I’m headed to the 4A’s (American Association of Advertising Agencies) Conference in Dana Point, CA this week, where I’ll be posting some periodic updates. So be on the lookout for thoughts on how seriously they’ll be taking digital this year…

For more information on the conference, click here.

And definitely follow my updates on Twitter. They won’t be too frequent, but will certainly let you know what’s being discussed…

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The series Gossip Girl was returning to the CW network, and was under some pressure to deliver ratings numbers higher than the previous season’s. After realizing that hundreds of thousands of people were watching the show online (gasp!), they figured that last season’s gradual decrease in viewership from (2.5 million viewers to 1.8 million viewers) may have fallen victim to the nasty, horrible, clutches of the internet.

Seriously.

So the CW, to avoid the wrath of technology, decided to pull the series from the web entirely. No Gossip Girl for you. That’ll teach the internet. Now you ‘internet-people’ are going to have to watch it on the television.

Well, the results are in.

The premiere of the series scored 2.44 million viewers. It got 2.5 million last year. CW’s spinning this as a victory somehow, by saying that ratings for the series were 8% higher than the series it replaced.

Seriously.

Haven’t we learned anything, class?

The availability of your content on the internet is not why your content’s TV ratings have slipped. On the contrary, it’s probably why ratings didn’t slip more than they did. I find it painfully ironic that a show with the word ‘gossip’ in its title is ignoring — nay, shunning — the medium that could facilitate and channel the most buzz about it.

This show started out poorly. Even at its peak in its first season, it lost about half of the audience from its lead-in, America’s Next Top Model. And to make matter worse, Gossip Girl premiered after the ANTM’s season finale. It started off week, and didn’t get much better.

Gossip Girl’s 2007 Lead-In Audience Lost from America’s Next Top Model.

Here’s what the blogosphere’s looked like over the last few months:

See that spike after April 15th? That’s outrage and wonderment about why the CW was pulling this series from the web.

One thing I’ve learned is that in this world of many, many options, audiences will not tolerate inconvenience, and are more likely to punish those that prevent an enjoyable experience.

Case in point, check out what the #5 most searched-upon content is on isoHunt, a Bittorrent search engine:

Not exactly what the CW had in mind, methinks.

I’ve seen firsthand how a good content distribution strategy work wonders online — not only in terms of generating buzz, but generating ratings, not to mention ad revenue.

Hopefully, the continued ratings slide is enough to encourage other networks to keep making their content available, however and whenever people want to consume it. Even if it continues to be ad-supported, as long as it’s easy to get, it’s good enough.

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I’m on the advisory board for the IAB”s Leadership Forum on Digital Video, which is happening at The Roosevelt Hotel on May 5, 2008. The entire board has been working hard on ensuring that the program and speakers are of the highest quality. Personally, I’d like for this conference to start getting us closer to answering some questions, rather than just rehashing old conversations.

I’ll be part of the program as well, debating the value and future of broadcast vs. online video:

The Great Debate: Buy Broadcast? Buy Online? Buy Both?

There’s been plenty of discussion in the industry about a perceived tension between buyers of online and broadcast video. But is it real? Does it matter? Hear this point-counterpoint debate between two senior executives as they argue from opposing perspectives about the value and future of broadcast versus online.

Moderator: Patrick Keane, Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, CBS Interactive

Ian Schafer, CEO, Deep Focus

Steve Robinson, President & Founder, Panache

This should be interesting, folks.

And there should be a whole lot of other interesting things going on at this conference, so if you’re in any way involved with online video, from an agency, advertiser, or publisher side, it’s got my seal of approval.

Register here!

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Today I spoke on a panel @ Contentinople’s Content Delivery Economics on the topic of Monetizing Content Through Digital Syndication & Advertising. My fellow panelists were:

Moderator: Mark Kapczynski, VP of In-Stream, EyeWonder

Scott Bender, VP Advertising Sales, IGN Entertainment Consumer Group, Fox Interactive Media

Brian Wieser, SVP, Director of Industry Analysis, Magna Global, Interpublic

Patrick Mahoney, Senior VP Digital Media, Entertainment Studios

Ian Schafer, CEO & Founder, Deep Focus

Julian Zilberbrand, VP Group Director, Technology & Ad Operations, MediaVest Worldwide

Travis Howe, Senior Vice President, Digital Sales, Sony Pictures

This was a lively panel filled with discussion about the future of content monetization. Key takeaways?

