The Official
Moosylvania Blog

The Big Game, or El Plato Supremo as we are calling it here at Moose, had some winners and losers as always. It was encouraging to see that so many more brands understood that people were using a second screen and likely tweeting from it, so they included a hashtag or some form of social media marketing into their campaign. A few stood out from the pack and one came about as close as the 9ers did to #winning, but lost the ring in the end. Here are our thoughts and a list of the commercials with links so you can check them out yourself, in case the party you were at was a little too loud. Tell us what you thought of the commercials this year in the comments!

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Attention St. Louis artists!

We’re hosting the Joe’s Place Open Door Art Show and asking designers from all around St. Louis to participate. Show off your creativity by designing a door for the auction to benefit Joe’s Place in Maplewood. The Open Door Art Show and auction will be held on Saturday, March 2^nd at 7pm. (more…)

You may know Morgan Spurlock from his reality based documentary films like “Super Size Me” and “Mansome” . He also has a new show on CNN beginning in April called “Inside Man” where he candidly looks at subcultures in the US, and he begins shooting a 3-D, documentary on British pop sensation “One Direction” next week.

Digital Jackpot

But you most likely aren’t aware of how this A-list documentarian bet really big on digital and hit the jackpot.

Morgan’s first “movie” projects were on behalf of a large electronics company, where he served as a tradeshow traveling spokesperson and produced large budget videos and presentations.  “One of the biggest budgets I worked on was a video for CES,” he noted with pride. (more…)

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski announced at the 2013 International CES trade show that the FCC will allocate more unlicensed spectrum for Wi-Fi.

“As this spectrum comes on line, we expect it to relieve congested Wi-Fi networks at major hubs like convention centers and airports,” Genachowski said. “It will also help in homes as tablets and smartphones proliferate and video use rises.”

The Need For Speed

Digital research shows the plan should speed up Wi-Fi networks by 35% and be the biggest release of unlicensed spectrum since 2003.

The FCC will initiate a proceeding next month at its public meeting. Genachowski noted there would be some challenges, but added, “We’re moving forward with it, and we’re going to work out the problems as we go.”

The FCC is also in the process of setting up another auction of broadcaster airwaves that will boost 4G networks. (more…)

The past several years have seen declines in home entertainment revenues at the major studios, which has been cause for alarm across Hollywood.  But according to several leaders in the industry, while there is still some work to do on their end, the future of home entertainment is looking very bright.

Panelists who shared their opinions during Variety’s Entertainment Matters sessions at CES included Deborah Bothun, US Advisory leader Entertainment Media and Communications, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), David Bishop WW President Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Mike Dun WW President 20^th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Thomas Gewecke President Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, Shawn Strickland CEO Redbox instant by Verizon, Anthony Bay VP Worldwide Video, Amazon.com and Andrew Wallenstein, TV Editor for Variety.

Several factors are spurring greater consumption of content, including:

1)   Improved TV quality and size

2)   650M (and growing) consumer devices that play movies anytime anywhere

3)   Substantial Growth in Ultra Violet, Cloud and Digital Download

4)   Subscription services using sophisticated data to drive more awareness and impulse

The challenge the last few years has been declines at physical retail and trying to replace that impulse experience through alternative media.  Another challenge the industry is working on is to streamline downloading to a three-minute process.

All agree there has to be much more emphasis on digital merchandising across the digital delivery footprint to help drive title purchases to get consumer ownership back up to 30% of purchases vs. 20%.

The key to success is anticipating consumer behavior, especially around digital, and making the content suit the medium. It’s no longer one size fits all.

Ultra Violet, the industry standard to purchase in one place, store in the cloud and view across devices, saw significant growth in 2012. It now has 9M accounts and is forecast to almost triple in size in 2013.  A big recruitment tool for opening an Ultra Violet account has been an incentive to transfer 10 existing owned titles over for free.

Fox’s segmentation and planning panel study of 6,000 households monitors how consumers media habits change over time. Change in the past has been very slow.  But right now people’s media habits are on the move in a very big way.  The advanced tech savvy audience makes up 25% of the population, but now account for 50% of all media consumption.

95M people buy DVDs in the recession era, but 38M people are digital only, ripe for a digital purchase.  Digital only purchasers right now skew Male, Sci-Fi, Underworld.  Never before has there been such defined audiences by medium for movie content.

