to publishers in seeking their help in developing "Hammer & Coop" tie-ins that fit their books, Ms. Hardy said. Rolling Stone and Premier have created "fake" front covers on their back covers that promote a fictitious "Hammer & Coop" movie. The 10 or so pages in the back of the magazines will integrate each title's normal features, written and designed by their staff, but with editorial about "Hammer & Coop." In certain areas, Premier will put the "back" cover facing buyers in magazine stands.

Men's Health will integrate "Hammer & Coop" exercises on its monthly workout poster. The March issues of Maxim, Stuff and Blender will contain an eight-page fashion spread of Hammer and Coop shot by Maxim's fashion director, Stan Williams.

Ms. Hardy said the six online episodes will eventually be available on DVD, along with a mock music video of Asia's 1980s hit "Heat of the Moment," which is featured in the final webisode.

A teaser movie trailer, which appeared to be promoting the "Hammer & Coop" action flick, broke in 1,000 theaters earlier this month and encouraged viewers to visit hammerandcoop.com, where the same trailer was shown (Mini wasn't named in the trailer).
(...)

Source: AdAge.com

Is Bud.tv a case study for Branded Entertainment ?

Clamor Over Site Shows That Marketers Who Own Media May Be Playing Under Tougher Rule

Are marketers who create channels to disseminate their own branded content subject to a different standard than standard-issue advertisers?
After the attorneys general of 21 states told the No. 1 U.S. brewer that, as a media owner, it is playing by a different, more stringent, set of rules, the notion of a higher standard for branded-entertainment ventures could have a chilling effect if it's applied broadly.

Source : Madison&Vine

Ad-Supported New Yorker Cartoon Animations To Be Podcast

A NEW ITUNES PODCAST WILL turn New Yorker cartoons into short ad-supported animations.

Created by startup RingTales, which has the exclusive license to animate and distribute New Yorker cartoons, the clips will each be 15 to 30 seconds long, and will be available via www.ringtales.com/podcast.

Subscribers to the free podcast will get three new animations a week. The company plans to syndicate the New Yorker animations widely across the Internet and mobile devices.

Source: OnlineMediaDaily

IAC moves into online video

Barry Diller and IAC/InterActive Corp. has purchased Manhattan-based CollegeHumor.com, originally a content creator/UGC destination for videos of frat parties and wet T-shirt contests.
However, IAC plans to focus solely on the creation of original programming, uploading one or more comedy video shorts per week.
The site will be edited by Daley Haggar, a comedian and writer who has worked on "South Park" and NBC's "The Apprentice."

The UGC movement has captured most of the buzz around online video, but Diller believes professionally produced, high-quality ad-supported video can generate a bigger audience.
The idea is to create an online alternative to "Saturday Night Live" or Comedy Central's "The Daily Show", beginning first with a multimedia comedy news program called "23/6" (a spoof on the phrase 24/7). The program is partnered with the left-leaning blog The Huffington Post.

Source : The Wall Street Journal

MySpace offers £1m directing job

Social networking website MySpace is running a competition to win the director's job on a £1m feature film.

Site users and experts including directors Anthony Minghella and Kevin Macdonald will choose the winner from short films submitted to MySpace.
Production partners Film4 and Vertigo Films will then help develop a project.
MySpace users will be able to contribute to the script and audition for roles in the film, due to be completed by the summer of 2008.

Film fans

The MyMovie MashUp project, which launches on Wednesday, is open to all UK residents - from established film-makers to industry newcomers.
Film4 executive Peter Carlton told Variety magazine: "Until you know what sort of director you're going to get, it's difficult to know if a British thriller or an improvised comedy would be more appropriate."
The project will also involve MySpace users in development, casting and marketing decisions.
The finished film is expected to be released almost simultaneously in cinemas and on MySpace and Film4.

Source : BBC World

Les opérateurs mobiles préparent une offensive contre les géants de l'Internet

L'hégémonie de Google dérange. Obligés de composer avec le moteur de recherche numéro un sur Internet, les grands opérateurs de téléphonie mobile sont tentés de réagir. Le congrès 3GSM de Barcelone, raout annuel des acteurs du marché qui se tiendra du 12 au 15 février, sera l'occasion de réunions "secrètes" pour décider de la future politique Internet à mener sur les mobiles.

C'est le Sunday Telegraph qui le dévoilait dimanche dans ses colonnes : une rencontre devrait réunir les principaux opérateurs de téléphonie mobile en marge du congrès. Cingular, France Télécom (Orange), Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile), Hutchison Whampoa, Telecom Italia (TIM), Telefónica et Vodafone devraient participer à ces "pourparlers secrets de haut niveau".
La finalité serait évidemment de "garder une plus grande part des revenus publicitaires" sur portables en proposant des annonces plus ciblées et mieux adaptées aux mobiles. De plus en plus de clients de ces grands opérateurs consultent Internet via leurs mobiles, d'autant qu'ils disposent maintenant d'une technologie et d'une ergonomie mieux adaptée à la navigation sur le Net. Selon un cadre interrogé par le journal britannique, "c'est un moment important pour les moteurs de recherche sur mobile, nous devons être présents et faire évoluer nos options à très haut niveau".

YAHOO! ET GOOGLE, CONCURRENTS OU ALLIÉS ?

Google et Yahoo!, les deux géants de l'Internet principalement visés, sont déjà implantés dans ce secteur et ont des accords de recherche par mobiles : Google opère avec Vodafone, T-Mobile, 3 de Hutchinson et China Mobile, tandis que Yahoo! a notamment passé des accords avec Vodafone et 3 de Hutchinson. Ce dernier pratique d'ailleurs l'ouverture tous azimuts puisque après avoir passé différents accords de téléphonie gratuite avec Skype ou de messagerie instantanée avec Microsoft, il vient d'annoncer l'ouverture en Grande-Bretagne de son réseau 3G à Internet. Côté constructeurs, Google est associé avec les mobiles BlackBerry, BenQ, Motorola et Sony-Ericsson, alors que Yahoo! a signé avec Nokia, Motorola, RIM ou encore Samsung. Et des rumeurs vont bon train quant à la fabrication d'un téléphone mobile signé Google et Samsung, censé concurrencer directement l'iPhone d'Apple, et sur un projet de moteur de recherche destiné aux plateformes mobiles sur lequel les deux géants de l'Internet plancheraient ensemble.

Pour l'heure, c'est un marché à peine émergent, constitué pour l'essentiel de SMS que captent les opérateurs. Mais avec plus d'un milliard de téléphones portables vendus en 2006 pour plus de 600 millions de clients, la généralisation de la 3G, qui accélère sans cesse les débits et la qualité de consultation, c'est un marché très prometteur que visent les géants de la téléphonie et du Web réunis.

Source : Lemonde.fr

La France au travail !

les petites pépites du net ...

Allez, rendez vous avec le 3è Homme de la campagne présidentielle, l'ultra libéral Marc Maillard, dès le 12 Février, sur www.lafranceautravail.com

Toyota Harnesses Mobile Video For FJ Cruiser

TO PUSH ITS NEW OFF-ROAD FJ Cruiser, Toyota has enlisted the help of Saatchi & Saatchi LA and mobile services firm The Hyperfactory for a cross-channel marketing blitz.

The campaign blends text, banner, mobile TV and video advertising, while making use of Hyperfactory's recently launched Mobile Media Network--an integrated 3G branded mobile platform.

Users will be driven to branded video--documenting the FJ Cruiser racing team competing in the Baja 1000--with banner ad takeovers of the Sprint Wireless Web Sports home page and ESPN Mobile immediately following Super Bowl Sunday, as well as an exclusive two-month takeover of Go2's sports mobile channel, Go2WinterSports.

The campaign will also use MobiTV's new offering--which launched last month at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas--allowing viewers to click on branded "Two Roads to Baja" clips. The mobile media program will use MobiTV to display branded content as advertising, including videos, screen savers, driver-blogs, stories and images from the race.

Short-form video clips and clickable mobile TV ad-units will run throughout MobiTV, while another exclusive takeover on Versaly's video-on-demand channel, Fast Lane, will attempt to drive users to the Toyota FJ Cruiser mobile microsite. (The Fast Lane channel is available for free on Channel 61 to all Sprint Power Vision Subscribers.)

The campaign marks Toyota's early efforts to "market to our customers using the power of mobile communications," according to Kim McCullough, corporate manager, marketing for Toyota FJ.

Saatchi and Saatchi also created a YouTube page for the campaign. As of Friday, a short "Two Roads to Baja" video illustrating the FJ Cruiser in off-road action had been viewed over 600,000 times since being posted on Jan. 23.

Said John Lisko, communications director of Saatchi & Saatchi, of his relationship with Hyperfactory: "We worked closely together to ensure there were hours of extra snack-sized footage and material from the program to leverage across the mobile arena."

Others clients who have tapped The Hyperfactory for mobile marketing include Coke, Motorola, and Vodafone.

The Hyperfactory in partnership with Saatchi & Saatchi LA created a fully integrated, branded mobile campaign for the Toyota FJ Cruiser and the mobile launch of its "Two Roads to Baja" branded entertainment show.

Backed by cross-carrier mobile media support, the program encourages users to click through and engage with branded content. Like the TV show, the mobile program attempts to connect with viewers.

Source: MediaPost Publications

Super Bowl Ad Watch : Top spots

Les slots les plus chers du monde pour les meilleurs spots ?

Have a look !

iVillage Hosts Second Life Fashion Show

AIMING TO BOOST ITS REAL-WORLD popularity, NBC Universal's iVillage Monday will host a "fashion show" in the simulated world Second Life.

The initiative, coinciding with the start of Fashion Week in New York, will mark the third time since December that iVillage has held an event in Second Life, where it aims to connect with the Internet-savvy Web users who frequent the site.

"If we can get this group of women--who are chatty, who look to one another, who frequently are bloggers themselves--that's a great way to market ourselves in a new form of media," said iVillage Chief Marketing Officer Linda Boff.

Monday's show will feature virtual clothing and accessories designed by fictional Second Life-only companies. Second Life residents who go to the event will be able to "teleport" to the designers' game-world stores, where they can use Linden dollars to outfit their avatars with the featured items.

iVillage has hired Electric Sheep to launch its area in Second Life, the iVillage Loft; for the fashion show, iVillage tapped a virtual modeling agency, Boff said.

Yet, for all the work that has gone into the event, no more than 400 avatars will be able to attend in Second Life due to technical limitations. Boff said iVillage is investigating streaming the event elsewhere on the Web.

Source : Online Media Daily

Disney cartonne sur Itunes

Downloads of Walt Disney films on the iTunes platform have risen sharply to more than 1.3m after only three months on sale, putting pressure on other Hollywood studios to join Apple’s digital service.

Disney began selling its new movies on iTunes in October. But other studios have resisted its lead, partly because of fears that they will upset retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target, which are responsible for most DVD sales in the US.

Target has expressed concerns about the effect of downloading on DVD sales and pricing. But in an exclusive video interview on FT.com, Bob Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said digital distribution was “creating more consumption of media”. He added: “The message that we deliver to our traditional [retail] partners is that the pie is getting bigger.”

He dismissed fears that digital downloads would cannibalise DVD sales, pointing to record sales of Cars, a Disney animated movie, and of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, which is on course to be the biggest selling DVD ever.

Mr Iger said retailers’ concerns were to be expected but Disney had to sell content on digital channels. “If we don’t put our content on these platforms, which the consumer has obviously embraced, other entities will create content and fill that void.”

The launch of Pirates of the Caribbean and Cars on iTunes helped push Disney download sales through the 1m barrier, with the total number of Disney downloads sold on iTunes doubling over the Christmas period.

Disney also put its TV programming on iTunes a year ago and has sold more than 20m downloads.

The company’s buoyant DVD sales come as the media industry braces itself for a DVD slowdown. After several years of growth, the market is maturing.

Source: Financial Times

A More-Targeted World Isn't Necessarily a More Civilized One

Our Alarming Momentum Toward a Narrowing of the Collective Mind

Better, narrower targeting in the marketing world is taken as an absolute good, if not the holy grail. And certainly it behooves marketers to seek audiences open to their messages, and to tailor messages to heavy users of their products.

I heard a media expert say this on a panel a while back: "If I'm a dog-food maker I am now able to send my commercial messages only to dog owners."
I guess that spells good news for the makers of dog food and addressable media technology. But the statement also sends a little shiver up my spine as it hints at an increasingly alarming media and cultural trend -- the narrowing of the collective mind.

In the wider media world, it's also taken as an unalloyed good that we can receive only the messages we've already decided we want to see.
In the mainstream media, it's the Fox News effect -- with more media outlets trying to emulate that ideologically single-minded approach and screeching to an ever more credulous choir.

The web, while granting us access to a previously unimaginably wide world of information and content, has paradoxically also encouraged us to create an opinion cocoon. We don't need to read what some blowhard editor thinks are important stories; we can assemble our own news channel. We can find a small online community that can justify our taste in anything.

This isn't so much a lament for the collective consciousness and memory that mass TV provided during my life up to now. Nor is it primarily a defense of the pleasurable and intellectually fortifying practice of reading and considering things way outside of your area of interest, intentionally or by accident.

What seem to bear examination are the issues that attend the flip side of the customization/consumer-control coin -- that the contraction of our worldview makes us less likely or less able to engage in real debate, to evaluate foreign ideas, to get dirty. As Guy Barnett, founder of New York agency the Brooklyn Brothers, puts it in the agency's blog : "No one changes their mind anymore." "If everyone agrees with you," Barnett notes, "where's the fun?"

When I read about this group or that individual seeking to ban what they deem offensive (an insurance company can't depict K-Fed as a restaurant worker because it demeans restaurant workers; the Chinese can't depict pigs in ads as pigs run afoul of a segment of the population), first I laugh. Then I get concerned that this will become the way of things. Maybe one day you won't be able to say anything to anyone because a common language or the ability to grapple with or laugh at something outside of your comfort zone will have fallen away.

The famous Heinlein quote that tells us "specialization is for insects" also tells us that "a human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly."

To that list perhaps we should add: "Watch a dog-food commercial even if she doesn't currently have a dog."

Source: AdAge

Rupert Murdoch à Davos : Internet fragilise l’équilibre des grands médias.

Le patron de News Corp, qui a su percevoir à temps le potentiel et le danger d’Internet en rachetant MySpace, est intervenu à Davos pour expliquer qu’Internet entrainait des modifications profondes pour les médias. L’expansion continue du nombre de sites Internet, de blogs et autres podcast entraîne un nouveau rapport de force entre les consommateurs et les fournisseurs. Les fournisseurs d’informations étant les plus exposés à court terme face à ses évolutions comportementales.

La position de News Corp n’est plus de combattre l’évolution mais de totalement prendre en compte ces nouveaux modes de consommation de l’information. L’explosion des réseaux sociaux et de l’UGC doit être au centre de la stratégie des grands médias. Ces propos ont été tenus lors de la conférence "The Shifting Power Equation."

Source: Strategie Telecom Internet

Pour en savoir plus sur Davos ICI

ISN'T IT MIRACULOUS ?

I DON'T LIKE SMOKE, I DON'T SMOKE, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MEDIA, CONTENT, NEW TECHNOLOGIES ... BUT AREN'T THESE PHOTOGRAPHS BEAUTIFUL ?!!!
HAVE A LOOK, THERE ARE THENTH OF THEM HERE ...

Future of music is the phone

To keep up momentum, analysts recommend carriers develop improved content partnerships, aggressive pricing, licensing deals, distribution channels and marketing strategies.

Global spending on mobile music from ring tones to full-track downloads is expected to reach $32.2 billion by 2010, with consumers in the Asia-Pacific region and Japan leading the market, a researcher said Tuesday.

Spending on music for handsets is forecast to increase by nearly two and a half times this year's predicted $13.7 billion, Gartner said in its global outlook for the mobile music market. The growth will occur despite competition from digital music players, and a host of challenges faced by telecommunications carriers in delivering these services.

Ring tones today are the second most popular mobile data service, with text messaging No. 1 in terms of use and revenue, Gartner said. Driving the use of mobile music is personalization and entertainment. Ring tones and ring-back tones, for example, are part of the trend to turn mobile phones into a form of self-expression. Ring-back tones are a piece of music or audio clip that mobile phone users select for callers to hear instead of the traditional ringing signal when they dial a mobile number.