* Convergence is closer than it’s ever been technologically, but is suffering from a bit of ‘Who Killed the Electric Car’ artificial growth-stunting.

* The model for the monetization of video content will ultimately be some combination of ad-supported and subscription revenue.

* There’s no ‘right way’ to buy online video. For some advertisers, it’s all about breadth and scale. For others, it’s all about depth and experience.

* Advertising networks may very well represent the best shot at the potential for online video content to match up against TV in terms of reach.

* Brand integration doesn’t scale well, but it’s what lots of advertisers are looking for, especially when working with the large media companies.

* The monetization of content is actually quite dependent upon the hardware and platforms it will be delivered to.

No big surprises here, but no one professes to have all the answers. But I suggest we get a heck of a lot closer before we start wondering about ‘what’s next’.

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As you may have read in today’s Advertising Age, Deep Focus is the sole beta partner in MySpace’s new ’self-serve’ platform.

According to the article:

A few months after opening its platform to outside application developers, the company plans to announce today that it will let advertisers directly manage, through a self-service tool, their branded profiles on MySpace.

This is a vast change from the tightly controlled, often laborious process brands previously had to endure to have a presence on the social network. It’s also a reaction, MySpace said, to advertisers’ desire to use the community more as a standing customer-relationship tool rather than a three-months-and-split campaign tool.

The move “is a fundamental shift in the way we view this business,” said Bryce Emo, senior VP-head of sales at MySpace. “We want advertisers and clients to have control so they can have a more active relationship with clients.”

Here’s the part of the article that had me scratching my head, though:

When asked about the importance of such a move, several interactive-agency execs suggested it was a good one in theory but questioned MySpace’s relevance. The social network’s growth has started to flatline, and the buzz around social nets has migrated to Facebook and other properties and tools.

Questioning MySpace’s relevance? How can you question MySpace’s relevance right now? They got 73 million unique visitors in March (according to ComScore). I’d say that any property that gets 73 million users in a month is pretty darn relevant. This is a classic case of people starting to think about ‘what’s next’ before they’ve figured out ‘what’s now‘.

MySpace is very relevant. And I think this move is a great one in terms of improving their product — for advertisers at least. If you didn’t read my AdAge DigitalNext blog post about what social networks need to do to be more relevant for advertisers (written before Deep Focus’ participation in the beta, BTW), now would be a good time.

Deep Focus will be using this tool to enhance our position as the leader in using social networks to successfully help brands build relationships with their customers (and find and grow new ones). In order for these tools to be effective, you need to have agencies that know what they are doing using them. As the sole beta partner in this program, we’re acquiring all of our intelligence now, and helping to shape this product into what we feel is the best possible conversational marketing solution for brands that are (and have yet to be) managing communities on MySpace.

Historically, brands have been forced to run ‘campaigns’ on MySpace. With this tool, we’ll be able to build better relationships for those brands.

This is what I meant when I said we need need to move from “impressions to lasting impressions.”

Want to know more? Email me at ian(at)deep-focus(dot)net, or just ask in the comments below.

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As each week passes, it seems another large agency (read: holding company-owned, >1000 people) is announcing their plans for ‘integration’. This week, it’s MindShare, as MediaPost reports.

As MindShare’s North American CEO Scott Neslund declared, “We’re making a very clear statement that the time has come to break down the silos.”

Intentions? Good. But will it blend?

Various other efforts from the large agencies have been announced in the past few weeks and months, with some announcing digital’s move to the forefront. Some, like MindShare, have taken the ‘media-neutral’ stance.

It seems that the rationale for all of this is positioning — positioning of the media agency as something that is more than reach + frequency buyers of volume. Positioning is one thing. Being able to back that up with legitimate creativity is another.

The problem with all this is that creativity was not a building block of any of these agencies. They were established to plan and buy tons of media (traditional media) back when the fragmentation of television from broadcast to cable made everyone freak out. It was no longer so easy to buy television, print, and outdoor, and more hands needed to be brought on-deck to scale.

To scale.

Scalability has been the foundation for all these agencies’ success. When you look at any of the holding companies’ balance sheets, the media businesses are the segments driving those profits and revenues.

