Archive for April, 2007

Mobile TV interview with Adnews

Published by admin April 26th, 2007 in Mobile and Video. 1 Comment

I was shooting some answers back to Adnews about Mobile TV and thought I would also share them here on the St Edmonds Lab blog.

Enjoy, Tim.

Do you think mobile TV will be popular in Australia?
Australians like anyone else experience idle time, waiting periods or plain uninspired boredom. Their mobile phone has become a life tool, a companion that is always on and always near. So why sholdn’t they want to use it for passive enjoyment such as watching mobile TV?

Do you think people want to watch TV on such a small screen?
I have seen teenagers listening to cheap handsets blaring badly compressed MP3s. It is amzing what lack of media quality people do put up with, as long as it fits their current mood and situation. Obviously whole cricket matches are unlikely to become hits on the phone screen. High-end handsets Koreans and Japanese enjoy today will add to the fidelity of the experience but haven’t arrived here yet.

What do you think networks will have to offer to make the technology popular? What do you think is the potential for advertising on such platforms?

First, TelCos shouldn’t act like content producers but rather open their gates for others to deliver the most popular format. TV production companies or sport executives will say that their established TV brands (familiar from the big screen) will reel in the viewers. This can be true for reality programming, catch up summaries or content that is complemetary. But why shouldn’t a talk-back show or a 24/7 format of “Hot or Not” video-self portraits prove to be the Aussie hit? On top of delivering sizzling bits that people are ready to watch anytime, networks should intertwine the content with relevant ads and a stable m-commerce application. This would allow consumers to act on Mobile TV content via their 3G connection, be that by uploading, voting or buying. These applications will build a critical commercial audience that the networks/TelCos can profit from.

Is price a key factor?
Absolutely yes. Look at how people don’t make video calls because of cost. Voice calls will become ever cheaper and therefore decrease in profitability for the networks. But that doesn’t mean flocks of consumers will be happy to compensate by paying more for mobile TV, an offer they might suspect to be nothing more than a shrunk telly. The investment for a compatible handset has to be made first and ideally this would include a free TV package.

How long do you think it will take for such technologies to be in Australia?
That depends on the politics of many parties. Handset producers, carriers, regulators, content providers and advertisers have to work together to turn mobile TV into part of an attractive mobile experience.

What would it take for it to become mainstream?
One easy-to-understand satisfying mobile experience, the SMS of mobile video so to say.

Come Clean, Johnny

Published by davidk April 23rd, 2007 in Uncategorized, Social Media, Advertising and Consumer Generated. 0 Comments

A colleague just sent me the below link which is another great example of what consumer participation can contribute to your online campaign. Come Clean is a neat, personalised video message ad application that includes a clothe-depraved guy and girl prancing about in jeans. But I think what this example (again) shows is what exactly this whole user-gen thing can add to your ad:

http://www.come-clean.com.au/DailyVidBlog/blog.aspx?714

Ohh.. isn’t it a little bit of a thrill to see something slightly naughty embedded in a video on a major brand’s site? Yes, it is (for now). And like everyone, we at the office continually raised the ante until the Come Clean app was ****ing out our copy.

So what happens now? Are Lee and their agency secretly hoping that renegade consumers like you and I dip into the dark arts, and conjure up sordid tales of office shenanigans? And that subsequent PR/journalism trawls through the videos for the most depraved, only to write it up and filter it to mainstream press? Of course.

So, as a marketer..
a) You get us consumers feeling like we’re involved.
b) You get us harnessing your platform, and considerable creativity, to share the experience with our fellow consumers (yet always thinking that we’re authoring the joke).
c) And you offer journalists readily indexed fodder for their next Web 2.1 meets return-on-engagement piece.

I think this is a fair and just trade in value :)

Virtual Me bringing avatars to reality TV

Published by davidk April 17th, 2007 in Uncategorized, Mobile, Gaming, Virtual Worlds, Convergence, Advertising and Second Life. 0 Comments

Although details are still sketchy, Electronic Arts has announced a partnership with Endemol (producers of Big Brother) intending to combine Second Life-type interactions with reality TV properties. The Guardian (subs required) says:

” Endemol chief creative officer Peter Bazalgette said it represented “a wholly different level” of interaction between viewers and programme makers.

He added that participants would be able to compete in their own “incredibly sophisticated” versions of Big Brother with other people from around the world and that there would be crossovers between the online worlds and the television series”.

The combination makes sense but clearly user-uptake of this kind of ‘converged interactivity’ will depend on its specific uses. EA obviously have access to some high quality avatar-making software (see make your own player options in EA Sports games) but Endemol will still be requiring users to vote with their mobile (for revenue reasons) - the whole TV + plus online avatar + mobile thing is a delicate balancing act. Still, it’s exciting. Branded spaces will be an obvious direction for the online 3D world so happy sponsors will soon see their logos delivered by Endomol into another medium. One question that comes to mind is - how will these Virtual Mes be allowed to interact with the brands?

Intel Ultra Mobile PC interfaces of the future

Published by davidk April 16th, 2007 in Mobile, Locative Media, Video, Convergence and Experiential. 0 Comments

Now and then it’s good to remind ourselves that the tried and true ways we interact with connected services, are actually always evolving. I find these future vision-type presentations interesting both from the perspectives of interface design and also emerging habits and usage. The Intel UMPC video below shows a range of different devices taking advantage of the new version of their mobile computing platform due to be announced this week. I think ambient devices, like the bracelets worn in the clip, are going to increasingly be part of our lives in different forms. This is an extension of the idea that your information, identity and content might be stored in one place but accessed and interpretted differently depending on your context (eg. a new email might make your bracelet glow while it knows you’re away from your PC, or do nothing if you’re sitting in front of it).

Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/v/HrzeiUvDZog

CK IN2 Second Life

Published by holdenm April 4th, 2007 in Virtual Worlds, Holden Mulgrave and Second Life. 0 Comments

ck12.jpg

Calvin Klein recently launched their new ck IN2U fragrances in Second Life so I popped by to take a peek. The launch includes custome animations from the perfume bottles that ‘initiate dialogue’ with my fellow avatars. There’s also a L$1 million competition running - oh what i could do with a cool million - Holden’s empire begins!

Anyway, interestingly, as Lori Singer, Calvin Klein Fragrances’ VP of Global Marketing, puts it in the press release, “ck IN2U speaks the language of a generation connected by technology — the aptly named technosexuals”. What is the language of the technosexual? Probably features quite a few cyber-expletives. She goes on to say: “They are the first generation to be defined more by their means of communication rather than fashion or music.”

This is kind of an unofficial tenet at St Edmonds Lab - the actual form of the message (amidst the noise!) can be nearly as persuasive as the message, or at least significantly contribute to what you’re trying to communciate. It’s like comms variation of form-meets-function, with potentially startling results in the digital world.

Check out some snaps of ck IN2U at my FlickR feed: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7374727@N05/

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