Gen Wow

Inside 'HBO Imagine': Interview With Alison Moore, VP, Brand Strategy & Digital Platforms, HBO (Part 1)

HBO gave itself a tough act to follow - and it's working to do just that.

During the last few weeks, HBO has launched an ambitious sequel to its double Cannes Grand Prix winning "Voyeur Project," called "HBO Imagine."

Not to be outdone by "Voyeur's" projection of dramas on New York City buildings, "Imagine" features, among other things, a giant video cube that displays scenes from a mini-drama shot from four different perspectives, so you have to view each side of the cube to get the big picture.

At hboimagine.com, viewers can unlock each of these video sequences as they progress through a broader narrative, with a pay off for people who unlock each of 37 complete scenes.

It is a massive new undertaking for HBO, which hopes to top the number of impressions it earned for "Voyeur," as well as reinforce its brand positioning in a compelling new way.

In my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (AMACOM/McGraw-Hill, Spring, 2010) I talk to Courteney Monroe, HBO's executive vice president of consumer marketing - and a newly minted Brandweek Marketer of the Year - about the brand's approach to efforts like "Voyeur" and "Imagine," and why they're so central to creating consumer marketing that's as inspired as it is effective. (Despite the recession, HBO's subscriber numbers are actually up, to 27 million.)

In the days just after "Imagine" launched, I also spoke with Alison Moore, vice president of brand strategy and digital platforms for HBO, about why this campaign is such an exciting successor to "Voyeur," and about her views on how this initiative will fuel subscriber growth (and reduce churn) in the year ahead.

Part One: "Imagine" That: HBO's New Take On Making The Physical/Virtual World Connection (approx 7:33)

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ABC-TV's Reboot of 'V' Includes Online 'Peace Ambassador Program'

The Visitors are back, in a new series from ABC.

And since the show (starting tomorrow) faces a still hill keeping the action alive over a long period of time (unlike the 1980's NBC miniseries), marketers at ABC are working overtime to develop online initiatives to keep viewers interested over an already-planned hiatus that will hit after only four episodes. (In fact, it's reportedly not coming back until March.)

First among them: The Peace Ambassador Program. So far, that means registering for news updates. But given this is from ABC - home of online alternate reality games for "Lost," you can bet efforts will get far more ambitious over time. 

Start your orientation, here.

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Back from Digital Hollywood

Just don't call us the Digital Hollywood Squares.

I was in Santa Monica this week to participate in a panel discussion on games as an advertising and marketing platform for entertainment and consumer products brands.

It was a lively discussion with executives from several of the online and mobile gaming outfits, and hosted by James Green, CEO of Giant Realm. Great group of people, and an interesting debate.

Some really intelligent (and funny) people aboard - which made it feel like a game show.

Peter Marshall, eat your heart out.

Read more, here.

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First Look: The Cover of My New Book, 'The On-Demand Brand'

Forgot to mention that during my speaking engagement at the Global Retail Executive Council at CTIA this week, I was able to share the first glimpse of the cover art for my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (Amacom/McGraw-Hill, Spring, 2009). Be sure to read all about the book, here. 

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Bud First Super Bowl Advertiser To Use Interactive TV Ads

I mentioned the sneak peak Anheuser-Busch gave me of this year's Super Bowl ads.

Turns out that come game day, viewers in Canada will get a whole lot more.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that viewers who watch the game on network RDS will be able to use their remote controls to click through to see longer versions of the spots, bookmark them to view later, or choose to return to the game.

This is the first time ever a Super Bowl advertiser has used interactive television - which, while popular in Europe and apparently in Canada, has yet to really take off with cable operators here in the US.

Read all about it, here.

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Domino's, TiVo Team For Pizza Orders Via DVR

And it's about freakin' time, isn't it?

I expect my DVR to free me from television schedules and television commercials. Can't it deliver a piping hot peperoni pizza, too?

Well, TiVo and Domino's are making that happen, with a new interactive TV solution that enables TiVo subscribers to use the DVR service to order pizzas for pickup or delivery and (here's the genius) track the timing of deliveries.

"Interactive TV, in general, is the future," Rob Weisberg, VP-precision and print marketing at Domino's Pizza, tells AD AGE.

 "To give the average consumer the opportunity to order pizza while never getting up from watching Sunday football ... is pretty amazing."

No, not amazing. A freakin' dream come true.

And here I thought Pizza Hut's new Facebook pizza-ordering service was cool.

Read more about the Domino's/Tivo initiative, here.

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CBS Launches 'Social Viewing' Network

Why just watch TV when you can chat about it, too?

CBS Interactive is launching a solution that enables groups of viewers to collectively interact with streaming TV content, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Called "social viewing rooms," the service mashes up video conferencing, live chat and standard live streaming to create a "communal" experience when watching shows like "CSI" and "Two And A Half Men."

It's actually a little more interesting than just that. Friends can log on and watch shows and participate in polls, quizzes and even throw virtual objects like tomatoes and kisses at the screen.

