The Official
Moosylvania Blog

Nice job Megan, you touched on very good insights – especially; 

1) Look at the long term value they can bring your business. Reaching out to Millennials while they are forming their opinions that will stick with them for life builds a solid franchise for the future.

2) Be relevant and use relevant media and tools to enable them to engage and share your product in the ways they like to do so – especially digital.

3) Altruism – help them give back by simply engaging with you.

We have a white paper, "The 7 Trust Builders for Gen Y," that is based on research and our experience with this important audience. Much of what Megan touched on here is concurred in our findings.

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30 One-Way Spots RIP

A giant miss in this article and in general for the ad industry is an understanding of the diminished role TV spots will play in the very near future. 

Current TV spots with one -way communication are being ignored more than ever and in their current state will soon be a memory. 

Tools like Klickable, that allow the viewer to click on objects they're watching in a video while it's playing in real time, for more information and links to purchase, will be the norm. Klickable has already been used on portals like CBS, Bravo and a variety of other sites.

By the way, Klickable experience delivers best results when embedded in entertainment and news content, not commercials. Watching a cooking show and want to know where to get the special ingredients? Click on them and maybe even get a coupon sent to your smart phone from Deal Chime.

Speaking of smart phones, they will soon be the number one way US consumers access the web. Cell phones outnumber computers by 3x, smart phone penetration is already in double digits and a just released survey conducted by Best Buy shows that even in the middle of a recession, 40% of all cell phone owners who don't have a smart phone, plan to purchase one within the next year.

Couple this with a new higher speed wireless internet which is on the way, including the 700Mhz spectrum recently vacated by TV's migration to HD and you are talking about truly engaging real time, one-to-one communication. With new connection speeds dwarfing 3G, video will become an important part of the hand held web, which will be even smarter than computer based web, because it incorporates GPS location-based messaging, like Deal Chime and other products are already doing. 

Additionally, two-way video will become an important platform for smart phones that will quickly change the query and on-line shopping experience.

So, rather than trying to figure out how the web can adapt to support TV spots, our industry needs to be focused on putting the web to work for them. A lot of outstanding tools are already available. Hulu and Klickable is low-hanging fruit. Building Deal Chime into ads to provide the instant ability to shoot offers to phones and computers when the consumer engages is a no-brainer. 

Creating informational video chunks that are emotional, engaging and entertaining like a good TV spot, that are designed help consumers make decisions with built-in tools and links and allow them to post their own comments in the content (good or bad) to share with their trust network of friends and family through social media sites will accelerate trust and grow brands faster, because the customer will own and endorse the information.

If this sounds a little far fetched and futuristic, it's not. This is real and it's happening faster than you think. I know because I've spent a good part of my career working in and around communications for wireless telecom, cable,broadband, technology, entertainment, financial services, consumer packaged goods and retail. 

I've had enough soggy sandwiches in dark rooms reviewing technological product roadmaps to find solutions in how all these things can become applicable for consumers to know, the :30 one-way spot is dead.

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Four Giant Leaps to Ubiquitous TV Viewing

1) The ruling that enables a centralized DVR system for cable providers is a giant leap toward "ubiquitous viewing." 

2) TV everywhere, allowing viewers the opportunity to use a password to access cable over the internet is an even bigger second leap and prototypes and tests are in the works for this fall. 

3) Smart phones, which will soon surpass computers as the number one way US consumers access the web, as cell phones outnumber computers 3 to 1 and smart phone penetration is in the double digits and accelerating, is the third. 

4) Unleashing the 700Mhz spectrum, vacated by TV's migration to digital, or another higher speed, broad reach frequency that's always on and available virtually everywhere is the fourth.

Once we clear those four hurdles which are all ready in progress, it's going to be difficult for cable to survive. That's because entertainment companies will be able to directly reach and generate revenue from every viewer of their content. 

When content is everywhere, always on, when the viewer wants it, advertising will migrate to location-based messaging that is intuitive and user-smart. Products like Klickable that already exist, will allow viewers to click on items they see in the video, without disrupting, for further information and links to purchase. That technology married with another existing platform like Deal Chime, that delivers digital coupons and messages to any device, will become a dominate and measurable advertising medium.

If Cable sits out the opportunity to own a leadership role in this new format of advertising, there won't be room for them at the table down the road. That's because the viewer and the entertainment companies will be enabled and have a financial incentive to circumvent cable operators.

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Four Giant
Leaps to Ubiquitous TV Viewing

If
Cable sits out the opportunity to own a leadership role in this new format of
advertising, there won't be room for them at the table down the road. That’s
because the viewer and the entertainment companies will be enabled and have a
financial incentive to circumvent cable operators.

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Read Comments

P&G, Walmart and Unilever's investment in R&D innovation is money well spent, and it's why their dominance will only grow.

As retailers continue to cut SKUs to build up their private labels and find greater efficiencies in-store, innovation and proof of product are the only way new revenue streams will find their way into stores now and post recession. It's also how Walmart, as a retailer will remain relevant and keep its customers loyal.

P&G and Unilever have a lot to gain as smaller players are pulled off of shelves leaving more share to them. However, they themselves will have more streamlined portfolios, leading to greater efficiencies,
but without innovation, their margins will be squeezed further through SKU downsizing.

They must continue to find new ways to bring customer innovation to the shelves or they will be left with lead brands that will quickly become commodities fighting it out against private labels.

And the smaller players? They need innovation to survive.

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