Carriers own the ring-tone business, but they are not in such a strong position on the entertainment side of mobile music, such as streaming and full-track downloads, Gartner analyst Stephanie Pittet said. Wireless companies stand to lose market share in the latter to makers of digital music players, record companies and others.

Examples of digital player manufacturers entering the market include Apple and its recently released iPhone. In addition, Apple iTunes and Microsoft Zune are examples of online digital music shops that would compete with portals from mobile carriers.

To prevent losing market share, carriers will need to develop content partnerships, pricing that's acceptable to consumers, licensing deals, distribution channels and marketing strategies, Pittet said. In addition, carriers will have to address technical challenges, such as copyrightstorage capacity on devices and network coverage.

In terms of the global market, consumers in the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, are expected to remain the biggest spenders on mobile music through 2010, with Western Europeans second and North Americans third. The Asia-Pacific consumers are expected to take the lead in full-track downloads to cellular phones, while North Americans are predicted to continue to favor "sideloading," which is the transfer of content from a PC to the phone.

Source : Informationweek.com

Digital Kids

Young consumers are more comfortable with digital media, they'd rather watch YouTube than television, they'd rather talk to friends on IM and social networks than on the phone, they carry their iPods and phones with them everywhere. They can't sit still for long.

The interesting difference between the youngest digital generation--those born after 1981--and, well, the rest of us, is they're more "Generation We" than "Generation Me." How so? This is a generation that's grown up being instantly in touch with one another and at earlier ages.

This means they have a more global outlook at a younger age. They're also growing up in a world where they discover who they are through the community, less influenced by the media; on the contrary, they control the media. To be sure, as this generation grows up, media will change; it won't go away. Community is the watchword for this transformation.

A lire la suite de l'article sur C/Net News.com

Vive les médias libres ! (sic)

Période électorale oblige, DEFENDONS LA LIBERTE D'EXPRESSION, ET CENSURONS LA LANGUE DE BOIS
Allons faire un tour sur la télé libre de John Paul lepers !

A Tokyo, les magasins parlent aux passants par puces interposées

Je suis en retard de 72h sur l'info, mais bon c'est toujours de l'info !


inza, le quartier le plus chic de Tokyo, tente une première mondiale. A partir du dimanche 21 janvier, les passants de cette zone commerçante vont être immergés dans un large réseau de communication radio. A tout moment, par l'intermédiaire d'un appareil ad hoc, ils pourront recevoir des informations cibléesen fonction de leur localisation : publicité pour un magasin situé à quelques mètres, offre promotionnelle à saisir... Ils pourront également demander l'itinéraire pour aller à la parfumerie ou à la station de métro la plus proche, le tout en quatre langues.
Pour participer à cette expérience, l'utilisateur va devoir s'équiper d'un Ubiquitous Communicator, un appareil portable d'une dizaine de centimètres de long, gratuit jusqu'au 10 mars et capable de lire toutes les données émises par le réseau installé dans les rues. Car pour réussir l'expérience, les deux grandes avenues de Ginza ainsi que les couloirs du métro souterrain ont été truffés de près de 10 000 "marqueurs", des relais d'informations. Il s'agit soit de puces RFID (Radiofrequency Identification), soit de codes optiques ou encore de marqueurs à infrarouge. Ces relais discrets ont été installés sur du mobilier urbain. Les propriétaires de téléphone portable auront également la possibilité de profiter partiellement de l'expérience, mais ils auront accès à un nombre limité d'informations.

Baptisée Tokyo Ubiquitous Project Ginza, cette expérimentation soutenue par le ministère du territoire, de l'équipement et des transports, s'inscrit dans un projet plus vaste, dans l'optique d'installer ce type de réseau dans des villes entières, et pourquoi pas dans tout le pays. "Le réseau mis en place à Ginza va nous permettre d'évaluer les problèmes restant à résoudre, d'affiner les technologies, prévoit Ken Sakamura, chercheur à l'université de Tokyo et directeur de T-engine, la structure qui coordonne le projet. Le réseau restera en place jusqu'à la généralisation de ce type de structure dans la société japonaise, ce qui devrait arriver autour de 2017."

D'ici là de nouvelles questions vont se poser. "Au-delà des aspects techniques, il faudra résoudre des problèmes législatifs, souligne M. Sakamura. Nous avons besoin d'un cadre juridique car l'installation de ces systèmes pose des problèmes de sécurité, mais aussi de protection des données personnelles."

(Source: Le Monde.fr)

BBC plans online children's world

A virtual world which children can inhabit and interact with is being planned by the BBC.

CBBC, the channel for 7-12 year olds, said it would allow digitally literate children the access to characters and resources they had come to expect.
Users would be able to build an online presence, known as an avatar, then create and share content.

Bosses said CBBC World would not have the financial aspects of other online worlds such as Second Life.
A spokesman said: "This kind of cross-platform broadcasting is becoming the norm for people who have been born into the digital world.

"It will give children a chance to move around a safe, secure world where they can not only interact with familiar characters but have an opportunity to make that world a more fascinating place with their own imaginations."

Those building CBBC World said the emphasis would be on safety and responsibility, with no chatrooms or facilities for building new parts of the virtual world.
It is expected to go live in the summer with a full launch in the autumn to coincide with the CBBC relaunch.

BBC children's controller Richard Deverell said: "CBBC World is a good example of the way we need to go.
"The thing that interests me is that children are at the vanguard. And that is where we are taking Children's BBC."

(Source : BBC)

Mobile Content Industry Remains Desperate for Viewers

The only thing holding up the explosion of the mobile phone content and advertising business continues to be the lack of interested viewers, panelists bemoaned at the second annual NATPE Mobile conference here.

Under 10%
Currently, 20% of all mobile users have video-enabled cellphones, but less than 10% of that sector has actually used that video access, said David Poltrack, chief research officer of CBS Corp.
"What we have is a good news, bad news situation. The bad news is the low percent of people actually using it, but the good news is that we have all these people with new video opportunities.
All we have to do is get them to start using it."

There are two things that can drive users to mobile content, Mr. Poltrack said:
- short-form creative content related to existing programming - not just YouTube home movies -
- and local content that will deliver a sense of immediacy, such as the news and weather that is already huge among the small mobile video community now.

Sense of urgency
What needs to happen for users to quickly expand from less than one-tenth to one-third of all mobile use is for a major content provider to take the initiative, just as Apple and Verizon paved the way for broadband video
Someone needs to do the same thing for mobile video that 'American Idol' did for text messaging," said Raja Khanna, founder and chief operating officer of QuickPlay Media Inc. "Technology is no longer a hurtle.
The reality is if consumers wanted to do this tomorrow, we would all figure out a way to [provide them with content.] We need to create that urgency."

While technology is no longer a barrier to consumers' entry into the mobile market, deciding on a solid business model is. Video-on-demand works best for news and weather, while a subscription model has paid off thus far for MySpace.
The social networking giant has lured a significant portion of its users to its mobile platform for a $2.95 monthly membership, which, to the target audience, is like buying a ring tone, said John Smetzer, senior VP-general manager of mobile content at Fox Interactive Media. "Consumers are not paying for MySpace, they're paying for the mobility."

Decline of TV?
Since the mobile conference preceded the year's biggest syndicated TV conference by one day, it was important someone address what many worry is the diminishing role of TV in the imminent move to mobile.
Leave it to Gary Carter, chief creative officer of U.K.-based FremantleMedia, to sum it up thusly in his dramatic closing keynote speech: "We should be careful that when we mourn the so-called death of television we are only mourning our own loss of power as a media elite.
We're not living through the death of television for the simple reason that this is not about television.

"Technological development is a story which runs through history, and part of that story is the rise and rise and rise of what we call media," he said.
"This will affect us in a very deep and very profound way."

Source : AdAge

Citizen journalism sites struggle for ad dollars

Small Web publishers are still struggling to make a profit off "hyperlocal" content.
Consider the trials and tribulations of Backfence, a Web site that relies on its local users to post news about their communities in cities like San Francisco, Chicago and Washington D.C. Backfence, hoping to tap into the new trend of citizen journalism, has found the hyperlocal strategy to be tough going.
What's the problem? Is the content no good? No, analysts say it's a difficult model to begin with, as the potential user base of a small community site is already limited by geographic location.
Given this, hyperlocal sites have a hard time amassing traffic, the currency by which marketers buy advertising.
Advertisers, they say, aren't ready to spend their ad dollars to reach hyper-targeted limited audiences.
"Realistically, it's going to take close to 10 years for the business models to be there, and for there to be enough advertisers willing to give money to hyperlocal startups," said Vin Crosbie, managing partner of Digital Deliverance, a Connecticut media consulting firm. "Backfence's problem is that it was too early.

Source : Washingtonpost.com : la suite de l'article ICI

'American Idol' : A Marketing Mammoth Expands Further: FremantleMedia's Rock 'n' Roll Money Machine

In its six years as one the smash TV entertainment hits of all time, "American Idol" has also become "the biggest integrated advertising platform on the planet," according to Ad Age media reporter Claire Atkinson.
In this interview Ms. Atkinson provides insights and an overview of the business side of the incredible "Idol" franchise, including the new AmericanIdol.com website, which has replaced the old Fox version.
The new website, operated by FremantleMedia rather than Fox, is the latest stage in an aggresive expansion of "American Idol" into a year-round franchise that, among other things, offers a parallel online streaming channel for all the show's video programming.

8mn d'interview ICI

le Site www.americanidol.com

Online Video Predictions for 2008

by Jason Glickman, an Internet advertising veteran with expertise in emerging interactive technologies. He is co-founder and CEO of Tremor Media (www.tremormedia.com)

HAVING SPENT THE HOLIDAY SEASON reading everyone else's brilliant predictions for 2007, I decided to engage in a little crystal-ball gazing myself. But since 2007's been predicted to death, I figured I'd up the ante. So without further ado, here are my online video predictions for 2008.

1. Video goes vertical. Not unlike the rise of vertically oriented portals, video content will find well-branded homes for vertical video. Today's repositories for all things video will give way to more focused destinations for travel video, music videos, home video gone wild, amazing sports highlights and the like.

2. Professionally produced content online surpasses amateur content. The vast majority of professionally produced video content hasn't been digitized. Once producers get past the first hurdles (rights, encoding, codecs, digital asset management, hosting, streaming, etc.) they'll find the dollars are there to support a surge in professional production companies driving vast amounts of new and historical content online. Reruns will still be on TV at 3 a.m,. but you'll always be able to find --and advertise on--lost episodes of "The Honeymooners."

3. $12 billion of TV budgets move to online video. According to a recent AAF survey of advertising executives, the majority feel that 10-30% of current spending on traditional broadcast and cable TV ads will shift to online video by 2010. We're definitely on the early side of that curve right now, but 2008 will be the year that big TV budgets with real dollars make the shift in earnest. A big piece of the equation will be the continuing agency shake-up. Before those budgets can really move, interactive and TV buyers will have to work more closely and share more budgets. 2007 will be the year of "sticking our toes in the video water." 2008 is when everyone yells "C'mon in, the water's fine!"

4. TV is a box--one of many. Whether it's their computers, mobile devices, TVs or something else, consumers will be less concerned about which devices and more concerned about their choice of content. With the introduction of Apple's iPhone and AppleTV, more and more people will continue to embrace the concept of "anywhere, anytime" content at the expense of our 72-inch plasma TVs. Content that isn't visually critical, like news and sit-com reruns, will be regularly digested on trains and planes and in places where time is abundant but TVs are not. Trend-setting commuters will, appropriately, kick this trend off, watching Jim Cramer's "Mad Money" on their way to their Wall Street jobs, rather than sacrificing time with family and friends to watch it on a "proper" television.

5. More political advertising online than TV. The 2006 political season was a big bust when it came to online. But by the time the 2008 campaign kicks in, political consultants will have figured out online video. John Edwards announced his bid to run for president on YouTube, clearing the way for other candidates to begin testing the medium. Technologies that have been commonplace among ad networks and media buyers will penetrate the political media on a national level. Geo- and behavioral targeting will enable the national platforms to deliver specific campaign messages to people and regions that are most influenced by those particular issues. Local candidates will be able to buy media on top tier publishers without wasting impressions. Candidates, using video banners, in stream ads and video avatars, will connect with constituents and voters as personally as they would at a town hall. Voters will be the big winners here, establishing an emotive connection with candidates, rather than just knowing if they are pro-life or pro-choice.

6. Video search will make sense. The process of searching for video is still cumbersome, unreliable and very much in its infancy. But the companies with the most money and the most to gain (or lose) are battling to make their video search tools indispensable. Once they get it figured out, it will be the driving force behind a tremendous increase in video consumption online. Due to the increased challenges of indexing video content compared to indexing text-based web pages, content owners and search technology providers will need to work hand-in-hand to develop effective methodologies that enable consumers to find the content they are looking for quickly and easily. Video search will follow a simple mantra: "Ask and ye shall receive."

7. Video blogging will cross the chasm. Video blogging, which lagged behind its text-based cousin in adoption, will experience a surge in popularity as the tools for creating, editing and hosting your own video content become more accessible to the everyday consumer. Video blogs will become less about embedding YouTube links and players into blogs and instead enable people to truly share their "voices" with the masses. The differences between video blogs and video communities will blur, as social networking sites like MySpace will be increasingly dominated by video versions of teen-angst rants and boyfriend bashing, sans the annoying typos and SMS and IM jargon. Video bloggers may actually laugh instead of typing "LOL." Political blogs like the HuffingtonPost and HotSoup.com will also be creating their own video content, with political consultants, commentators and talking heads popping up on blogs as frequently as they do on "Hardball."

8. Video communities. Communities will be redefined, and hopefully, bring the "personal" back into personal computing. So far, being submerged in Second Life, spending hours IMing and posting comments on people's MySpace pages has left us with "virtually" social people lacking real-world social skills. Video communities will emerge as video chatrooms with dozens (or more) people in a chatroom at once, actually talking to the other people, rather than hiding behind emoticons, avatars and buddy icons.

After an explosion of useless video content in 2006, and the development of very useful video tools and widgets in 2007, 2008 will be the year when video becomes the language of the people's Internet.

Source : MediaPost Publications / VideoInsider

Using 'Double Screen' to Drive TV Viewership

Anyone in media has read a host of articles about convergence, the meeting and merging of TV and online.
While much of the talk has, as ever, been premature, there are signs that consumer behavior is starting to alter and, more importantly, that marketers are responding to it.

In Japan, one trend is known as "double screen," the practice of keeping a PC switched on in the living room as well as the TV. Thus, if the TV fails to appeal, consumers are always ready to surf.
To take advantage of this trend, the Nagoya Broadcasting Network used real time RSS messaging to let surfers know that a program worth watching was about to start.

The key to the campaign was to get consumers to download the special RSS reader onto their desktops. Large posters with CD-ROMs were installed at Nagoya City Subway stations, and 12,000 discs were distributed in seven days.
A further 160,000 CD-ROMs were distributed via Tokai Walker magazine, and announcements on NBN TV shows encouraged consumers to download the reader from the website.
The RSS reader is updated every two seconds so that consumers can not only find out when a program is about to start but also what's happening during programs such as sports broadcasts. Surfers can be notified of goals scored so they can switch on to watch the replay.

NBN wasn't the first company to use RSS to promote its shows, but the broadcaster claims it's the first to disseminate real-time program-content information in addition to program announcements. The approach has paid clear dividends in the ratings, and information is still being sent to the RSS readers.
The RSS reader was part of a range of initiatives that have helped boost ratings for NBN by 2.4% in peak time and 0.8% across the day.

FX's 'Dirt' Extends Pontiac Product-Placement Deal

The premiere of FX's series "Dirt" is the latest example of TV networks offering sponsorships, product placement, video on demand, online video and other advertising enhancements to automakers, traditionally the biggest TV advertisers, to avoid losing those ad dollars.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY

Je reprends les manettes demain : promis-juré !!!!!

Lonely Planet Gets Online Travel Channel On ROO's Video Network

ONLINE COMPANY ROO AND LONELY Planet, a leading independent travel guidebook publisher, Web site and television production company, are launching a dedicated Lonely Planet channel on ROO's online video network. The focus is city-based destinations, narrated by authors of the Lonely Planet guidebooks.

(MediaDailyNews)

Unilever Sponsors New Congdon Vlog

Après afoir demandé aux consommatrices US de produire leur futur spot Dove, un groupe décidément très web 2.0 ...