Amazon, Netflix and Red Box are driving significant business with subscription and on-demand services via gaming units, web portals and through partnerships with carriers.  They use sophisticated algorithms to build and maintain relationships with consumers, creating an infrastructure to learn about about their customers and products in order to optimize titles and usability to conversion.

TV seasons are a significant driver for suggestive selling.  Subscription customers will watch a single season in a week, then pay on-demand for additional seasons and purchase cross-sold similar properties after viewing a few seasons.

Helping consumers find feature film content in similar ways is driving more ownership. Digital services converting DVD collections into the Ultra Violet cloud is one of the fastest ways to identify an audience, show value and cross merchandise.

Nothing digital has yet replaced the serendipity of the physical retail store, the most critical source of discovery for ownership.  Online social discovery is important and needs more emphasis on options that compare your collection to mine.  When entertainment consumers see relevant suggestions it sells more product.

Digital Books are doing very well.  They have an advantage in that their digital file size is small.  Video content file sizes are huge. Platforms to quickly download video content in three minutes will make digital downloads more of an impulse item like books.

Lastly, all agreed upgrades in the content to suit the medium will drive more value and engagement. For example, watching content on tablets needs to be interactive.  Total Recall and MIB 3 both had touch screen apps to find out more about the actors, where each scene was shot, etc.–all while watching the actual film. E-books already have similar experiences.

The industry leaders all concurred that 2013 is the beginning of a new renaissance for home entertainment, with more opportunities than at any time in history. But to get back to the future of home entertainment, a greater price value relationship must be offered.

What do you think the future holds for the home entertainment industry? Let us know with a comment.

Audi stole this year’s CES show in presentation, style and experience.

At the entrance of a sleekly designed, white-lit space garage was a Formula One Audi world champ racer, sporting wondrous technology, surrounded by the international press and a giant mob of gawkers. But this was a mere distraction from the hidden lair that housed a new technology that will change the world: a James Bond-esque autopilot driving experience in a very realistic simulator.

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CES 2013 – Las Vegas, Tuesday January 8, 2013

Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook are not at CES, so the question has been who will take center stage and be the big game changer at the massive global event.

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The 2013 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) officially kicks off here in Las Vegas tomorrow, Tuesday, January 8, 2013, but there’s already a lot of buzz.

First up, a “Trends to Watch” Prezi presentation from Consumer Electronic Associations Chief Economist and Sr. Director of Research Shawn DuBravac.

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Certain topics are sure to spark passionate discourse, so we were excited to build a social media strategy around a classic one: Cats or Dogs? Pet owner or not, everyone has an opinion.

This week, we helped launch America’s Pet Debate, presented by Purina and designed to celebrate pet ownership and engage pet owners using social media.

The goal of the campaign is to get people voting and talking – about the campaign and to one another. So with our wide target spread across several social networks, how did we build our social media strategy? With three key things in mind:

1. Make it easy to talk about.

If we want people to talk, let’s give them the tools and guide them at every touchpoint. Browse through America’s Pet Debate site, and every time you engage, you’ll be prompted to share – when you vote, submit a comment on the Meet the Candidates page, take the quiz and even when you check to see which way your state is swaying on the Current Results page.

2. Give people tools for social advocacy.

Whether it’s a Twitter profile picture, Facebook cover photo or simply an image shared on Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest – consumers use social media to define themselves. They want content with badge value, that gets them positive attention from their social network. So we created a gallery of downloads, designed specifically to create social badge value, that allow users to declare themselves as Team Cat, Team Dog or a general love for both.

3. Tailor content to each network.

We use different social networks for different reasons and in different ways. Pinterest is great for discovery, Facebook for connecting with friends, Twitter for keeping up with influencers, Instagram for visual stimulation.

So in developing content for a social media strategy, we should tailor it to the network – and to what consumers expect when they log in to each network.

Our editorial calendar for this campaign is quite a beast, but it allows us to make sure that everything we push out is perfect for its respective network, ladders up to our campaign strategy and objectives and that we surprise and delight consumers who follow us on multiple networks. We don’t want to simply push out the same thing through four different networks – we want to provide them unique, relevant content at every turn. Go ahead and Like us on Facebook, then Follow us on Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram to see what we mean.

What do you think is key to an impactful social media strategy? Let us know in the comments below. And don’t forget to weigh in and vote for Team Dog or Team Cat daily until November 9, when we announce the winner of America’s Pet Debate.