Imitation is the flattery that's best

This new website follows the "subservient" genre that started with Subservient Chicken.

Subservient Chicken
Subservient Chicken is a marvellous site that has reportedly helped Burger King's emotional ties with the "youff" market.
There's a link to Subservient Chicken above.

This version of the genre is a version for the g8 leaders in preparation for the summit in Scotland.

Action 8
The g8 version allows you to tell the world's most powerful leaders what to do. As the person who sent it to me said, "Try asking them to lift their kilts."

Honda - Another Company moves money onto the web

Just picked up this headline from New Media Age. It seems that Honda the company that brought us "Cog" is moving a considerable amount of money to the web.

The Japanese car manufacturer is shifting 10% of its £20m-a-year above-the-line budget to the Web in an attempt to raise awareness of planned new product launches in 2006.
www.NMA.co.uk

This is further evidence of money moving away from the traditional media. TV may not be in total decline but customers are using the web and getting their information for their decisions from it.

When convergence happens and TV/Radio/Internet are all on the same machine in the majority of homes then content will be the key. How far away is this? I think it might be nearer than some commentators like to think.

New Senseo Viral with added grounds!

I've just received a new streaming video viral via one of the discussion groups that I subscribe to.

The viral is for Senseo coffee machines that make use of the convenience factor. It's rather like washing powder tablets, the coffee pods save time spooning out the grounds into the machine and offers perfect portion control time after time after time.

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The viral is ok in my opinion but what I really liked was the fact that after I'd watched the viral a pop up research questionnaire appeared.

Hence the title "added grounds" The research was a mix of media research and coffee drinking preferences.

This was a very interesting way to combine the interactivity of the Internet, using a viral clip and pop up research questionnaire combination.

P&G sidestepping PVRs?

This article from New Media Age continues the theme of today's earlier post on this blog.
P&G spends £160-£170million on TV and the company is concerned about the long term future of the thirty second TV slot.
P&G are trying to use interactive technologies to develop and enhance the slots - the ubiquitous digital "red button" being used.
So PVRs and fewer viewers the future for TV looks bad, but I have a nagging doubt that if you sell mass market FMCG products TV will be removed from the media mix.
Where else can you deliver huge reach to support mass market products. This page from the Guardian illustrates the size of the viewership for some programmes.
Even between 10 and 10:30 at night on the "main" commercial TV channels 7.1 million viewers were watching.
If we use a figure of £7 per thousand for all adult airtime that's a cost of approx £31,000+
So it's still a big market and it still has good reach but there's little doubt that advertisers are concerned about the long term future for traditional TV advertising.

On line ad spend up again

An article in Adage today highlights the growth in on line ad spend in the first quarter of 2005. Yesterday one of the alumni from the university contacted me to say that he was now working in an on line agency and it was the place to be.

"The medium that once was the power of TV is dying at an alarming rate, so I would recommend telling your students not to bother!"It's an interesting comment. I think one of the key questions could be rather than "Is TV dying" one could ask
- "Given the maturity and potential decline of the Television Advertising market how will advertisers and the media buyers achieve effective ratings points in the future?"

I concur that TV advertising is in slow decline, but so too are newspapers. Why? Well simply ....readership and viewership figures are down in many developed markets. In a connected world the choice of media vehicles for all to consume is vast.

The move is almost certainly to a content driven media buying environment.

Must see TV - but through HD recorders (ad skipping is compensated for by sponsorship).
Must read papers and magazines or rather blogs
Must listen to - podcasts or radio

Another interesting blog that touts similar views is Ian McKee's blog

He highlights some interesting stats from a recent Harvard Business Review article.

"Some eye-opening statistics from the June 2005 Harvard Business Review (subscription req'd) on the effectiveness of 500 various consumer and B2B marketing programs:

* 84% resulted in less market share, not more
* Most customer acquisition efforts did not break even
* Fewer than 10% of new products succeeded
* Most sales promotions were unprofitable
* Advertising ROI was below 4%
* Doubling advertising expenditures for established products increased sales just 1% - 2%

The HBR shows what Professor Andrew Ehrenberg has cited before. The weak theory of advertising exists in mature FMCG markets.

Advertising in these markets is about sustaining your market share.

As one of my colleagues from Strathclyde yesterday quoted Ehrenberg - "Let the data speak." (sic)

Blogmetrics - More is good?

I hear that the more often you post to a blog the more often people will read your blog? This seems intuitively true. Whenever something is posted if someone has a feed or an aggregator then the blog will could be read. But will this always be the case or will the content be the key thing?

The blog reader may not browse the blog very often if the blog is not updated regularly but surely with RSS etc., then the content can be seen when it is published. Thus I am in two minds about whether or not the frequency of posting will effect the number of readers or hits on a blog site.

I wonder whether there is a rule of 3 postings a day = 3 x hits? I am sure that this cannot rise with a direct relationship or 1,000 posts a day = 1,000 x more readers but it is possible that a relationship could exist between the number and frequency of posts and the hits.

Obviously as an academic who is interested in the empirical facts about blogging and its effects on media consumption particularly from the point of view of marketing, advertising and PR this is a key area for my study. If anyone has data in this area please send me an e-mail, or even if you have any views please send me your comments.