VIDEO BLOGGER AMANDA CONGDON WILL debut her new show, "Starring Amanda Congdon," today on Blip.tv. Sponsors will include Unilever, which will promote its upcoming product Dove Cream Oil Body Wash, and video chat community Paltalk will sponsor the show.

Blip.tv is the world's leading videoblogging and podcasting service and their claim is : nobody does it shorter...

(MediaDailyNews)

Silicon Valley vs. Madison Avenue

If you spend too much time in Silicon Valley you’d think that the technology industry — with Google leading the charge — already owns the future of advertising. But don’t count out Madison Avenue just yet — they may be responsible for perpetuating the imbalance between media time spent online and ad dollars spent online (double digits vs. single digits), but all that may be about to change. Take the announcement today of Publicis’ acquisition of Digitas

- THE MERGER OF DIGITAS WITH Publicis’ interactive media assets creates a new digital media powerhouse, the likes of which has not been seen on Madison Avenue before. The resulting organization will have the global resources of Publicis’ multinational marketing services network, as well as the media-buying scale to compete in a sector where the power has been steadily shifting to the major portals and search players.
- “This allows us to work with Yahoo, Google and Microsoft in a different way, because we are clearly the biggest player in digital media now,” boasts David Kenny, chairman-CEO of Digitas, who emerges from the deal with responsibility for leading Publicis’ overall digital media strategy.
- “We can really scale up with the portals in a way that has not been done yet. Nobody has the media scale and the global reach we have now. Those are the two main structural things we gain from this.”

Kenny says Digitas had already been developing the means of leveraging its estimated $1 billion in annual digital media billings on its own–but coupled with the digital media-buying clout of Publicis’ shops, will triple or quadruple its market presence virtually overnight.

Everybody is betting on online video advertising and the prospect of taking a big bite out of the $67 billion TV ad market. The key ingredient here is the creative. Anyone can pick up a video camera, but creating compelling video ad content is not as easy as creating compelling text ad content. And Madison Avenue is starting to wake up to the fact that they can’t just bring TV ads online.

Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Jamie Tedford of Arnold Worldwide, whose clients include brands like Volkswagen, Fidelity Investments, Timberland, and RadioShack:

- Advertisers think, `We’ll just put our existing TV spot up, and it’ll become viral.’ A lot of marketers are learning quickly that the rules for what makes something viral are a totally different set of rules.
- Video also gets passed on because it’s surprising, funny, new, comical, sexy, or provocative. People want the currency of having found something first.
- Many clients have a more traditional view: `Here’s the product message I want to come through, and if you can get some entertainment in there, great.’ Now, you’re asking someone to discover this on their own, and figuring out what would make a consumer forward it to a friend.

The whole notion of viral video “advertising” is disruptive even to the disruptors like Google — Google ads still need to ride along with content, which is why they bought YouTube. But when ads become fully fledged entertainment, they don’t need to ride along with content. They don’t need to be in Google’s ad system — you can just post the ad content on YouTube for free:

If YouTube is overtaken by Google’s monetization, Madison Avenue will find other platforms for distribution — video distribution platforms will become (and to an extent already are) a commodity. (The idea that you can “own” the “community” will also be disproven, I predict, but that’s a topic for another post.)

The big structural issue to be resolved is the separation of “creative” from “media buying” that has taken place on Madison Avenue over the past decade or so. With online media completely changing the game, some ad agencies are recombining these functions, even as Google and others in Silicon Valley position themselves to disintermediate the agencies. It may be that media buying agencies are more vulnerable than the creative agencies, because Google has sent the ball rolling downhill towards the commoditization of media buying, with national advertisers developing their own platform with eBay. If that happens, the power may resides in the hands of the “creatives” — somebody is going to have to create all of these online video ads.

The credit rating service Fitch issued a fascinating report this week on the evolution of Madison Avenue in a digital media world

INFLUENTIAL CREDIT RATING SERVICE FITCH Wednesday issued a report indicating that Madison Avenues' biggest players face some considerable challenges - the erosion of the traditional TV advertising marketplace, the continuing fragmentation of media and a corresponding consolidation of media services, a shift from traditional advertising to "below-the-line" marketing services, the reintegration of creative and media services, and the threat of "disintermediation" from advertisers dealing directly with online services - but are generally better positioned than the rest of the media industry to weather some big changes in the years ahead. "The rapid evolution of the media landscape has required that ad agencies adapt their offerings in favor of the new media alternatives that are gaining acceptance with clients. As advertisers get more comfortable with the measurability of online media, they will likely continue to demand the same transparency and accountability from their agencies," warns Fitch, adding, "They will increasingly expect agencies to demonstrate return on investment (ROI) to justify expenditures on agency work."

The report, which focuses on the market trends and financial issues facing the industry's big agency holding companies - Interpublic, Omnicom, Publicis and WPP - indicates that the majors are moving quickly to adapt to these changes, and are effectively reengineering there services and product offerings to deal with a rapidly changing marketplace.

One of the biggest organizational developments, Fitch says, is the reintegration of media and creative services. Citing Interpublic's recent realignment of media shops (Initiative and Universal McCann) with brand agency networks (Draft FCB and McCann WorldGroup, respectively), and Publicis' integration of Arc Worldwide with Leo Burnett, the credit agency said it believes that agency holding companies, "that fail to develop tighter coordination are at risk of client defections to other [holding companies] or upstart agencies that can deliver integrated solutions to clients."

The report also predicts that big agencies will continue to be challenged by shifts in the media marketplace, especially the attrition of the traditional TV advertising markets, but says media services operations are actually better positioned than their creative department/agency counterparts to adapt.

"Media planning and buying may be somewhat less affected by these shifts in the short run, but the creative arms of agencies have historically generated meaningful profits from television advertising are more exposed," Fitch cautioned. "If the 2006-07 [network TV advertising] upfront did signal a long-term decline in the importance of the upfront, then companies that have already aggressively shifted their business mix toward marketing services will be best positioned. Omnicom and WPP have been the most aggressive in driving this shift as marketing services make up well over 50% of their revenue stream, while Publicis and Interpublic still derive a larger proportion of their revenue from advertising."

But the biggest potential challenge faced by Madison Avenue ultimately may be its fastest growing form of new business: digital media, especially the Internet.

"In 2006, several major advertisers announced they were forming a consortium to experiment with auctioning television advertising inventory in the U.S. Another potential threat is from the key internet players such as Google, Yahoo and MSN," Fitch says, noting that such players so far have focused on expanding advertising services to the "long tail" of smaller advertisers that might not otherwise employ traditional advertising agencies. That was a strong reason for both Interpublic and WPP Group to invest in automated online advertising and media services provider Spot Runner, WPP chief Martin Sorrell said during the recent UBS media conference in New York.

"So far, major advertisers typically buy their Internet advertising with one of the [holding companies'] buying operations acting as intermediary. There is the potential for the Internet companies to try to move up the value chain to deal directly with advertisers," warns Fitch. "These developments, and others described previously, continue expose agencies to potential to the risk that certain functions may get commoditized or that agencies themselves could be disintermediated in this broad media transition toward more consumer and advertiser control."

(Publishing 2.0, MediaDailyNews)

Viacom Drops Out of Venture to Take On YouTube

Suite au Post d'hier....

Attempts by the media conglomerates to form a network-backed rival to YouTube suffered a set back yesterday after Viacom executives said they are no longer part of the project.
"Yes, we're out of it," one executive confirmed. "We've got a lot of agendas right now. There was no need to do it and be a founding member. We can license our stuff to it. We don't have to be a participant." A Viacom spokesman declined to comment.

Down to Fox, NBC
The charge to spearhead a rival to YouTube appears now to be left to Fox and NBC.
CBS is not part of current discussions aimed at forming a rival to the Google-owned online video site, Ad Age has learned.

CBS representatives would not comment on the talks at all, though other executives said that CBS is not part of current talks because of a pending deal with Google over its CBS Radio inventory and that it dropped out of talks in recent days. Another executive close to CBS suggested that while they are not part of current discussions, they may re-enter should the initiative progress.

The talks are being led by Peter Levinsohn, the new president of Fox Interactive Media and by Beth Comstock, who is president NBC Universal digital media and market development.

Time Warner and Walt Disney Co. also confirmed yesterday they had no interest in being part of the venture.

Earlier this month, one person inside Viacom said it's difficult for the company to determine what kind of licensing deal it should negotiate with a Google-owned YouTube without first making its content as accessible as possible on its own and seeing what happens. Viacom owns video-clip destinations iFilm and Atom Entertainment and has one of the most popular online programming destinations in Comedy Central's Motherload.

"We're the prettiest girl at the dance. We have content that's driving a lot of these sites and we own almost all of it. A lot of people are interested in reaching agreements with us. They don't have to be exclusive," this person said. Viacom is still negotiating with Google over how it will be compensated for copyrighted material that lands on YouTube.

Still, even with Viacom's decision to exit, the core group is pressing on. One executive who is part of the talks explained that discussions are still ongoing over some central issues. "The business-model concept is to look at whether to license programming or be part of the asset that [delivers it]. That is the real question people are wrestling with."

This executive added: "TV is an advertising-based business model that will continue to be under pressure. We have to get our product to a platform that is more compelling and that has inventory that is ROI-driven."

Reports had suggested the group might be make a bid for a small video serving site called Metacafe, but this executive said numerous online video entities were trying to get in front of the group, and it hasn't even been decided if they will acquire a property.

Putting pressure on Google
"This whole thing is about screwing a better deal out of Google," another executive outside of the venture said.

The major entertainment companies are in talks with Google about how they will be compensated for the use of their content on YouTube. The threat of a rival might give the entertainment companies more leverage in negotiating revenue splits with Google. The outside executive also added that the threat of an anti-trust lawsuit could also be a deterrent to the venture.

The history of entertainment conglomerate-backed responses to entrepreneurial ideas that suddenly take off isn't exactly rosy. The music industry tried on-demand music venture Press Play in response to Napster, while the movie business tried Movielink, a Hollywood movie download service.

But the question traditional networks have to ask themselves is whether they gain incremental viewers by banding together rather than promoting their own sites as places to view online content. The only way it would work, said someone involved in early talks, is if each network agreed to make the commitment to promote the joint video site over its own site -- and that's a sacrifice not all are prepared to make. Indeed, while it seemed attractive to collectively launch a YouTube-killer six months ago, networks that have since put their shows online have gotten a taste of the revenue that can come from that -- and are considering going it alone.

One of the biggest challenges would be getting the various companies -- which are not only fierce competitors but also at various stages in their digital development -- to work together. "Would I want another network knowing how well my shows performed on the web?" said the executive who was privy to early discussions.

Creating improved technology
The reasons to do it would be for technology or marketing purposes, said Mike Vorhaus, managing director of Frank N. Magid Associates, and if the reason was to create a common technology for streaming, downloading and security, that makes sense. But he contends the networks don't need it for marketing purposes.

"I don't think you need to have [the networks] in a common TV download website for people to know about NBC, Fox, ABC and CBS's having video online. YouTube's success is not that it's a brand that is well known, but that it's a social network of video consumers -- you've got all these people who go there to share video," he said.

Plus, he added, his company has learned from observation in its usability studies that many people use traditional search engines to find video they're looking for. Soon it will matter less where the video resides as long as people can find it easily.

"Do a search for video on Mt. Hood hikers," he said, referring to the ongoing story about the search for missing climbers on Oregon's Mt. Hood. "Sometimes a CNN link comes up, sometimes a YouTube link. I don't get the impression that the majority of average YouTube user is pouring a beer, taking their shoes off and going to YouTube and watching 20 minutes worth of video."

Buyers remain skeptical if a joint venture would work, but say if it did and created a repository of quality video, they'd be interested in buying media through it.

The challenge is the content
"Conceptually it would make everything easier if you think of this consortium as one-stop shopping for all of this great content," said Sarah Kim Baehr, VP-media, Avenue A/Razorfish. Often the challenge in advertising on a user-generated content site or on YouTube is the user-generated content, she said. With the networks' offering, "you know it's part of a series and the marketer has probably bought into it at some other level."

But she's skeptical the venture will become reality, given how the various competitive parties would have to work together. "They'd all have to be pretty altruistic and so focused on Google and YouTube as a rival and forego their own rivalries among each other to be successful," she said. And it would never be a replacement for YouTube, she said, but an "also" or a "nice to have" complementary site.

"Part of the entertainment value of YouTube is having all this user-generated content and that it's a meeting place," she said. "It's not about watching the whole clip but about watching the part that's worth seeing. ... It's about what are the top five videos that the gazillion people who go to YouTube are watching. What's new that's bubbled up?"

Will it be for the user?
The reason YouTube grew so quickly, said Ian Schaefer, CEO of Deep Focus, which has launched campaigns on the site, is that it's a functional website. "Chad Hurley will say this until he's blue in the face -- it's designed for the user with the conveniences, functionality, sharing," Mr. Frazier said. "If the networks put something together and do it right they would make it just as minimalist and democratic as YouTube." But, of course, that's not been the primary impetus driving the networks decisions.

However, he suspects the networks' advantage in such a site is that they could best pull off a pre-roll online ad model -- albeit shorter, more irreverent ads -- without angering users.

"I don't think they have to [come up with new ad model] but they can change the concept of the pre-roll to make it work," he said. "Pre-roll won't be the enemy, especially if it's in front of professional content, where there's a quality guarantee."

"Most interesting that they would even come together to talk about it," Ms. Baehr said. "That says a lot about how the whole digital world has put everyone upside down. It changes the whole paradigm -- there's no reason for these people to be in the same room or collaborate except for this enemy."

(AdAge)

BBC moves to file-sharing sites

Hundreds of episodes of BBC programmes will be made available on a file-sharing network for the first time, the corporation has announced.

The move follows a deal between the commercial arm of the organisation, BBC Worldwide, and technology firm Azureus.
The agreement means that users of Azureus' Zudeo software in the US can download titles such as Little Britain.

Until now, most BBC programmes found on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks have been illegal copies.
Beth Clearfield, vice president of program management and digital media at BBC Worldwide, said that the agreement was part of a drive to reach the largest audience possible.
"We are very excited to partner with Azureus and make our content available through this revolutionary distribution model," she said.

High definition

Azureus is best known for developing a BitTorrent client, or program, that allows large media files to be easily shared over the internet. The program has been downloaded more than 130 million times.

Earlier this month the company launched a video sharing site similar to YouTube, codenamed Zudeo. The site allows users to upload and view content.
However, in contrast to most video sharing sites, Zudeo offers high definition videos. Users must also download a program to access and upload content.

The new deal means that users of the software will be able to download high-quality versions of BBC programmes, including Red Dwarf, Doctor Who and the League of Gentleman. Classic series such as Fawlty Towers will also be available through a BBC "channel".

The titles will be protected by digital rights management software to prevent the programmes being traded illegally on the internet.
"This will be a very different experience from traditional file-sharing networks," said Gilles BianRosa, CEO of Azureus.

Users will also be able to link to programmes from blogs, social networks and fansites.
"If you have Zudeo running it will take you to that programme; and if you don't, it will suggest you install it, like the first time you download a flash movie," said Mr BianRosa.
"Once you have watched a show, you can rate it, comment on it and recommend it to a friend."

Mr BianRosa believes the cult status of many BBC programmes will make these features appealing to Zudeo users.

Legal services

File-sharing is often associated with illegal distribution of copyrighted content. But in recent months a number of networks have tried to shake off this old image.

BitTorrent, the company behind the original file-sharing software of the same name, has recently signed a number of deals with content providers, such as 20th Century Fox, in a bid to become a legitimate download service.

Earlier this year, Sharman Networks, the owners of Kazaa, did similar deals. Kazaa uses advertising to provide content for free.

No pricing structure for the BBC content on Zudeo has been revealed.

Azureus is expected to announce other partnerships in the New Year.

(BBC.co.uk)

2007 Web Predictions

Après le post du 12 décembre dernier sur le bilan des "Web technology trends of 2006", la même équipe donne ses prévisions sur ce que seront les highlights de 2007

Ca fourmille de repères, mais je vous épargne l'interminable ascenseur via le lien ci-joint...

(ReadWrite/Web)

Skype founders' internet TV project goes beta

Cela fait un moment qu'on en entend parler... En attendant 2007...

