A birdy told me that AT&T
allegedly paid 300 million for the rights to collect the voting money for X
Factor in the USA and that it grossed over a billion dollars in voting money.
That's one show and one interaction. Consumers are willing to pay for
micropayment engagement. That much is clear. Two hundred thousand people are
playing The Million Pound Drop on the
second screen in real time in the UK which shows clearly that
consumers love being engaged. So to me - that means there are other ways to pay for content by giving value to consumers
rather than shoving 30-second spots in their face.
Warner Bros. has signed what could be a historic deal to make its movies available to homes throughout China on Video on Demand... as long as it turns out to actually be legit.
Warner Bros. Entertainment has announced a partnership with YOU On Demand Media to provide China's "first national Pay-Per-View and Video On Demand platform," to launch in the summer with movies including the last Harry Potter installment, with WB president for international video and digital distribution Jim Wuthrich talking up the "millions of potential customers" that will be able to legally view movies at home as a result. But it turns out that there's more going on here than just the headlines.
The Hollywood Reporter points out that it's unclear whether this deal is even legal under current Chinese law, suggesting that the deal is much more complicated than initially announced:
"Sources claiming to be familiar with the Warner-YOD-CCTV-6 deal's structure say that YOD's contract is actually with a private Beijing-based VOD solutions company called Zhonghai, which, in turn, has a non-exclusive contract to source video content for the VOD unit of CCTV-6's pay TV platform...."
ITV and Channel 4 are in talks with Red Bee Media about using its next-generation video-on-demand service, RedPlayer.
The new service launches today and offers broadcasters, mobile phone operators and content owners more features than current VoD players, including a screen that streams tagged social media conversations alongside the content being watched.
Other functions allow users to set reminders on future programmes they want to watch via Twitter and text message and the ability to monitor viewer activity to see what kind of videos they like.
The RedPlayer taps into the trend for multiscreen viewing, with viewers watching live television shows while communicating with others about the programme via social media networks.
It is aimed at commercial broadcasters and the Red Bee Media chief executive, Bill Patrizio, confirmed existing clients ITV and Channel 4 have had talks about using it to update ITV Player and 4oD, respectively.
Frisco, TX (June 13, 2011) – According to The Diffusion Group’s (TDG’s) latest analysis of Netflix Streamers—those that stream Netflix content to their net-connected devices—the inclination to downgrade PayTV services has doubled in just the last 12 months.
In March 2011, TDG queried a random sample of adult broadband users that subscribe to cable, satellite, or telcoTV service as to the likelihood they would downgrade their PayTV service in the next six months—that is, “…move from a higher service tier to a lower one, or cancel a premium service of some kind.” In general, the percentage of Netflix Streamers to varying degrees likely to downgrade their PayTV service increased from 16% in 2010 to 32% in 2011.
Though Netflix has gone to great lengths to reassure PayTV operators that its offerings are additive to regular TV viewing and thus not a competitive threat, research now suggests that the ‘Netflix Effect’—that is, growing use of Netflix will lead to PayTV service downgrades and even cancellation—is gaining momentum.
This week, our main speaker is Andrea Phillips, co-designer and writer of America 2049, a transmedia project/Facebook game/ARG by human rights group Breakthrough. Lasting for 12 weeks, the game incorporated websites, live events, and starred actors including Victor Garber (Alias), Harold Perrineau (Lost), Cherry Jones (24) and Margaret Cho.
Andrea's other transmedia and ARG projects have also included Routes, The Maester's Path (Game of Thrones), and Perplex City. She'll be joining us from New York via the magic of Skype! ..."
"...The shows marketing team came up against a challenge to which they needed to change the demographics of their natural young audience and allow the show to reach a bigger audience. They decided to launch an integrated event level marketing campaign which consisted of explaining the back story (Prequel to the series) of the vampires and how they actual interact with society, living off their synthetic blood. They undertook an extensive viral marketing /alternate reality game campaign through the use of Bloodcopy.com. They utilised all available platforms to generate wide scale awareness, in order to get an audience early, and a solid, loyal audience. They were on Twitter, facebook, You Tube, and created a myspace account called ‘Blood’. They had online forums set up through HBO, Blood Copy, leaving messages and videos for people to see. One was an exclusive interview with Samson the Vampire. Some people even received plastic syringes with synthetic blood. They set up multiple websites, encoding web addresses into unmarked envelopes. They sent these out via post targeting high profile blog writers and others. HBO.com began selling the Tru Blood carbonated drink on September 19th 2009.
The shows marketing team created Breaking news stories, creating hype over the vampires and the synthetic blood. News segments were coming from the president, and department head authorities. HBO premiered two documentaries, entitled True Bloodlines. There were bus shelter and telephone booth advertising posters, banners, and billboards placed around the cities in the US. They had articles in magazines showing that the tru blood bottles had sold out, showing vampires drinking the product. They even placed cards in vending machines, indicating they had sold out of the tru blood. They used the New York Times newspaper, Rolling Stones Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Advertising Age etc to create hype and articles on the show. They even created a Vampires rights debate about whether or not people wanted them living in their neighbourhood. The American Vampire League was created to support the vampires rights. They ran several campaigns using the main stars in the show talking to presenters about the audience online as if they were being realistically interviewed. They gave out thousands of DVDs of the first show to attendees at the special Midnight Madness film festival. Blockbuster also provided free rental of the first show that was watermarked. In the second season of True Blood, the campaign created fake ads for real brands...."
"In my opinion the Old Navy execution didn’t work simply because of timing. Though we established that our audience watches TV while using their smartphone, it’s hard to expect consumers to have the App ready to go while watching TV. The Shazam prompt in the old Navy commercial came in too early. So if you missed the first five seconds of the ad, you’re missing out on additional content. (but they made up for it in another way)
The progressive commercial on the other hand did a good job at setting up the prompt. The ad had a banner at the bottom of the screen with instruction on when to “Shazam” the ad for additional content. It works but it’s not perfect.
From a practical standpoint, the Progressive ad still fails on some level. Contrarely to music – with recognizable lyrics and sound– these are commercials. Sure they’re scripted, but they’re still commercial. So unless you’ve registered the whole ad in the Shazam database, you have to time the prompt. On top of that, the format of the TV commercial in itself–30 seconds to get the phone, then shazam ready– is a pain. But where one fails another strives..."