"In the past when you watch videos online, it's a very isolating experience," Anthony Soohoo (great name!), senior vice president and general manager of CBS Interactive, tells the news service. "This takes people 3,000 miles away and makes them feel like they're sitting on the couch next to each other. The social viewing room is a next-generation social media platform that lets users engage with each other and the content they are watching in a fun new way."

As the Reporter points out, reality shows like "Survivor" may have the most to gain from such a service. Imagine reality stars mixed with reality viewers in "confessionals" and stream-of-consciousness commentary.

Maybe CBS isn't so stodgy after all.

Read more about it, here.

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Pepsi Readies Interactive TV Ad For MTV VMA's

Pepsi wants to use some of that new-fangled interactive TV technology to keep its crown as the choice of a new generation.

MediaWorks is reporting that since August 22, a joint initiative from MTV, Dish Network and Pepsi has enabled Dish satallite TV subscribers to vote for Pepsi's Best New Artist award at the upcoming Video Music Awards, September 7.

On the day of the broadcast, those same subscribers will be able to answer questions from a Best New Artist Pop Quiz that will be presented by Pepsi throughout the ceremonies.

"It's somewhat of a no-brainer. To me, it's a live test, and brings internet-like functionality to the TV,"John Vail, director-interactive marketing group, Pepsi-Cola North America, tells the pub.

"For our audience, the ability to interact with the show is something that we try to give them more and more of each year," adds Tim Rosta, exec VP-integrated marketing, MTV.

Personally, I think interactive TV has worked better for the likes Nike, and it's Zoom iTV initiative, which enabled viewers to click into 30- and 60-second TV spots starring San Diego Chargers running back LaDanian Tomlinson and other athletes. They can view interview footage of the football star talking about his training regimen, watch his signature spin move at different speeds, and access a 3D demo of the Zoom shoe, and play a Nike-branded game designed to test viewers' remote-control reflexes. Using zip code information, users will also be able to find stores carrying the shoe at the click of a button.

And Ford used iTV for the Ford Escape, enabling viewers to access a special Ford site via on-screen banner ads and promotional placards, and view more in-depth information on the vehicle.

What's more, MTV is savvy enough to know that simple text messaging via mobile phones enables "participation television" without special television platforms. In my book BRANDING UNBOUND, I interview MTV's Rosta about such mobile initiatives, and what the mean to the cable network.

Still, MTV has a goal of what it calls "multi-plat-fornication."(I'm sure the net is enabling text message participation and it's using its website for particpation, too)

And iTV is certainly the future of television. Which means regardless of what its doing in other media, MTV wants to be at the forefront in this new medium, too.

Read more about the Pepsi iTV initiative, here.

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TiVo, Amazon To Launch Interactive TV 'Product Purchase' Feature

At least that's the word from The New York Times, which reported the other day that TiVo and Amazon are working together to enable television viewers to use their remote controls to place purchases for items promoted on TV.

Think CDs, DVDs, and books promoted on shows like Oprah or the Today Show.

“Just a few years ago, we were viewed with great paranoia as the disruptor,” Thom Rogers, chief executive of TiVo, tells The Times. “Our goal now is to work with the media industry to come up with ways to resist the downward pressure of less advertising viewing and create a way for advertising on TV to become more effective, more engaging and closer to the sale.”

“What we are trying to do is to create all the underpinnings of a future business model for television,” he said.

Now the interesting thing is that by working together, the duo enables a very important element.

The other week, I interviewed Scott Broomfield, co-founder of Veeple, which is enabling advertisers to embed interactive promotions within streamed online video. In that scenario, if a consumer interacts with the promotional content, the video pauses.

Same deal with TiVo/Amazon. Live TV will pause while you conduct business. (Insert your own "business" joke here.)

The effort is an outgrowth of the initiative launched last year to enable TiVo owners to download movies from Amazon Video.

The question becomes who owns this kind of ecosystem? With a set-top device like TiVo, the platform is the platform. But TiVo only has about four million users. How would this work on Comcast and its DVR base? Do advertisers and content owners have to set up this service through cable operators? How does that change the cable equation?

TiVo’s purchase feature “is a harbinger of what television ultimately should become,” Timothy Hanlon, senior vice president for Denuo, the media futures division of the Publicis Groupe, tells the pub. “But TiVo is only in around four million plus homes. From a national advertising perspective, if it doesn’t get beyond that base it remains nothing more than a curiosity.”

Time will tell.

It really is the pathway for television to stay the dominant mass media platform (...I think it will anyway, but this certainly ups the ante...).

Read more about it, here.

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Nike Jumps Into Interactive TV

Nike's zooming into interactive television in what Ad Age calls the most ambitious push in that medium to date.

As part of the new "Quick Is Deadly" campaign for its new Zoom training shoe line, Nike will make 20 minutes of interactive content accessible to Dish Network subscribers with DVRs.

Interactive TV - or "iTV" - is pretty big in Europe. But in the US, viewers have been slower to cotton to it - probably because it seems to be tied to specific cable/satellite television operators.