"It’s simple, really — we are trying to bring together the best of TV with the best of the Internet. We think TV is one of the most powerful, engaging mass medias of all time. People love TV, but they also hate TV. They love the (sometimes…) amazing storytelling, the richness, the quality itself. But they hate the linearness, the lack of choice, the lack of basic things like being able to search. And wholly missing is everything that we are now accustomed to from the Internet: tagging, recommendations, choice, and so on… TV is 507 channels and nothing on and we want to help change that !"

Janus Friis, Skype co-founder

(BoingBoing)

Un groupement de grands médias américains pourrait annoncer le lancement d’un concurrent de YouTube

L’union fait la force et devant la puissance de YouTube conforté par Google, aucun des groupes de médias ne pouvait faire faire face seul. Même, semble-t-il News Corp avec MySpace.

Cette « association » un peu contre nature regrouperait NBC, News Corp, Viacom et probablement CBS.

Le concept est de proposer un site d’hébergement vidéo financé par la publicité qui serve de relai aux différents contenus de ces médias. Un peu à l’instar de ce qu’à fait CBS avec YouTube et qui a bien fonctionné.

Le site encouragera également les internautes à mettre en ligne des contenus auto générés. Le projet n’est pas gagné car réunir autour d’un site aussi stratégique des acteurs concurrents tant dans la diffusion que la production de contenus. Les enjeux ne sont également pas les mêmes pour tous les acteurs : News Corp dispose déjà de MySpace, CBS a un accord avec YouTube… L’enjeu est pourtant de taille car il est peu probable qu’aucun d’entre eux ne puisse seul concurrencer YouTube. Cela pourrait faire le bonheur de DailyMotion, Metacafe et autre Bebo… qui pourraient être rachetés par ce groupement. Ce serait même la seule possibilité si ces médias veulent pérenniser leur opération d’investir en commun massivement dans un acteur déjà existant (l’arrêt du projet n’en serait que plus difficile). De plus cela éviterait d’avoir à redévelopper une technologie éprouvée.

(StrategieMedia Telecom Internet / Edgeminded.over-blog.com)

Comcast et Endemol pourrait lancer une émission de divertissement sur le net

Au conditionnel donc...

Il semblerait que le géant du câble américain et la société de production européenne soit en négociation pour concevoir des contenus de divertissement qui serait diffusés exclusivement sur le site Ziddio. Ce concurrent, modeste, de YouTube est la propriété de Comcast. Les internautes sont sollicités pour soumettre des idées dans un épisode pilot d’un budget de 50 000 $. Si le projet est un succès, cela pourrait déboucher sur une série complète d’émissions.

Quand on vous dit que les diffuseurs traditionnels sont menacés…

(Strategie Media Telecom Internet / Edgeminded.over-blog.com)

Why All Media Are Social Media

In 2006, the Big Players Adopted New Technologies and Started Two-Way Conversations

Where do social media end and mainstream media begin? The question is not nearly as easy to answer today as it was just one year ago.

Social media, according to Wikipedia (where else?), consist of "the online tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives with each other." This includes blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis and vlogs. For a long time, they were considered related to, but separate from, mainstream media. That point of differentiation is now gone.

In 2006 all media became social. Pretty much every newspaper, TV network and publication (this one included) has wholeheartedly adopted these technologies. And the changes go deeper: Each is also communicating in a far more conversational tone -- one its audiences uses.

Meanwhile, the barrier to joining the media fabric has been obliterated by these very technologies. Lots of people are making nice advertiser-supported incomes either as solo or start-up media entrepreneurs. What's more, an entire new economy of service providers has propped up to help them do just that.

So as we roll into 2007, it's fair to say that "social media" as a separate entity is dead. Nevertheless, there are still two strata of media, both of which are now social. Big media bring lots of experience and resources but have become more of a two-way conversation. Indie sites, meanwhile, fill niches the mainstream media can't touch. They also have fewer church-state restrictions and operate at a lower run rate. It all fits together nicely.

The media today is like professional baseball. We have the minor leagues and the major leagues. Both of them include professional ballplayers. The big leaguers make more money and have more resources. But watch out: There are lots of hungry minor leaguers that may just be next year's all-stars.

(AdAge)

Person of the Year: You

Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world.
The "Great Man" theory of history is usually attributed to the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who wrote that "the history of the world is but the biography of great men." He believed that it is the few, the powerful and the famous who shape our collective destiny as a species. That theory took a serious beating this year.

To be sure, there are individuals we could blame for the many painful and disturbing things that happened in 2006. The conflict in Iraq only got bloodier and more entrenched. A vicious skirmish erupted between Israel and Lebanon. A war dragged on in Sudan. A tin-pot dictator in North Korea got the Bomb, and the President of Iran wants to go nuclear too. Meanwhile nobody fixed global warming, and Sony didn't make enough PlayStation3s.

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It's not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it's really a revolution.

And we are so ready for it. We're ready to balance our diet of predigested news with raw feeds from Baghdad and Boston and Beijing. You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos—those rumpled bedrooms and toy-strewn basement rec rooms—than you could from 1,000 hours of network television.

And we didn't just watch, we also worked. Like crazy. We made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts. We blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. We camcordered bombing runs and built open-source software.

America loves its solitary geniuses—its Einsteins, its Edisons, its Jobses—but those lonely dreamers may have to learn to play with others. Car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working overtime to fend off user-created Linux. We're looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it's just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy.

Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

Sure, it's a mistake to romanticize all this any more than is strictly necessary. Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred.

But that's what makes all this interesting. Web 2.0 is a massive social experiment, and like any experiment worth trying, it could fail. There's no road map for how an organism that's not a bacterium lives and works together on this planet in numbers in excess of 6 billion. But 2006 gave us some ideas. This is an opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person. It's a chance for people to look at a computer screen and really, genuinely wonder who's out there looking back at them. Go on. Tell us you're not just a little bit curious

(From the Dec. 25, 2006 issue of TIME magazine)

Personalised adverts on mobile TV

Mobile TV viewers in Norway will be served personalised adverts as part of a two-month trial.

Banner adverts will be sent to mobile phones and tailored to the individual user under the trial by broadcaster NRK, a mobile TV pioneer.

"Advertisers see value in people being interested in certain products in a given context," said Gunnar Garfors, director of development at NRK.

Two TV channels and four radio stations are taking part in the trial.
"Most people who watch mobile TV in Norway do so because
they are bored somewhere, on transport, or waiting," said Mr Garfors.
"You can assume they are near a shop or service which may be relevant."

The TV and radio stations are streamed to the phones over a 3G phone network and are "near-live with a few seconds' delay.
Mobile TV is a growing market that is yet to hit the mainstream partly because of cost and partly because of competing mobile TV standards.

Unlike other "live TV services" on the market, the NRK trial is streaming video rather than broadcasting it.

According to research firm eMarketer there are 44.5 million 3G subscribers worldwide who watch mobile TV on their phone. Their report predicts the number will double each year, reaching 520.9 million by 2009.

The number of subscribers who pay for premium video services and watch them on their phone will go from six million worldwide to 121.5 million by 2009, it predicts.
Adverts from 20 different companies are targeted to the viewers, depending on the information given to NRK when they signed up for the trial.

Mr Garfors said: "We know lots about the viewers; we have their phone numbers, their name, sex and where they live.
"We can also determine their presumed interests when we see what they watch or listen to and what times they do it.
And we know where they are geographically because of positioning technology.
"When we put this all together we have a fair amount of relevant information which can give them more relevant advertising material."

While the trial is a "proof of concept", Mr Garfors said future developments could see adverts sent to phones dependent on the precise location of the viewer.

Target demographic

For example, companies could have adverts sent to viewers matching their target demographic who happen to be waiting for a bus close to shops where their products are on sale.

People taking part in the trial download a small computer program - a Java application - onto their phones.
The application is also used to change channels on the phone as well as to give viewers the chance to vote interactively during programmes, and send audio and video messages.

"You can also watch or listen to on demand programmes."
Norway is pioneering mobile TV and radio, said Mr Garfors.
"It's beyond the early adopters. Most phones are 3G and they all have built in video players. It's quite popular."

Cost continues to be a barrier for many people, however, as mobile operators charge customers for the data - in this case video or audio - that is downloaded on to their phones.
Mr Garfors said: "One of the problems is that the operators have different price systems. It's still assumed to be quite expensive."

But the introduction of flat rate subscription services - for about £3 a month - could open the floodgates to more viewers.

Mr Garfors said NRK was pioneering mobile TV because of changing viewing habits among the younger generation.
He said: "We are losing out on younger viewers and listeners when it comes to traditional TV and radio.
"On the mobile platform they are big users. If we are just going to continue to do traditional TV and radio, who knows who long we will be in business?"

(BBCNews)

Amanda is back !

Et voilà Amanda Congdon/RocketBoom aux manettes sur ABC

(OriginalSignal/2803)

Small B-to-B Brands Get Their 'TV Moment'

Industry's Been Slow to Come Online but Finds Promise in Narrowcasting

As more of the U.S. population moves online, B-to-B industries that previously thought they were immune to the migration have had to begin figuring out their web strategies. And increasingly, those strategies are involving video.

'Sight, sound and motion'
Recently, for example, Caterpillar launched what are essentially long-form commercials -- or infomercials -- on ForConstructionPros.com, a division of Cygnus. Such online-video plays are letting marketers previously relegated to print media take advantage of the "sight, sound and motion" of TV, said Starlink's Vickie Szombathy, who chairs the American Association of Advertising Agencies' B-to-B committee. Starlink, Cygnus' media agency, worked with Caterpillar to complete the deal for the spot on ForConstrutionPros.com.

"We're finding more and more that Caterpillar's customers are going online for information," she said. "It was a category that's slow to coming online because people were often out on road and traditional means of communication was face-to-face or through dealers. But now ... we're finding the category moving online for information and things like specs."

Caterpillar already had a great deal of video assets: training videos and the promotional videos dealers would use to sell the company's products. Much of the content on the video site will be repurposed, said Carr Davis, Cygnus Business Media's co-CEO. "I don't think it's appropriate to just produce video for the internet as a first run, but [it works] if you have content and repurpose it."

Reminiscent of cable TV
Cygnus used Permission TV technology to build the new video channel. Mr. Davis looks at it as one step removed from cable TV, which opened up a whole new type of niche programming that broadcast could never make possible. The business model for the channel isn't quite sussed out -- it's too early to see where the CPMs will land, said Mr. Davis. But it's clearly part of a trend. Earlier this year, for example, Scripps Networks launched HGTVPro.com, a video-rich site targeting professional builders.

"This is energizing for B-to-B," said Ms. Szombathy. "It's been such a traditional world of trade publications." Trades will still be important, she said, but "[marketers of] a very specific vertical product normally won't have a budget for television. Well, now they can use the video assets they have, craft long-form commercials and put them out there in a forum that allows them, in essence, to be on TV."

(AdAge)

Dove Latest to Solicit Ads From Consumers

Unilever's Dove is joining the growing ranks of brands enlisting consumers to do the work their ad agencies once did. It's asking "real women" to create TV ads to run during the Academy Awards on ABC Feb. 25.

In an e-mail today to members of its online relationship-marketing program, Dove began seeking entries for a 30-second ad to promote a new product, Dove Cream Oil Body Wash.

The e-mail directs people to DoveCreamOil.com, a site hosted on Time Warner's AOL, which provides online tools, artwork, photos and music for creating ads, and also allows consumers to upload their own files. "You don't need any special skills or experience," the e-mail says.

Actress Sara Ramirez is also touting the program on tonight's "Access Hollywood."

Three finalists will win trips to a private Academy Awards viewing party in Los Angeles, and the winning spot will run during the Academy Awards broadcast. The contest is open only to women and, of course, only to amateurs.

WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather, Chicago, handles creative for the brand, and MindShare, New York, handles media. Independent Edelman Worldwide, New York, handles public relations.

(AdAge)

CAA Recruiters Target Madison Avenue

LOS ANGELES -
In a trend that underscores the degree to which entertainment and advertising continue to converge, the Creative Artists Agency has plucked some of its latest big hires not from Hollywood but from agencies like Wieden & Kennedy, JWT and Publicis.

(Madison&Vine)

More Journalists Join Political News Venture

Voilà un exemple intéressant qui devrait inspirer la communauté des journalistes qui s'inquiète ou pire, ne verrait rien venir...

Mike Allen, a reporter who covers the White House for Time magazine, and Roger Simon, the chief political correspondent for Bloomberg News, are joining the new multimedia political news venture being overseen by two former Washington Post journalists.

That new enterprise now has a name — The Politico, which is its newspaper, and thepolitico.com, its Web site. The name supplants The Capitol Leader, which had been its working title until it broadened in scope.

Both the newspaper and Web site are to begin publication on Jan. 23, the date of the president’s State of the Union address, one of the most-covered rituals on the Washington political calendar. In addition to writing about Congress, The Politico will focus on the 2008 presidential campaign.

The moves by Mr. Allen, 42, and Mr. Simon, 58, mark another step by traditional “old media” journalists toward a “new media” venture that is largely online, although both are writing or have written for the Web, and Mr. Allen will stay in Time magazine’s print version with a new column about the White House. The Politico is being financed by the deep pockets of Allbritton Communications and overseen by John Harris, the former political editor of The Washington Post, and Jim VandeHei, a former national political reporter for The Post.

Mr. VandeHei said that although The Politico is entering a field crowded with sources of political news, it will try to distinguish itself by hiring a half-dozen reporters who have established reputations, as well as about 15 or 20 energetic journalists in their 20s and 30s who are building their careers and are eager to break news.

“What we can add is fact-based content, and that’s what people on opinion pages and blogs feed off of,” he said. He said Politico reporters would travel on campaign planes, write with a conversational tone, send back video and tell readers things that traditional reporters tend to talk about but not to write about. The staff will also make appearances on CBS News.

Mr. VandeHei said that Mr. Allen was essentially the “prototype” for the sort of journalist The Politico is seeking. “He’s embraced the Web, he’s embraced technology, he goes on television and he breaks news,” Mr. VandeHei said. “That’s where journalism is headed.”

Mr. Allen is leaving a magazine whose print circulation is declining, but which still has more than 3.2 million paying weekly subscribers and a total weekly readership — including passed-along copies — of more than 19 million. The magazine has also invested heavily in its Web site, time.com, which has 3.9 million unique monthly users.

Mr. Allen, who joined Time in August 2005 from The Washington Post, will become The Politico’s chief political correspondent. He said in an e-mail that Time was “the world’s most essential magazine” but that The Politico was the first time that “a political newspaper and Web site will have the same DNA.”

Mr. Simon, chief political correspondent for Bloomberg, the financial news service, will become a political columnist. He said that he perceived Allbritton as having a good business plan, and while there was some risk involved in a startup, “this venture is as secure as any media venture out there and more secure than some.” He also said that life should not be only about avoiding risk but having fun. “We won’t re-invent the wheel,” he said, “we’ll just do it better.”

(NewYorkTimes)

Les habitudes de jeu mobile en pleine mutation

Vous m'excuserez, mais comme vous l'avez constaté, il y a un problème de post que je n'arrive pas à résoudre pour le moment : un monstrueux carré gris vient parasiter le texte ...je continue tant bien que mal, et ça disparaîtra, inch 'allah !

Selon une nouvelle enquête Nokia, les joueurs sur téléphone mobile recherchent une expérience mobile de prochaine génération qui réponde à leurs besoins pour découvrir, partager et jouer facilement à des jeux mobiles divertissants et de grande qualité. Cette étude révèle que ces utilisateurs jouent fréquemment à des jeux mobiles à raison de 28 minutes par session en moyenne. Ils privilégient les graphismes perfectionnés, préfèrent essayer les jeux avant de les acheter et intègrent de plus en plus les communautés dans leur expérience globale du jeu mobile.

Jouer plus, plus longtemps

Les joueurs interrogés jouent souvent à des titres mobiles, une écrasante majorité (80 %) déclarant jouer au moins une fois par semaine et 34 % quotidiennement. La durée moyenne d'une session est de 28 minutes, avec un temps de jeu supérieur à la moyenne en Inde (39 minutes), aux États-Unis (31 minutes) et en Thaïlande (29 minutes).

Les jeux sur téléphone mobile sont pratiquement autant joués en déplacement (61 %) qu'à domicile (62 %). De même, les joueurs sur téléphone mobile occupent ainsi leurs périodes d'inactivité, 56 % préférant jouer pendant les temps d'attente.

L'appel de la prochaine génération

Près des deux tiers (63 %) des personnes interrogées ont préféré l'expérience plus riche offerte par la gamme de jeux mobiles de prochaine génération Nokia par rapport aux produits Java 2D et Java 3D existants, surtout après avoir essayé les jeux.

La bonne jouabilité (83 %), la possibilité de rejouer (79 %) et le style de jeu (78 %) sont des facteurs déterminants lors de l'achat de jeux mobiles. La qualité graphique (84 %) et la possibilité d'utiliser le téléphone à d'autres fins pendant le téléchargement (78 %) se distinguent comme les principaux avantages des jeux mobiles de prochaine génération Nokia.

Essayez avant d'acheter

Lorsqu'ils ont la possibilité d'essayer un jeu avant de l'acheter, la plupart (43 %) préfèrerait essayer deux à trois jeux par semaine plutôt qu'un seul (21 %). Au terme de l'essai, la majorité (65 %) préfèrerait payer directement la version complète du jeu plutôt qu'un abonnement (27 %).

Lorsqu'il s'agit de se procurer les jeux, la distribution via Internet (ou OTI, over-the-internet) est presque aussi populaire (34 %) que la distribution par liaison radio (ou OTA, over-the-air) (45 %).

Connecter, se défier et partager

La généralisation des jeux à l'échelle planétaire témoigne du fait que les clients souhaitent voir la connexion des personnes, au sein d'une équipe ou en tant qu'adversaires, occuper une place plus forte dans leur expérience de jeu mobile. Dans le monde, 45 % définissent le mode multijoueur sur leur téléphone mobile au moins une fois par mois. Ce phénomène est particulièrement fort en Inde, où plus de la moitié (56 %) jouent au moins une fois par semaine et un quart chaque jour.

Les joueurs ne cherchent pas seulement à vaincre leurs adversaires ; ils souhaitent également partager des démos avec leurs amis (62 %). Par ailleurs, une vaste majorité (79 %) essaierait des jeux envoyés par des amis.

Selon Jaakko Kaidesoja, Directeur de la division Jeux et multimédia chez Nokia, « les conclusions de cette enquête confirment le fait que les clients sont à la recherche d'une expérience de jeu mobile de prochaine génération répondant à leurs besoins dans ce domaine. Ils exigent des graphismes d'exception, un contenu d'exception et une jouabilité d'exception... nous les avons entendus. L'an prochain, nous avons l'intention de leur offrir des expériences de jeu mobile de pointe incluant des jeux esthétiques, passionnants et interconnectés, faciles à trouver, à gérer et à jouer. »

« La solution Web 2.0 a vu le développement d'une nouvelle utilisation d'Internet, plus investie ; avec la prochaine génération de jeu mobile, nous sommes sur le point de provoquer la même évolution », ajoute Kaidesoja. « Depuis les débuts de N-Gage Arena, Nokia a pris en compte l'importance des communautés et du jeu en tant que lien social aux yeux des clients. Nous développons nos stratégies de communautés en ligne pour faire bénéficier des millions d'utilisateurs d'appareils mobiles dans le monde d'une expérience de jeu interconnectée et conviviale. »

Méthodologie : Nokia a chargé Nielsen Entertainment de réaliser cette enquête dans six pays. 1 800 participants ont été interrogés pendant une heure en Allemagne, en Chine, en Espagne, aux États-Unis, en Inde et en Thaïlande.

(InternetActu, Agence Française pour le Jeu Vidéo)

2006 Web Technology Trends

Fin d'année, l'heure des bilans et perspectives, comme indiqué ci-dessous. Vu que ce monde bouge à la vitesse de l'éclair, plutôt salutaire de se poser quelques minutes pour faire le point !
Ce blog (ReadWriteWeb) propose aux bloggers de contribuer à compléter cette analyse; voici le lien pour en prendre connaissance en même temps que les plus petites tendances

It's December already and so it's about that time to reflect on what has happened in Web Technology during 2006 - and ponder what 2007 may bring. Over the next few weeks Read/WriteWeb is going to publish some in-depth posts analyzing the trends and new products we've seen in 2006, as well as musing on some specific things we'll probably see in 2007.
To kick this series off, here is an overview of some high level trends from 2006.

2006 Review

- Undoubtedly 2006 has been the year of the social network. MySpace, YouTube, Facebook have been the three outstanding success stories - but also impressive was Bebo (in the UK particularly) and there was strong growth in existing web 2.0 networks like Flickr and del.icio.us. The zenith of this social networking craze was probably Google buying YouTube for $1.65 B.

- RSS continues to inch towards the mainstream - Yahoo integrated it into Y! Mail Beta, Microsoft is utilizing it more (e.g. integrated into IE7), Google came out with Google Base and the GData format (which is based on the RSS variant, ATOM). While 2006 can't be seen as the breakthrough year for RSS in the mainstream, we will probably see RSS bloom in 2007 as a result of the groundwork done in '06 by the big Internet companies. Note that there have been recent murmurs that Yahoo is scaling back RSS, but I think this is a short-term trend only.

- 2006 was also the year that Web 2.0 got overhyped and the term is now generally accepted as just a marketing term, akin to Dot Com. But whatever you call it - I prefer to use the term 'Social Web' or even 'read/write Web' nowadays - this current era of the Web is making a big impact. Mainstream media is taking on board many read/write philosophies. This is evidenced in many ways - e.g. News Corp acquiring MySpace and seeing enormous growth; blogs are now accepted by mainstream media and businesses; etc. Also the overwhelming presence of media people at the 2006 Web 2.0 Summit was evidence that Social Web trends are influencing a broader cross-spectrum of people now.

- In 2006 Amazon came out with some startling new web technologies - Mechanical Turk, S3 (online storage) and EC2. Their push to be a major web services infrastructure platform was one of the more intriguing strategies from an Internet bigco this year.

- On the other big companies... Google dominated the news and buzz this year, Microsoft pushed ahead with its Windows Live strategy (its Web-based suite of products and services), and Yahoo had a steady product year (but ending with organizational issues). Apple continued to dominate the online music market (forcing Microsoft to compete head-on) and has also entered the video space with gusto.

- Lots of bigco partnering. Allow me to quote directly from Mark Evans here, as he captured this trend very nicely: "Ebay and Yahoo have snuggled up together, announcing in May that Yahoo would serve display ads to Ebay’s US users and promote Paypal – Ebay’s payment service – to Yahoo users. In August, Ebay signed Google to serve ads to international Ebay users. A dollar each way, perhaps?"

- 2006 also saw the return of the VC money (see web 2.0 hype above!). Although VC money this time round seems to be much more circumspect and generally lower valuations than in the dot com boom. Indeed an associated trend is that web startups are increasingly going it alone and bootstrapping, thanks to open source technologies (e.g. the LAMP platform) and ability to work anywhere anytime. On the flip side (pardon the pun), it still pays to be located in Silicon Valley - as that is where the key networking and fundraising activity still takes place.

- Localization really matters in Web space - for example TradeMe dominates New Zealand traffic and similar local products often outrank the likes of Yahoo and Google in their local markets. The larger trend here is that cultural and language differences mean that big US companies don't always dominate in international markets. Having said that, there is also a lot of overseas cloning of successful Silicon Valley apps (e.g. digg, flickr). See Read/WriteWeb's continuing coverage of international markets for individual country drill-downs.

- The consumerization of the enterprise has been an emerging trend all year. More and more social web apps are coming into the enterprise (e.g. Skype, IM), and organizations are adopting read/write Web philosophies. Corporate blogging got popular in 2006 and blogs are usually part of the mix now in marketing plans.

- In particular, I've been tracking the trend of Web Office. As well as lots of startup action (Zoho, Zimbra, ThinkFree, et al), late this year saw a flurry of action from Google in this space - Google Apps For Your Domain, the acquisitions of Writely and JotSpot, the launch of Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and more. In 2007 a major area of focus will be the increasing competition in office software between Google and Microsoft.

- Widgets (mini web apps) were all the rage this year, culminating in its own conference. Related to this, 'personalized start pages' (live.com, netvibes, pageflakes, etc) ramped up, enabling users to collect their widgets together on the one site.

- Online video was hot, hot, hot this year! There are currently a host of YouTube wannabes on the market. The best chance for success for all these startups vying for attention, is to either come out with a next-generation product that takes online video functionality to the next level and/or target a specific niche market.

- VoIP space showed signs of hotting up. Skype now has a bunch of new competitors, all aiming to disrupt the existing telecoms industry.

- Hybrid web/desktop apps (or as Read/WriteWeb termed it "webified desktop apps") came into play a lot more this year. For example the Times Reader, built using Microsoft WPF technology. Also noteworthy is Adobe's Apollo platform and Laszlo's rich internet apps platform.

- Browser Wars 2.0. Firefox enjoyed strong growth this year and released its 2.0 browser in October. 2006 was also (not coincidentally) the year that Microsoft finally upgraded its Internet Explorer browser, to 7.0.

- From a blog perspective, Techcrunch established itself as the blog at the center of all the web 2.0 action - attracting aspiring startups like moths around a flame. Other tech blogs like Gigaom, VentureBeat and Read/WriteWeb itself, have also experienced excellent growth this year.

- Ajax had strong growth this year and according to some reports is not that far behind Flash now.

- World Internet Penetration is 16% and growing - Asia in particular is ramping up fast! Also noteworthy is that 3/4 of traffic to top websites is international.

(ReadWriteWeb.com)

Media Spending in '07? Don't Expect Big Boost

Want one forecast rather than five forecasts? Media spending next year will be depressingly flat.

If you don't like that Ad Age conclusion -- which is based on a thorough analysis of the history of media spending and our read on the many factors affecting media right now -- you can go with one of the many marginally more optimistic forecasts proferred last week.

Good guesses
Group M went with 2.4% overall growth; eMarketer went for 3%; ZenithOptimedia 4.1%; and Universal McCann 4.8%. There are also Merrill Lynch's forecasts: 2.6% when calculated bottoms-up by industry and 2.7% when calculated top-down by media.

Take the average of those predictions, for what they're worth, and you have media rising 3.6% next year, just above the rate of inflation. But the media market has arguably never been in greater flux than it is today, meaning that there are some huge unknowns lurking in the shadows.

Not least is the fact that marketers are spending more of their money on nonmedia marketing tools (direct, events, point-of-sale) than ever before and embracing the theory that they need to create great content and brand experiences that consumers will seek out rather than spending big to "push" their messages at consumers. Procter & Gamble's corporate site, for example, draws more eyeballs than many of the prime-time TV shows where the company advertises. And Anheuser-Busch is building a 24-hour web network called Bud.tv.

Potential surprises
As to those potential surprises around the corner, just think about '06. Who would have predicted Google would pay $1.65 billion for YouTube, while a pair of teen magazines -- with combined paid circulation over 2 million -- got shut down?

It's hard for ad-spend forecasts to incorporate the fallout from developments like those. So smart directional guidance, with an allowance for the chance of "flat," is the best top line that the industry has. Deeper down, the differences among reports at least highlight the uncertainty, while some specific disagreements pinpoint areas really worth watching. Here's the partial tour.

Ads on paper
Newspapers may be hugely profitable, but even including their online classifieds, the top-down prognosis from Merrill Lynch predicts their ad revenue will fall 1.5% next year. The Morton-Groves Newspaper Newsletter anticipates a 0.6% decline when online is included and a 2% decline when it's not. The bulls include McCann, which expects a 1.8% rise, and Zenith, looking for a 2% gain.

Publishers are striving to prove the bulls right. Everyone is pushing digital, finding costs to cut and developing hyper-local coverage. "We are neither myopic nor ignorant," said Gary Pruitt, chairman-CEO of McClatchy Co., speaking to analysts at the Credit Suisse media conference last week. "Once again newspapers face an evolutionary imperative: Adapt or die."

Consumer magazines have a better outlook. McCann predicts at a 5% gain and Zenith estimates 5.3%. Merrill sees consumer magazines expanding revenue by 2.5%.

Ads on screens
Someday it will be hard, or pointless, to separate screen-based media into categories such as TV and the internet, much less network TV and cable, but for now the differences remain real and important. "In 2007," Zenith writes, "as more online opportunities draw ad dollars from traditional media and sports coverage continues to migrate to cable networks, broadcast TV will stagnate."

In this case "stagnate" means "fall 1.5%." Merrill more or less agrees, forecasting a 1.2% decline for the networks. Again McCann provides the mirror a lot of media sellers will prefer, calculating 3% increases for ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. But everyone expects cable to rise, Merrill by 5.8%, Zenith by 6% and McCann by 6.5%.

Ads online
Although the web's ad-revenue growth is slowing, the pace in 2007 will still blow everything else away. The big question is how much. On the low end, McCann predicts 15% growth; on the high end, Zenith sees 29% coming.

The figure is just 18.9% at eMarketer, but its forecast differs from the others to say web ads will match radio next year and pass it in 2008. "It's one thing for internet ad spending to surpass relatively minor media such as outdoor or yellow pages, but it's quite another thing to blow past radio, one of the big four traditional media," said David Hallerman, senior analyst.

If you're wondering what TNS Media Intelligence has to say, by the way, that outfit might play its predictions the safest of all: It won't make a 2007 forecast until January.

(AdAge.com)

Times Sq. Ads Spread Via Tourists’ Cameras

Advertisers have long been drawn to Times Square as a valuable place to reach consumers, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for space on billboards and blazing video screens.

But recently they have discovered that down on the ground, new technology has given low cost, face-to-face marketing campaigns something of a cutting edge as consumers spread their messages on the Internet.

Take the recent display of public toilets set up by Charmin bathroom tissue: Used by thousands in Times Square and viewed by 7,400 Web users on one site alone. Or Nascar’s recent display of racecars; videos of the event have been viewed on YouTube more than 1,800 times. More than 60 people wrote about the event on their blogs and 60 more spread the word — and pictures — on the Flickr Web site.

“The great thing about the digital world is you can capture these events,” said Christian McMahan, brand director for Smirnoff Ice, owned by Diageo. “People can see them whether they were there that day or 3,000 miles away.”

As a result of the growing popularity of consumer-generated pictures, videos and e-mail messages on Internet sites like YouTube and Myspace, advertisers are getting consumers to essentially do their jobs for them.

When Target, the discount store operator, suspended the magician David Blaine above Times Square for two days during the week of Thanksgiving, videos shot by viewers were posted on YouTube and viewed more than 19,300 times.

“Times Square is becoming, in a way, a publishing platform,” said Peter Stabler, director of communication strategy for Goodby, Silverstein and Partners, an advertising agency that is part of the Omnicom Group. “What happens in Times Square is no longer strictly the province of location. You can experience things that are happening there, even if you’re not there.”

On sites like YouTube, Flickr and MySpace, an army of tourists and residents are spreading advertisers’ messages well beyond Manhattan, using their cell phones and video cameras as they walk through the marketing crossroads of the world.

Consumer brand companies are taking advantage of that by hosting elaborate events, fully aware that those events are great fodder for footage. Hosting events in Times Square, advertisers said, is like buying product placement in a TV show or a movie — except the cameras are held by consumers and the placement is on the Internet.

Experiential marketing, as the ad industry calls such campaigns, is intended to give people something they can tryout and photograph. Companies are holding such events in cities around the world, but advertisers said Times Square was unparalleled in its reach. People around the world recognize Times Square in photos and videos online and are more likely to view them, marketers said.

Charmin’s bathrooms, which opened on Broadway near West 46th Street on Nov. 20, generated traditional coverage with more than 100 articles published about the fancy toilets. But consumer videos posted on YouTube alone have been viewed more than 7,400 times.

Hundreds of other people each week post photos and videos on their blogs and MySpace pages. One blog post last week, “Der New York Trip Part II”, written in German, shows a young couple posing with the Charmin bear. Charmin is a brand of Procter & Gamble.

Another post about the Charmin toilets last week on a Web design blog wondered, “Could this be too much marketing?” Christian Montoya, the site’s author, videotaped the bathrooms when he visited Times Square on Thanksgiving so that he could post the footage online for his roughly 700 daily readers. Though Mr. Montoya, a senior at Cornell University, said he was skeptical of marketing but thought the Charmin bathrooms were effective.

“It was more than a billboard because you could actually try the product,” Mr. Montoya said.

It is difficult to count exactly how many people pass through Times Square each day, but foot traffic by some measures has nearly doubled. In 1997, the Times Square Business Improvement District counted 8,702 people an hour passing through the most crowded parts of Times Square during the busiest times of year. This year, the Times Square Alliance found that nearly double that amount — about 15,000 people — passed the Virgin Megastore on Broadway during busy hours.