Last year, Ford launched an iTV initiative. And in a joint TV Guide-Ad Age “What’s Next!” survey found that a solid 44% of media buyers say interactive TV spots are the emerging platform they’d most like to explore next.

In the Nike scenario, about the 30% of Dish's 13 million subscribers with DVRs will be able to click into 30- and 60-second TV spots starring San Diego Chargers running back LaDanian Tomlinson and other athletes. They can view interview footage of the football star talking about his training regimen, watch his signature spin move at different speeds, and access a 3D demo of the Zoom shoe, and play a Nike-branded game designed to test viewers' remote-control reflexes. Using zip code information, users will also be able to find stores carrying the shoe at the click of a button.

"This is certainly the most sophisticated interactive-TV campaign that the U.S. has ever seen," Michele Bogdan, senior VP-marketing at Ensequence, an interactive firm that helped Nike's agencies, Wieden & Kennedy and R/GA, produce this effort, tells the pub. "Nike has taken this to a whole new level."

Nike, of course, has long been fleet of foot when it comes to digital marketing innovation. In my book BRANDING UNBOUND, I look at its interactive Times Square billboard, which enabled passersby to design their own custom running shoe on-creen using their mobile phone, and then access a WAP site with information on how to buy it.

Now, with sales growth slowing to 6.6% this year - still enviable, but far short of last year's 14.1% - Nike's about to zoom into a new digital realm.

We'll see if the Nike magic thrives in this amazing new interactive channel.

For the Ad Age piece, click here.

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TiVo Tells All: The Secret To TV Spots People Don't Skip Over

Well, at least the less-skippable spot.

Ad Age is reporting that data from TiVo shows that two kinds of ads are least likely to be skipped past in homes with DVRs: Those awful, bare-bones direct response ads, and those highly-entertaining, high-production value movie ads.

TiVo's StopWatch data, which as been available since February, analyzes second-by-second viewership patterns - anonymously, of course - aggregated and randomized from 20,000 TiVo units. It appears that the least fast-forwarded brand campaigns on 15 measured broadcast and cable networks, across both daytime and primetime this past April include:

1. AlmostGolf sporting goods (direct response)

2. Perfect Pushup exercise equipment (direct response)

3. Microsoft Office business software

4. Air Hogs toys (direct response)

5. CubCadet tractor

In May, three of the top 10 spots were movie trailers (hell, we actually rewind them and play them over and over again in our household).

As many have pointed out, this is really upending some long-held assumptions about what kinds of ads stand out.

"This is really about knowing the individual commercial" and how it performs in each appearance, Tracey Scheppach, senior VP-video innovations director at Starcom USA tells the pub.

It also upends that old adage to be the first spot in a commercial break. Data shows people slow down that old fast forward button during the last spot in a pod to avoid missing any of the show.

Still, the data hasn't been broken down yet into demographics - which will no doubt unlock its own secrets.

Let's hope that kind of information is available soon.

Because if marketers with small budgets have to compete against big budget movie trailers, they're going to want to go bare-bones and direct.

And none of us want to go there.

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TV Guide, Ad Age Poll: Most Marketers Want Interactive Television. But Why Stop There?

Talk about "Home Shoping Network:" A joint TV Guide-Ad Age “What’s Next!” survey finds that a solid 44% of media buyers say interactive TV spots are the emerging platform they’d most like to explore next.

Indeed, they chose iTV over short-form video-on-demand commercials (29%) and DVR fast-forward messages (17%). The consensus seems to be that two-way communication via TV – instead of the current model, which entails clicking away at PCs or mobile phones while watching the ‘tube – would be much more powerful if initiated through a single screen.

As Ira Berger, director of national broadcast at The Richard Group tells the pub: “It’s 'engagement' on steroids.”

The respondents have it (partly) right. Think how powerful it would be to see a commercial and be able to click through for more information, a video demo or even to place a purchase and have the product shipped to your home address.

But in reality, it’ll all be much more powerful than that. Through unified communications – a geeky term for accessing whatever you want, using whatever device you want to access it on – whole new possibilities emerge.

See a commercial for an upcoming theatrical release? Click through and have a Fandango ticket emerge from your printer, or sent to your mobile phone for you to wave at a kiosk to gain entry to the cinema.

Hear some music you like on “The Hills,” or “The O.C.?” Click a button to have the music downloaded to your stereo and/or mobile phone and/or PC and/or iPod and/or car stereo instantly.

New packaged food sound appetizing? Click to have it automatically added to your online shopping list, which you can access from your cell phone when you get to the grocery store.

Cool car commercial? Click through to have branded advergame/test drive sent to your networked Xbox.

Like those threads in the Gap commercial? Click through to have an onscreen “avatar,” or image of yourself, in correct proportions, “try on” the clothes in a virtual fitting room?

And yes, instantly place a purchase to have the duds shipped home – automatically.

This isn’t some far out fantasy. It’s actually a pretty straightforward proposition that will begin to appear in US households before decade’s end.

Hey, they don’t call us Generation Wow for nothing.

Generation Wow