But, advocates of experiential marketing say headcounts in Times Square underestimate the district’s impact. Face-to-face interaction with customers is more powerful than traditional ads, they say.

“What people do is geometrically more powerful than what they are told,” said Brian Collins, chief creative officer of Ogilvy and Mather Brand Innovation Group, a part of the WPP Group. “Feeling something, picking it up in your hands, walking into an environment is a far more powerful brand promise than anything you are simply told through traditional media alone.”

On the day after Thanksgiving, Diageo’s Smirnoff Ice brand held a tongue-in-cheek rally featuring about 30 paid actors as “core protestors.” The theme was “save the mistletoe,” a slogan for a holiday campaign for Smirnoff Ice. Smirnoff estimates that 60,000 people passed by its four-hour rally.

“When you go into an arena that is so iconic like Times Square, people are looking to be entertained,” said Christian McMahan, brand director for Smirnoff Ice. “And they’re looking to be part of it.”

In April, General Electric rented nine digital billboards in Times Square and displayed photos of people passing by. People on the street photographed themselves standing below the billboards when their images appeared. Soon, those images were circulating online.

“It’s much more interactive,” said Judy Hu, the global executive director for advertising and branding at G.E. “You’ve got people who are e-mailing, sending messages, they’re involved with your brand personally as opposed to just viewing it.”

G.E. and other companies that hosted recent events would not divulge their costs, but they said the total came out surprisingly low compared with other forms of marketing.

The mayor’s office said permits to use Times Square areas started at $25,000 but often cost $50,000 or more for a day, and that 112 marketers had paid for permits this year.

The amount of marketers in Times Square has soared this year in large part because three traffic islands there were made available on a regular basis this year for the first time as part of Mayor Bloomberg’s broader initiative to attract more tourists to New York City.

In February, Walt Disney World sent Hans Florine, the X-games gold medal climber, scaling up a billboard to promote Expedition Everest, a new Animal Kingdom park ride. Mickey Mouse was also there, but he stayed on the ground.

In early December, MasterCard carolers sang holiday songs and passed out hot chocolate; street vendors sold coffee in Ann Taylor Loft paper cups; and a Sovereign Bank team rode red Segways passing out shopping bags and subway maps.

But some advertising executives wonder if it might be reaching the saturation point.

“It is now getting to the point,” said Lori Robinson, senior vice president of Hill and Knowlton, the WPP Group agency that helped produce one event, “where there just might be a little too much going on in Times Square.”

(NewYorkTimes)

Pour voir un petit audio slide show

Yahoo's Millard Cautious About User-Generated Content

Not everyone is excited about the marketing possibilities of user-generated content -- least of all Wenda Harris Millard, chief sales officer at Yahoo, who defined the success of YouTube as "a lot of page views. What was their revenue this year?"Not everyone is excited about the marketing possibilities of user-generated content -- least of all Wenda Harris Millard, chief sales officer at Yahoo, who defined the success of YouTube as "a lot of page views. What was their revenue this year?"

Online inventory has skyrocketed since the explosion of user-generated content, but, Ms. Millard said, "the reality is that there are very few companies -- if any -- that are doing what you would call a good job of monetizing it."

UBS conference
Marketers have been genuinely interested in harnessing this phenomenon for the past two years; it's Yahoo's job to show them how, she told analysts at the UBS media conference.

"All of a sudden, technology has facilitated the rise of the consumer voice in a way that is startling to many of us. But the reality is nobody's doing a great job helping a marketer understand how to leverage this stuff."

Ms. Millard was also none too impressed by the move to viral campaigns, having seen results on her own "test lab" at home.

"I have a 19-year-old and a 17-year-old, and they don't want to be [MySpace] friends with the Burger King king," she said.

Leading the social-media charge
Yahoo has long led the social-media charge with its e-mail, instant messaging and gaming services, tripling MySpace and quintupling YouTube in size.

"Social media is hard to monetize because that age group is so fickle," she said. "Think of all the failed magazines in this world. Nobody's ever been able to put their arms around it at the time. To hold them, you have to be very, very careful not only about the content but about the advertising."

"The question from a business standpoint is: How do you make money at this? It's fun, it's a blast, trying to figure this out, but I don't think anyone is doing it particularly well," she said.

'Peanut butter' memo
The panel's candid vibe continued when an audience member broached the topic of Yahoo Senior VP Brad Garlinghouse's now-infamous "peanut butter" memo from two weeks ago (the internal memo criticized the lack of focus at the company, comparing Yahoo's efforts across all its properties to peanut butter spread too thin).

"I had a really hard time deciding whether I wanted fluff or jelly with that," Ms. Millard quipped. "The reality is, if you really look at that, you could take Yahoo's name off of that and put on almost any company you've ever worked for. This company has grown from $720 million five years to nearly $6 billion today. Is it challenging to grow with that accelerated pace? Is everything perfect? Can we make decisions as fast as a company with 100 people? No. So I looked at it as pretty silly in terms of the noise that was made of it.

"But the reality is," she continued, "we are a company that has grown at an extraordinary rate, and that doesn't come without questions about your ability to move with competitive speed."

(AdAge)

Vidéos en ligne : Deal Yahoo-Reuters

Yahoo ! et Reuters lancent le service You Witness
Le moteur de recherche américain Yahoo ! vient de lancer, en partenariat avec l'agence Reuters, le service You Witness, système de contributions de nouvelles par la photo et la vidéos envoyés par des internautes (http://news.yahoo.com/you-witness). Reuters aura la possibilité de publier les photos et vidéos de son choix. Yahoo ! publiera sa sélection d'images dans le cadre de sujets mis en avant sur son fil d'actualités Yahoo ! News. Le service est destiné pour commencer aux images d'actualité générale, mais pourrait être décliné au sport ou au divertissement. Yahoo ! et Reuters élaborent un plan de compensation pour les contributeurs de contenu, lorsque leurs images et vidéos seront sélectionnées en vue d'une souscription.

(Satellifax)

France 24, c'est parti... de la Place de la Concorde

"Bonsoir et bienvenue sur France 24",
"Good evening, welcome to France 24"
and in arabic ... I don't remember

ah si... grâce à Emad, un ami jordanien, voilà la traduction
(ils sont bavards ces orientaux, "24", ça n'en finit plus ... !)
"Massa al khire, ahlan wasahlan fi alkanah
alfaransih arba wa eshrine"

Entre le Pont de la Concorde et les Champs Elysées ...

Marketing Strategy shift by Detroit means more branded content

Carmakers Eye All Screens as Way to Put Spotlight on Slew of New Launches

LOS ANGELES -- The major car manufacturers are in the midst of upping their branded-entertainment budgets in an effort to put a spotlight on new or redesigned models they're readying to introduce into the marketplace. Upcoming high-profile placements aren't limited only to movies: TV shows, music, video games and mobile phones -- not to mention YouTube -- stand to gain from Detroit's new marketing focus

(Madison&Vine)

Le gouvernement veut généraliser la télévision sur téléphone mobile

D'ici à la fin de 2007, les parisiens pourront peut-être regarder la télévision sur leur téléphone mobile dans le métro. François Loos, ministre délégué à l'industrie, devait participer, mercredi 6 décembre, à la première démonstration de télévision mobile personnelle dans une rame entre les stations Assemblée nationale et Concorde. Le 8 novembre, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, ministre de la culture avait lui aussi pu regarder la télévision sur un mobile dans les couloirs de la station Concorde.

Pour réaliser ce test, la RATP, l'ensemble des chaînes de télévision et les opérateurs de télécommunications se sont associés avec TDF, principal diffuseur de télévision. Celui-ci a obtenu du Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA) une autorisation temporaire d'utilisation de fréquence pour expérimenter la couverture du métro.

En France, la télévision sur mobile existe déjà sur les réseaux haut débit des opérateurs de télécommunications (technologie dite 3G ou UMTS). Pour l'instant, seulement 3,4 millions de Français sont équipés d'un mobile permettant de recevoir ce service et seulement 1 million est actif.

Regarder la télévision sur le réseau UMTS est non seulement coûteux, puisqu'un canal est réservé pour chaque abonné, mais le système saturerait également rapidement si tous les abonnés au téléphone mobile se mettaient à regarder la télévision en même temps. Enfin, la qualité de l'image n'est pas toujours au rendez-vous.

Pour résoudre ces problèmes, une des solutions est la télévision hertzienne en mode "broadcast", c'est-à-dire en continu et en direct. Un tel système permettrait de regarder la télévision, comme chez soi, à n'importe quelle heure et surtout n'importe où.

Des expérimentations ont été lancées par les trois opérateurs, Orange, SFR et Bouygues Telecom. Selon les premiers résultats, les clients "cobayes" regardent la télévision sur leur mobile en moyenne une vingtaine de minutes par jour, à leur domicile, dans les transports et au bureau.

Ils veulent retrouver les mêmes programmes que sur la télévision classique. Enfin, près de 70 % d'entre eux ont déclaré être prêts à souscrire à une offre payante, comprise entre 5 et 10 euros par mois. "Il ne faut donc plus attendre et notre pays doit jouer un rôle moteur dans le développement de la télévision mobile", affirme M. Loos.

Tous les acteurs se sont donnés comme objectif d'être prêts lors de la Coupe du monde de rugby en septembre 2007. Mais cela nécessite de surmonter plusieurs obstacles.

Il faut adopter la loi sur la modernisation de la diffusion audiovisuelle et la télévision du futur : passée au Sénat, celle-ci doit être examinée à l'Assemblée nationale fin janvier.

Il faut aussi se mettre d'accord sur une norme commune, allouer aux opérateurs un réseau de fréquences suffisantes pour faire passer les chaînes de télévision et surtout faire converger les intérêts des diffuseurs, des chaînes de télévision et des opérateurs de télécommunications.

En effet, certains opérateurs sont tentés de développer leurs propres contenus et de faire payer l'offre de télévision, alors que les chaînes de télévisions défendent un modèle gratuit, accessible au plus grand nombre afin d'accroître leurs revenus publicitaires.

Côté norme, un consensus semble se détacher pour le DVB-H, déjà en place en Italie et en Finlande. Celle-ci permet d'avoir une qualité d'image excellente et surtout sans limitation du nombre de spectateurs. Quant aux fréquences, "un réseau devrait être prêt dans une quarantaine de villes d'ici à septembre 2007", indique Janine Langlois-Glandier, présidente du Forum TV mobile.

Reste à savoir qui sera l'opérateur de ce réseau dont le coût est estimé par le cabinet d'études OC & C à 300 millions d'euros sur cinq ans pour couvrir les deux tiers de la population.

"Pour l'instant, tout pousse les opérateurs de diffusion (TDF et Towercast) à ne rien faire tant que les opérateurs mobiles et les chaînes de télévision ne sont pas d'accord", estime les analystes d'OC & C.

D'après leurs prévisions, ce marché devrait attirer 6 millions d'abonnés et générés plus de 500 millions d'euros de revenus (hors revenus publicitaires) dès 2013 et le double en 2017.

(LeMonde.fr)

The Small Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal is pushing more news coverage to its Web site and offering more space for analysis in a smaller-sized newspaper

We will know for sure when it launches on Jan. 2, but the revamped, skinnier Wall Street Journal will be the first major American paper to push significant portions of traditional newspaper functions onto the Web. Or so goes the rhetoric at this conceptual stage. Journal executives promise to direct more breaking and this-happened-yesterday news to its well-trafficked Web site, leaving the paper itself to focus more on what the news means.

This is a much nicer framework for the Journal's management to erect around the move than if they were merely to admit they're chasing cost savings. The Journal's redesign will squeeze its pages, which will sport five columns of text instead of its current six, and net the company $18 million in newsprint-related savings. Last year the segment at Dow Jones & Co., of which the Journal is by far the largest entity, lost money. It's expected to be profitable this year, but publisher Gordon Crovitz admits the Journal's profit margin "is not what it should be." Staffers, naturally, brace for job cuts, a topic Crovitz won't address.

And hence the changes. In the U.S., there is the five-column, skinny broadsheet, like the Chicago Tribune and USA Today, and there is the denser and wider six-column format of The New York Times and WSJ. This extra width makes the Journal's print edition that much more satisfying for gray-haired legacy-media types like, oh, myself. It also makes it a pain to print and distribute in certain areas. No printing plant in Hawaii, for instance, can handle the Journal's current dimensions, which means the Journal must fly in its copies every day, which must cost an amount that I am glad I don't have to justify to my corporate overlords. Six columns also means a nonstandard ad size. There were times when the Journal could bear these costs of inconvenience, but there was also a time when boxers didn't use gloves. (The Times has plans to shrink its page size as well.)

Not the Same Animal

All that said, the Journal plays a different game than any other American newspaper. It's the only one that can charge $99 for a year's worth of its Web site. It has long covered a space in which the shelf life of a scoop is measured in minutes, so it has pushed more breaking news to its Web site for much longer than other dailies. This gets into why—if I may get simultaneously retrospective and futuristic—it now seems inevitable that whatever will happen to news will happen to business news first. In business, information is literally currency. If your job touches on investing in any way, not reading the Journal can cost you enormously, in the same way that getting certain data first can make you rich. This made the investment class among the earliest adopters of ultradigitized and BlackBerried media habits. Thus the Journal's new approach follows its readers even as it leads U.S. newspapers. It is commendable that the Journal is shoving summation-news out of its newspaper pages, but perhaps the more piquant question is: What took them so long? (The answers may have to do with journalistic habit and institutional sclerosis—which, of course, are hardly exclusive to the Journal.)

The business of business news hasn't been a happy one of late. (Major exception: CNBC, which is having a banner year.) But new entrants, like upcoming magazine Condé Nast Portfolio, pile in for one crucial reason: Men's attention to old-school media may well be waning, but business remains one of the best ways to reach affluent males. Thus, the moves to protect and squeeze more out of existing franchises. On the day the Journal unveiled its redesign, CNBC announced a beefed-up Web site, including a premium pay area. "We know we are getting new competition next year," NBC Universal Television Group CEO Jeff Zucker told an investor conference that day. He means, of course, the still-unannounced Fox business channel, for which some expect a more aggressive talent search to begin early next year. The business of business news may not be great, but it will be one of the most interesting media arenas in '07.

(BusinessWeekOnline)

CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera...and France 24 ?

J-1 pour la diffusion web: un point de vue de l'Amérique ... (voir aussi post du 27/10)

A new French-run 24/7 network hopes to offer a "third way" rivaling the international-news heavyweights. But it has an uphill climb. On Wednesday evening, Dec. 6, France's elite will fête the long-awaited launch of France 24, the world's first French-run, round-the-clock international TV news network. The début of this CNN à la française, available on Thursday via satellite in nearly 75 million households across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, will be a media event heavy with political overtones. Outgoing President Jacques Chirac's government has said the new publicly funded network, which will initially broadcast in French and English, followed by Arabic in 2007, will help France compete in the "global battle of images" long dominated by British-U.S. heavyweights BBC and CNN (TWX), and more recently joined by the Arab world's Al Jazeera. The 2002 Iraq war debate raised the issue with new urgency, when many in France felt the country's diplomatic voice was marginalized because the country lacked its own global media presence. Chirac and then-Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin (now prime minister) determined finally to give the nation's leaders an international soapbox.

The Kindness of Stringers

But observers close to France 24 doubt whether the station has the vision, resources, and revenue structure to match that ambition. With an annual budget of just $114 million (compared with CNN's $856 million) and only 180 journalists in charge of producing two 24-hour channels, the staff likely will be stretched thin.

France 24's Managing Editor Gregoire Deniau says it is "out of the question for [France 24] simply to be a channel that recycles news; we must also produce it." But the network has only 36 dedicated correspondents, and Deniau says he will rely on stringers and associates for two-thirds of the station's footage.

The network also will lose money from day one, a trend likely to last for years. Alain de Pouzilhac, the former CEO of advertising group Havas who is now France 24's president, says the station will book around $4 million in advertising revenue in 2007. (France 24 would not disclose the names of any of its initial advertisers.) Revenues should rise to $8 million or $9 million by fiscal year 2008, de Pouzilhac says, but that would still leave the station more than $100 million in the red annually.

As is often the case with grand French projects — think Concorde, or the new Quaero search engine research initiative — French taxpayers will get stuck with the bill. What’s more, the government’s backing for France 24 could weaken its journalistic integrity, making it more like Voice of America than CNN.

"We have to ask ourselves if [France 24] is truly going to be independent of the French government," says Renaud Montini, a French media lawyer who specializes in broadcast law. "Can we believe that France 24 will really be able to criticize the government the way the BBC has?"

"A Rebel Country"

Many observers doubt whether France 24—the original idea for which traces back more than two decades—can become a credible voice in world affairs. "When you compare it to other international channels on the market—BBC, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera, CNN, and others—it's clear, sadly, that [France 24's] means are insufficient for worldwide coverage," says Gérard Sebag, an assistant director at France Télévisions, the government-owned broadcasting group responsible for many of France's largest TV channels, who was involved in the early planning of France 24.

Sebag was an early advocate of launching France 24 exclusively to a French-speaking market, focusing on the 27 Francophone countries in West Africa, North Africa, and the Middle East, where advertising would be easier to sell. Launching a France 24 channel in English when the network lacks satellite coverage in the U.S. is "going for prestige" rather than commercial viability, Sebag says. (In the U.S., the network will be distributed initially only to U.N.

headquarters in New York and via Comcast (CMCSA) digital cable in Washington D.C.)

France 24's management stresses a more important goal than mere commercial success: providing a "third way" in today's polarized global news environment. "France is seen as a rebel country," says de Pouzilhac, who commissioned a 12-country study to determine how journalists, politicians, and business leaders worldwide perceived France.

More Crossover Competition

"We seek out contradictory opinions, and we know that the new opinion leaders have a great appetite for a different vision of the world," he says. On controversial stories such as Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he says, France 24 likely will carve out a middle ground between Al Jazeera and CNN.

In any case, the pressure for France 24 to offer a distinct vision just got greater. Al Jazeera and the BBC recently débuted channels in English and Arabic, respectively, weakening France 24's appeal as an outside alternative in the markets serving people who speak those languages (see BusinessWeek.com, 3/23/06, "Al Jazeera Meets American Resistance").

CNN also has a strong presence in the region, counting four bureaus in Africa and five in the Middle East, supported by an Arabic-language Web site (arabic.cnn.com).

Another Pair of Eyes

Together, CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera reach more than a half-billion people worldwide, according to data from the networks. With so many options available to TV viewers, France 24 will have to offer viewers images and information they can't find anywhere else—not just a different take on the same news, experts say.

"If [France 24] succeeds, it will succeed on the merits of its journalism," says Jack Doppelt, a professor at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and a visiting professor this year at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. "Maybe having another set of cameras and another set of journalists out there in the world will produce new images that can influence diplomats." That may be what France's leaders are hoping for, but their dream is a long way from becoming a viable business.

(BusinessWeekOnline)

Service Après Vol, Bonjour

Pour combattre les compagnies low cost qui se sont multipliées ces dernières années, British Airways a choisi d'adopter la méthode agressive.

Grâce à la participation d'Omar et Fred parodiant leur programme Service Après Vente (Canal+), la compagnie britannique dénonce désormais les failles de ses concurrents à bas prix.
Une amusante campagne, prévue de novembre à janvier, conduit vers un site dédié sur lesquels on retrouve une 20aine de sketchs de deux comparses.
L'internaute peut également participer en racontant ses pires mésaventures sur les compagnies low cost...
Et s'il devient "le pigeon voyageur de la semaine", il pourra même peut-être remporter un week-end pour 2 à Londres...

Les marques bousculées par la liberté de ton des internautes

D'un côté des produits et des services de plus en plus indifférenciés. De l'autre des consommateurs de plus en plus critiques. La tâche des publicitaires devient ardue. D'autant que le public n'hésite plus à s'emparer des possibilités décuplées d'Internet pour s'informer, comparer les prix, voire brocarder les marques ou leur communication.

La dixième Semaine de la publicité, qui a eu lieu du 27 au 30 novembre à Paris, avait justement choisi de se pencher sur cette "révolution". Les chiffres sont connus. Dix-neuf millions de Français bénéficient d'un accès Internet à haut débit. Mieux. Près de trois millions de personnes sont producteurs de contenu sur le Web, que ce soit par le biais d'une page personnelle, d'un blog ou en animant un forum.

Cette effervescence autour de ce que l'on nomme l'Internet participatif ou le "Web 2.0" ne peut laisser les marques indifférentes.

L'exemple de Dove est déjà un cas d'école. Cette marque de produit de beauté avait fait parler d'elle en lançant, il y a deux ans, une campagne publicitaire affichant des femmes âgées ou rondes. L'objectif revendiqué : chercher à établir une connivence avec les consommatrices en affirmant que les mannequins n'étaient pas les seules références de beauté. En filigrane, il s'agissait pour Dove, challenger sur ce marché, de trouver un ton en rupture avec le discours de l'entreprise dominante L'Oréal. Cette fois, Dove a décidé de placer sur le site communautaire YouTube un spot où l'on voit la transformation du visage d'une femme, maquillée, coiffée, puis soumise au bistouri miraculeux d'un logiciel de traitement d'image pour devenir un être idéalisé exploité dans une publicité.

Cette vidéo censée dénoncer les trucages publicitaires a fait le tour du monde. Dove s'est félicité de ce succès d'audience obtenu à moindre frais. Sur les forums, toutefois, les critiques ne manquent pas et certains n'hésitent pas à dénoncer la démarche ambiguë de cette entreprise.

Les sites communautaires comme DailyMotion ou YouTube, s'ils permettent d'amplifier un phénomène de bouche à oreille et de démultiplier le discours d'une marque, comme dans le cas de Dove, sont aussi le lieu d'expression libre des internautes. Ceux-ci ne se privent pas de parodier des publicités. En France, les campagnes du fournisseur d'accès à Internet Alice semblent tout particulièrement inspirer les amateurs de détournement. De même, les spots d'Adidas ou de Nike.

Parfois, les internautes choisissent de mettre eux-mêmes en scène les marques. Le cas de Coca-Cola et Mentos est le plus emblématique. Une vidéo montrant l'expérience explosive d'un jet de bonbons dans une bouteille de soda a suscité une vogue mondiale d'apprentis laborantins prêts à filmer leurs exploits. Le phénomène, apparu depuis plus d'un an, continue à susciter des vocations.

Face à ce déferlement mondial, Mentos et Coca-Cola ont réagi différemment. Si le fabricant de confiserie a décidé d'entrer dans le jeu et d'accompagner le mouvement en organisant un concours de "geysers", Coca-Cola a, dans un premier temps, critiqué cette façon de "consommer" son produit avant de tenter de rectifier le tir.

D'un côté des produits et des services de plus en plus indifférenciés. De l'autre des consommateurs de plus en plus critiques. La tâche des publicitaires devient ardue. D'autant que le public n'hésite plus à s'emparer des possibilités décuplées d'Internet pour s'informer, comparer les prix, voire brocarder les marques ou leur communication.

La dixième Semaine de la publicité, qui a eu lieu du 27 au 30 novembre à Paris, avait justement choisi de se pencher sur cette "révolution". Les chiffres sont connus. Dix-neuf millions de Français bénéficient d'un accès Internet à haut débit. Mieux. Près de trois millions de personnes sont producteurs de contenu sur le Web, que ce soit par le biais d'une page personnelle, d'un blog ou en animant un forum.

Cette effervescence autour de ce que l'on nomme l'Internet participatif ou le "Web 2.0" ne peut laisser les marques indifférentes.

Peut-on tirer profit de la créativité et de la participation des internautes ? Les publicitaires et les marques se posent la question. " Nos pires concurrents sont les autres agences mais aussi les internautes", affirme Matthieu de Lesseux, coprésident de l'agence publicitaire Duke. Certaines marques créent des sites de dialogue avec les internautes comme PlayStation, McDonald, la banque HSBC, l'enseigne de bricolage Leroy-Merlin ou la RATP avec sa campagne "objectif respect". D'autres demandent aux internautes de participer à l'élaboration de leur campagne de pub. Brandt l'a fait avec un concours de doudous en ligne. De même, Gillette lance une opération avec TF1 et son site communautaire Wat. Les internautes sont invités à envoyer un spot de 20 secondes pour la marque qui pourra être diffusé sur la chaîne.

Mais gare aux dérapages. Chevrolet, qui voulait s'appuyer sur les internautes pour lancer un nouveau 4 × 4, s'est heurté à l'opposition virulente des écologistes.

Chez Bouygues Télécom, on reconnaît qu'un frein non négligeable existe : la marque de l'opérateur de téléphonie mobile comporte le nom du président de l'entreprise. Pas question de prendre des risques. Bouygues Telecom a donc ouvert un site très contrôlé exclusivement réservé aux fans du service i-mode.

LeMonde.fr

Ads Migrate to Mobile Handsets

Etat des lieux: c'est sûr, ça vient, mais il faudra être patient; place aux Etudes ... !

After years of resistance, cell phone outfits are working with publishers and partner vendors to try new approaches to selling their space. Mobile advertising is in the early stages of development, and major stakeholders including cellcos, content providers and intermediaries are launching ad-hoc campaigns in a bid to find a way for mobile to fit into the overall advertising landscape.

With its unique advantages of personalization, immediacy and interactivity, the mobile phone has emerged as an attractive advertising tool for brands and advertisers to reach new customers and target audiences. While using mobile as a medium to deliver advertising and marketing messages isn't a new concept, it has been used predominately for SMS-based direct marketing since 2000, and hasn't yet made a significant impact on the world of advertising.

Not until recently, that is. The industry is now seeing mobile advertising generate significant interest among mobile operators, advertisers and ad agencies. Over the past 12 months, after years of resistance, mobile operators are opening their services to advertising, working with publishers and vendor partners to pilot a number of different on-deck approaches - mostly WAP, but other platforms are beginning to emerge in video, downloads and search.

In the US, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel have launched initiatives to test how consumers react to short video ads on their phones. In Europe, 3 and Orange have begun selling banner ads on their portals to drive users to click on games and video downloads. In Asia, China Mobile and China Unicom recently announced plans to sell advertising space via SMS/MMS, games, IVR and mobile Internet services. Operators like 3 HK and SmarTone-Vodafone are partnering with media agencies and advertisers rolling out mobile advertising campaigns.

Meanwhile, media companies expanding their content to mobile are also keen in tapping the medium as part of their advertising offering to their clients.
Ringo Chan, VP of wireless development at Turner International Asia Pacific, says the company is seeing increased interest in mobile advertising from its clients.
"Every time our advertising sales team at CNN presents a campaign to advertisers, some of them ask: What about mobile?" he says. "Although mobile is now far from a mainstream advertising vehicle, advertisers understand that it's an alternative they could not omit and they have to embrace it."

RICH MEDIA SERVICES

Not surprisingly, the recent buzz over mobile advertising is partly from the fact that mobile services are becoming increasingly content driven.
The increased rollout of 3G and HSDPA, mobile users' growing interest in multimedia content and emerging services like mobile TV and "off-portal" search also open doors to advertisers to exploit the mobile channel for advertising opportunities.
If nothing else, consumers' increased acceptance of mobile advertisements also helps push cellcos and advertisers to explore the business opportunities.
Findings from a recent survey, conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by Enpocket, reveal that mobile users are far more accepting of mobile advertising when it is relevant.
The Consumer Mobile Advertising report, conducted with more than 1,200 mobile Internet users across the US, Europe and India, shows that targeted mobile advertising is 50% more acceptable to mobile Internet users than untargeted ads.
Research firm Informa Telecoms & Media predicts that the next 12 months will mark the start of a sharp upturn in mobile advertising spend as the proliferation of cheap, high-quality multimedia handsets and the widespread availability of high-speed mobile networks reaches a critical point. According to Informa Telecoms & Media, worldwide spend on mobile advertising and marketing will reach over $11.35 billion by 2011, affording consumers cheaper mobile content as advertisers come to terms with the medium.

SPONSORSHIP TO DOMINATE

The question, then, is just what sort of advertising format plays best on mobile?

Early evidence and industry research hint that the content-sponsorship model will be a favorite. Gartner predicts sponsorships are most likely to be the dominant format for mobile advertising until 2010.
For one thing, a sponsorship model is straightforward to sell. Also, a major source of optimism is user acceptance - several consumer surveys found that mobile users in general are willing to receive and view adverts in return for free or lower-cost mobile apps. One survey from Informa Telecoms & Media reveals that music, games and mobile TV/video are the most wanted mobile content services mobile users also want for free.

As such, a number of operators and companies have launched different campaigns to test how consumers react to ad-sponsored content.

A typical example is Greystripe, which distributes mobile games for free to consumers with in-game advertising. Michael Chang, CEO and co-founder of Greystripe, says the company has partnered with 29 mobile game publishers and developers, such as Artificial Life in Hong Kong and Handy Games in Germany, to deliver over 200 game titles to mobile users through its gamejump.com WAP portal.
Chang says Greystripe sells advertising space in its game network for $45 CPM (per thousand impressions) with three different forms of adverts - click-to-call, click-to-mobile web and click-to-jump page (to a survey/poll) - and shares the revenue with game publishers. After downloading the game, end-users must view a full-screen ad before and after they play the game.
Chang says the company currently has seven brands placing adverts on its game portal and claims that the average worldwide click-through rate for its ads with actions in GameJump games achieved a remarkable 15%. Greystripe is also working with mobile application publishers to bring to market ad-supported mobile apps such as instant messaging.

While such a model may offer tier-2 and tier-3 publishers (or other apps that get lost in the deck) alternative revenue resources and channel to market, cellcos are also expected to start to test similar model as a means to supplement their largely consumer transactional model - potentially starting in niche application categories such as news, information and consumer search. Verizon Wireless in the US, for example, is testing a program that will open its phones to advertisng through a two-tier payment model (such as $15 for no ads and less for ad-supported content).

Nicky Walton, senior research analyst with Informa Telecoms & Media, predicts that mobile operators will increasingly adopt ad-funded model in the coming few years, as it will help eliminate high charges that are extensively inhibiting take-up.

"At the moment the cheapest game to download over a mobile operator's portal is around $5, which is very expensive," Walton says. "If operators started offering mobile game downloads for free or a reduced cost, even if it doesn't initially increase usage, it's going to increase the likelihood of people trialing different games, because spending $5 to download something you might not like is lot of money.
The ad-funded model would increase the number of mobile users and draw them to the portals."
Walton says music will be another form of popular content that would attract sponsorships, and by 2008 that focus would shift to mobile TV/video.

BUILDING THE AUDIENCE

While there is little doubt about mobile's potential as a powerful advertising tool, industry players and market watchers agree that it's still very early for mobile advertising, and it will only grow into an established advertising channel after a number of issues have been resolved.

The adoption of mobile advertising is closely tied to the successful of mobile content services such as video, games and music. However, mobile has yet to attract a dedicated advertising budget despite the establishment of a couple of mobile ad networks in the past 12 months, says Gartner analyst Daren Siddall.

Advertisers at this stage, he says, are cautious about allocating budgets to the mobile channel chiefly because there is not yet an audience for advertisers to reach.

"Consumption of mobile content is very small, around the 10% mark, while the penetration of 3G subscribers at most is in the low single digits in most countries. Watching live TV or video, meanwhile, is a relatively new phenomenon and will remain a niche application for some time, which means that the potential reach for advertisers will be too low to attract widespread interest," Siddall says.

Therefore, he notes, the industry at the moment is facing a classic "chicken and egg" situation: advertisers won't commit budget to the mobile channel until they see there is audience to reach. Content providers and mobile operators, which realize that advertising will be an enabler for mobile content, conversely, are worrying whether or not they can generate enough impressions for advertisers and enough revenues to compensate changing their business model from pay-to-use to ad-sponsored.

Ricky Ow, general manager at Sony Pictures Entertainment Networks, who oversees AXN and Animax TV channels in Asia and orchestrates AXN Mobile, agrees that an established audience is vital to lure advertisers. Consequently, Sony Pictures' priority for now is getting viewers and the AXN brand out there in the mobile market.
"With viewers there will be proof of evidence of data which we can sell more intelligently to advertisers," Ow says, adding that AXN is currently is working with a few handset makers for ad sponsorship on mobile, but it's too early to offer details.

MEASUREMENT AND METRICS

Mobile advertising's nascent status also means that the delivery format is still in development, as is any standard to guide that development.
Another issue is that there is little in the way of transparency or metrics available to measure the effectiveness of mobile adverts. There isn't even any agreement as to what those metrics should be.
Measurement technique used in online advertising - such as click-through rates, impressions, cost-per-sale and cost-per-thousands - can be applied in the mobile environment, but they can't provide concrete details like whether the mobile user is clicking through on the Internet via the mobile phone.

For the mobile advertising market to move from test and niche levels to becoming part of the mainstream buying process, analysts say the industry must provide more visibility into the medium, including the establishment of reliable measurement and metrics for advertisers to measure the effectiveness of mobile adverts.

Ow of Sony Pictures agrees: "I think those questions have to be answered first before we see the influx of advertising on the mobile channel. This is not just for us, this is for everybody."
But such issues are not expected to be resolved soon, as a value chain for mobile advertising has yet to be established, Gartner's Siddall says.

"The advertising value chain is highly fragmented, involving advertisers, ad agencies, media agencies, media content owners and others in the delivery of ads to consumers," he says. "Throwing mobile into the mix adds even more complexity, with the addition of network operators, mobile marketing specialists, messaging or WAP gateway providers, and perhaps mobile application developers."

He adds that, given the lack of a single voice evangelizing the medium, migration of spend to the mobile channel is expected to be slow over the next five years.

That said, in the next year or two we'll be seeing a lot of experiments carried out by each stakeholder in the industry as they try to form standards and some level of understanding of what will work on mobile and the kind of format consumers will find acceptable.

"It's really about finding its way and its role in this overall advertising landscape," he says. "And that at the moment is not certain."

BusinessWeekOnline (Provided by Telecom Asia—Copyright: © 2006 Questex Media Group, Inc.)

Video-sharing makes move to TV

Après Fame TV - déjà en Angleterre - Sumo TV...

The Sumo TV channel, available on Sky Channel 146, will show clips from the Sumo TV website.

Every time a clip is broadcast, the originator of the content will receive a percentage of the revenues generated

Broadcasters, alongside mobile operators and web firms, are keen to play a part in the current obsession with user-generated content.
Social networking sites are creating a huge stir, with high-profile deals to buy two of the most popular video-sharing websites, MySpace and YouTube.

15 minutes of fame
Participants who upload video clips to the Sumo TV website will have a chance for them to be broadcast on national TV.
Which clips are broadcast will be down to how popular they prove online. All content will be closely monitored by Cellcast, the interactive TV company behind the channel.
Viewers of Sumo TV will also be given the chance to participate in live TV shows, via text messaging, webcams, video messaging and 3G streaming.
Andrew Wilson, chief executive of Cellcast, said it would put the viewer in the driving seat.
"It is the first service to integrate user-generated online content into a dedicated television channel, and provides users with new ways of finding that 15 minutes of fame," he said.

According to a recent ICM poll, some 32% of the UK population watches video online. Of those, 43% were watching less "normal" TV, the survey found.

Cellcast expects the amount of user-generated content to increase steadily as the channel matures. At launch, it will feature a three hourly selection of the best user-generated content from around the world every afternoon.
It is hoping to encourage viewers to submit content via talk shows, game shows, talent shows and citizen journalism.
Sumo TV will make its money in a variety of ways, including a share of the call revenue from premium-rate mobile and voice services, and more traditional advertising via the website.

Other UK channels launched by Cellcast include Psychic Interactive and Bid 2 Win.

(BBC News)

Refus de chaînes

Repris intégralement l'article paru ce jour dans Télérama par Hélène Marzolf

Une poignée de téléfilms et documentaires produits pour les chaînes hertziennes sont écartés ou diffusés très tard. Petite “censure” ordinaire ou frilosité des diffuseurs ?

On les aperçoit parfois au détour d’un festival, ces œuvres « pas vues à la télé » ou « vues à 3 heures du mat pendant que tout le monde dort ». L’Association des cinéastes documentaristes (Addoc) a même organisé, en 2004, un Salon des refusés, recensant de nombreux documentaires non diffusés. En juin dernier, elle relançait, à l’occasion d’une projection du film Le Grand Jeu, de Malek Bensmaïl, la question qui fait régulièrement brûler le torchon entre diffuseurs et réalisateurs : « Y a-t-il encore une censure à la télévision ? » Le Grand Jeu proposait une immersion au cœur de la dernière campagne présidentielle algérienne, en collant aux basques d’Ali Benflis, rival de Bouteflika. Plongée impressionniste, à la fois passionnante et déroutante, ce documentaire embarqué offre un point de vue unique, volontairement peu didactique. Préacheté par LCP-AN et TV5Monde, le film n’est passé sur aucune chaîne. LCP-AN estime que le réalisateur aurait dû suivre tous les candidats à l’élection au lieu de s’attacher au seul Benflis. Chez TV5, on s’est contenté d’annuler la diffusion deux fois de suite : à cause du festival de Cannes puis au moment des changements d’équipe au sein de la chaîne. « Le problème, c’est que mon film a été le seul à être déprogrammé, s’insurge le réalisateur. Les choses ne sont pas dites clairement, mais dès qu’il s’agit de choses sensibles ça coince. Les enjeux sont tels entre la France et l’Algérie que montrer un opposant à Bouteflika peut poser des problèmes diplomatiques ! » Il n’est pas le seul à s’estimer victime de la frilosité des diffuseurs. L’an dernier, John Paul Lepers claquait la porte de Canal, son documentaire sur Bernadette Chirac sous le bras, après la décision de la chaîne de ne pas programmer ce film jugé « trop perso, pas assez journalistique ». Autre cas sur France 2, le documentaire Sarkozy mot à mot, de Gérard Leclerc et Florence Muracciole, décryptant le discours de Sarkozy au moment de son accession à la tête de l’UMP, est passé à la trappe avant diffusion. Motif : la présence répétée de Sarkozy dans l’émission 100 minutes pour convaincre, puis la proximité du référendum sur l’Europe. Abandonné, le film a servi de point de départ à une nouvelle collection de dix films, destinés cette fois à France 5, proposant une analyse de la parole des principaux leaders politiques. « Il n’y a pas eu de censure, plaide Philippe Vilamitjana, directeur des programmes de France 5. Comme la 2 n’avait pas de case pour le programmer, nous l’avons récupéré. Mais lorsqu’il est arrivé chez nous, le film était daté et nous avons été obligés de le retourner. » Au sein de France 2, on estime quand même que « la direction a été peut-être un peu frileuse ».

Rares sont les cas où les chaînes reconnaissent ouvertement qu’un film pose problème. Ce fut le cas de Jénine Jénine, déprogrammé par Arte, qui traitait des dérapages de l’armée israélienne à Jénine lors de l’opération « Mur de protection » en 2002 : « Il y avait des raccourcis saisissants dans le film, sur la manière dont l’armée israélienne était mise en cause, explique Emmanuel Suard, directeur de la programmation d’Arte. En 2003, il y a eu une vague d’agressions antisémites dans les lycées. Le contexte, trop sensible, ne se prêtait pas à la diffusion. »

Les véritables « brûlots politiques » ne courant pas les grilles, la décision de ne pas diffuser obéit souvent à des impératifs plus subjectifs, liés aux exigences des lignes éditoriales. Il y a une quinzaine d’années, Viols et châtiments, un film de Jean-Xavier de Lestrade, qui donnait à voir, et surtout à entendre, trois agresseurs sexuels, s’est vu recaler après visionnage au sein de France 2 : « La chaîne voulait qu’un personnel médical encadre le discours des criminels, ce qui allait à l’encontre du projet même. Dans les documentaires, la parole est toujours remâchée par quelqu’un d’autre. Ces hommes avaient quelque chose à dire, et on refusait de les écouter directement ! » La protection de la vie privée et les contraintes juridiques conduisent aussi, parfois, à une prudence jugée « excessive ». Marie Mandy, réalisatrice pour la case jeunesse KD2A, en a fait l’expérience avec un film consacré aux adolescents suicidaires, bloqué par France 2 car censé « contrevenir à la loi sur la protection des mineurs en détresse ». La chaîne estimait que la réalisatrice aurait dû rendre les jeunes méconnaissables. « Pour moi, il était important de les filmer en gros plan, rétorque Marie Mandy. Je voulais voir sur leur visage comment ils parlaient de la vie et de la mort. Traiter le suicide en floutant les enfants revenait à les renvoyer du côté des limbes, de la mort. »

Au sein du service public, on considère que ce phénomène d’exclusion est marginal. « Nous n’avons ni le droit ni les moyens de gaspiller des programmes. Nous fonctionnons avec l’argent public et sommes comptables de nos budgets ! » rappelle Fabrice Puchaud, directeur adjoint chargé des documentaires sur France 2. Même son de cloche du côté des fictions. « Les rares œuvres qui restent dans les placards sont des films dont la valeur artistique est insuffisante, confie Perrine Fontaine, responsable du département fiction de France 2. Et en général nous proposons aux auteurs d’accepter une case plus tardive. Pour qu’on ne diffuse pas du tout, il faut vraiment que le résultat soit catastrophique ! » Sur le service public, comme l’explique un salarié de France 2, « la question n’est pas : va-t-on diffuser le film ou pas, mais va-t-on l’exposer ou non ? Certains films de qualité passent à 1 heure du mat, car ils ne sont pas considérés comme assez grand public ! ». Moyen plus subtil de les « trapper »…

Du côté des chaînes privées, aussi, les cadavres se ramassent à la pelle. Il y a quelques mois, la première fiction de Christophe Honoré, Tout contre Léo, qui dormait depuis cinq ans dans les cartons de M6, a enfin été diffusée… sur Pink TV. Le téléfilm, qui traite les thèmes de l’homosexualité et du sida, avait été commandé dans le cadre de la collection « Carnets d’ados ». Bloqué un temps à cause d’une scène d’amour entre deux hommes, puis finalement laissé en l’état – après qu’Honoré eut refusé de le modifier –, le film avait été purement et simplement oublié. Rien d’étonnant si l’on considère l’évolution de la ligne éditoriale de M6, de plus en plus consensuelle et familiale. La chaîne de Tavernost n’est pourtant pas trop du genre à gâcher : « M6 chaîne est dans une logique de gestion très serrée et prend rarement le risque de mettre de l’argent sans avoir la certitude de diffuser, témoigne un ancien. TF1 fonctionne différemment. C’est une chaîne très riche. Pour elle, le plus important est de conserver le leadership. » Analyse confirmée par Claude de Givray, directeur de la fiction de TF1 jusqu’en 1999. « Ça coûte moins cher de ne pas diffuser une fiction plutôt que de risquer qu’elle ne fasse pas d’audience ! » Et de perdre, du coup, la confiance des annonceurs. Logique dès lors qu’un certain nombre de fictions déjà tournées se retrouvent au rancard. Des épisodes de séries dont le démarrage n’a pas été « concluant » et des téléfilms jugés ratés ou casse-gueule. Comme Electrochoc, de Gérard Marx, racontant le combat d’un père pour sortir son fils des griffes d’un groupuscule néonazi, finalement passé sur la chaîne Festival en 2004 : « Tourner un film politique sur l’extrême droite, ce n’était pas évident, dit Claude de Givray. Si l’on veut faire 42 % de parts de marché, il faut ratisser large. » Et éviter de se couper d’une partie de l’électorat.

Les auteurs sont unanimes : pour espérer voir leur film squatter les grilles de TF1, il est nécessaire de se plier à un certain formatage. Un réalisateur se souvient encore d’une expérience cuisante : « La chaîne m’avait chargé de faire une comédie familiale à partir d’une histoire sinistre. Je n’avais pas compris qu’il y avait un “langage TF1” et j’ai réalisé un film très sombre. Qui a finalement été diffusé en pleine nuit ! » Même sans poser de problèmes évidents, de nombreux films se retrouvent stockés sans trouver de débouchés. Beaucoup y voient un effet pervers des quotas auxquels sont soumises les chaînes. « Comme TF1 est obligée d’investir 16 % de son chiffre d’affaires dans la production d’œuvres françaises, elle se retrouve avec une production supérieure à ses besoins de grille », explique Laurent Letailleur, chargé de mission à la direction des études du CSA. Actuellement, à TF1, on estime que seules 5 % des fictions, soit quatre ou cinq films par an, sont diffusées en dehors de la case prévue. « A mon époque, il y avait toujours une dizaine ou une quinzaine de films dans les placards, se souvient Claude de Givray. Les films à la télé, c’est comme les soldes. Au bout de trois ans, certains sont dégriffés. On les passe à minuit, ou directement sur TV Breizh ! » Ce qui a des conséquences non négligeables pour les auteurs, qui se voient amputés d’une partie de leurs droits d’auteur. Faut-il voir dans ce gaspillage un cynisme systématique des diffuseurs ? Plutôt une gestion aléatoire : il y a quelques années, une série est restée bloquée pendant six mois dans les cartons de TF1 : une histoire de femme flic à laquelle personne ne croyait. Son nom ? Julie Lescaut

(Telerama 2/12/06)

Old-School Sponsorship From a Digital-Era Company

Match.com will sponsor the new TBS program “My Boys,” whose young characters are searching for love in Chicago.

MATCHMAKER, matchmaker, make me a match. So sang the daughters of Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.” For a TV comedy series that begins tonight — about a young woman’s dating life, appropriately enough — Madison Avenue is playing matchmaker, bringing together an advertiser and a network for an elaborate sponsorship deal.

The matchmaker is MediaHub from Mullen, the media planning and buying division of Mullen, an agency owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies. MediaHub is hooking up Match.com, the dating Web site operated by IAC/InterActiveCorp, with the TBS cable network for a season-long sponsorship of the new sitcom, called “My Boys.”

Under the agreement, estimated at $1 million to $2 million, Match.com will be featured in all 13 episodes of “My Boys,” which chronicles the adventures of a twentysomething who covers sports for a Chicago newspaper as she juggles her career and social life. The Web site will be featured prominently in two episodes and play cameo roles in the rest.

Other elements of the deal include identification of “My Boys” as “sponsored by Match.com” in a television, print, radio and online promotional campaign that TBS is creating for the series; the posting of a profile of a character from the series on Match.com; billboard-style ads for Match.com on a special “My Boys” Web site (tbs.com/shows/myboys/); and a discussion of “My Boys” and Match.com during an episode of another TBS show, “Movie and a Makeover.”

The sponsorship is another example of an advertising technique that is being revived, decades after fading from the media landscape. Known as branded entertainment, it recalls the days when announcers intoned at the start of TV and radio shows that they were being “brought to you by” some name-brand consumer product.

Branded entertainment is returning to television because of its ability to interweave product pitches into the story lines of the shows that consumers want to watch. The goal is to counter viewers’ increasing ability to ignore or avoid more interruptive advertising like traditional commercials.

Among other advertisers that are taking part in the revival of branded entertainment are Coca-Cola, General Motors, Philips Electronics North America, Procter & Gamble and Unilever.

(...)
Branded entertainment projects “are easier when it’s an organic fit,” Ms. Yaccarino said. “Otherwise you’re just going to turn off the viewer, and then all of your work was for naught.
“As long as we respect the creative process, and that takes the lead, that’ll keep the viewers watching.”
The deal is “the biggest co-branded effort that Turner has ever done,” Ms. Yaccarino said, “and I think you’ll definitely see more of this.”
(...)

NewYorkTimes (pour l'article complet)

You Oughta Be In Webcasts

Scripted Web shows are piquing the interest of Mad Ave and giving filmmakers a new venue

Scene six, take two. Action. "I love the skulls on your shirt," says a snooty designer. "It's very Pol Pot chic." On a recent Saturday in Brooklyn, the 11th episode of Web sitcom The Burg is being filmed in the Bushwick Country Club bar. A satire about the hipsters of the Williamsburg neighborhood, the show in five months has developed a small but hard-core group of fans, many of them the same arty twentysomethings the show skewers. Cast and crew may be working for free, but they aren't rookies. One is All My Children actress Kelli Giddish, and this shoot has all the trappings of a professional production.

Welcome to the new wave of Web video. Far from the land of dogs on skateboards and Webcam yakkers on YouTube , this online genre of scripted programs is attracting small but passionate groups of fans. The networks and talent agencies are watching closely, and the phenomenon is giving indie filmmakers new ways to get their works seen. At the same time, this emerging ecosystem is creating a tempting--albeit challenging--play for advertisers looking to cut through the chaotic mass of Web pages on YouTube and MySpace. "These scripted, episodic shows are great," says Eric Bader, senior vice-president of digital connections at media buyer MediaVest USA. "They cr