And then came the web. And infinite fragmentation. As much as big new media tried to lead us down a ‘portal’ (broadcast) model, the web has mega-fragmented. And that fragmentation is practically infinite.

Ironically,infinite fragmentation has become the undoing of the very agencies that were born out of the ‘original’ fragmentation of media. What infinite fragmentation should do is force us to re-think the role that agencies play when it comes to scale. And while the uber-large agencies are re-thinking and transforming, it’s imperative that they understand their role.

It’s very, very difficult (dare I say, impossible) to scale in terms of breadth (of reach) and depth (of experiences) simultaneously.

As the social media explosion continues, we know just how important experiences can be (although not how we can apply metrics — but I’m working on that). But scaling reach and experiences at the same time is usually an exercise in futility for brands, not to mention their agencies.

So the question is, can big media agencies built upon breadth, deliver depth? Creativity needs to course through the veins of an agency of any size to apply it consistently to both strategy and tangible output.

In the opinion of this blogger and CEO, there’s no precedent of retrofitting something that large into what the industry is calling for. Brands need smaller, more nimble, more innovative agencies built as integrated problem solvers from the ground-up — with creativity as its religion and the ability to deliver experiences (with the results to back it up) as its practice.

The web can still be a reach medium. But as it continues to fragment, it’s costing more and more money to deliver that reach. And maybe that’s the role of the larger media agencies. If I’m a brand, I’ve already got my reach through television. I want to use the web to deliver the depth of an experience that brings consumers closer to me.

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• Ian thinks its only a matter of time before legit news starts breaking over twitter. Tech news anyway. It’ll be great to see a tweet sourced #
• Ian says, "follow @stevehall for hot ad:tech on twitter action." #
• Wired on fighting back against ’splogs’. Bravo. Ian hates splogs with a passion. http://snurl.com/24k4o #
• Retweeting @alisamleo: can’t believe AKQA sent out emails to college students telling them to talk up Target on FB but not to tell peopl … #
• Retweeting @alisamleo: question: how did you get people to join Pages? panel’s answer?? BANNER ADS! ahhhH! WHERE ARE THE WOMMA PEOPLE!! #
• Wife DVR-ing American Idol AND Biggest Loser at the same time. I’m left slingbox-ing the Mets game from the bedroom onto my mac. Irony. #
• @tombiro Squiddo spammers. Talk about big purple irony. #
• Ian would love a tweet if a Deep Focus campaign wins at the ad:tech awards… #
• From IanSchafer.com: Twitter Updates for 2008-04-15. http://tinyurl.com/67wwro #
• @stevebaker Social Media has given brands another potential opportunityto build relationships, only to blow it by running more campaigns. #

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I’ve turned off my daily Twitter digests. So if you really want them back, say so in the comments.

Otherwise, you can follow me at twitter.com/ischafer.

They’re good. Trust me.

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Kind of.

The IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) has made a document (PDF) available to help you help others understand the world of user-generated content and social media. It’s a basic primer that attempts to take someone from zero to dangerous in 17 pages.

According to the IAB:

“User-Generated Content and Social Media Advertising Overview, is a milestone document that helps marketers, agencies and publishers better understand how these platforms have fundamentally altered the digital experience for consumers and advertisers. The report defines UGC and social media, provides a detailed overview of the latest advertising opportunities, and details case studies of campaigns that have successfully utilized UGC and social media.”"

The document gives a very birds-eye view. What you can find in there will be within topics such as “What is User Generated Content?”, “What is Social Media?”, “Impact on the Advertising Landscape”, “Trends in UGC Advertising”, and “Challenges and Opportunities”.

If you’re new to interactive marketing, this PDF’s for you. It’s a 101 on opportunities out there.

I question many of the ‘case studies’ and examples used in the document, as they are not exemplary, nor are they even representative of the typical campaign. For example, why use “Fred Claus” as an example of a fan page on Facebook? Strange.

I can assure you that the content at the IAB Leadership Forum: User-Generated Content & Social Media
on June 2 in New York will have much more meat.

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• From IanSchafer.com: Self-Destructing IMs? http://tinyurl.com/3ktsvh #
• From IanSchafer.com: Closure on the McCain Girls. http://tinyurl.com/6q6sux #
• From IanSchafer.com: So What Do You Want Me To Blog More About? http://tinyurl.com/4rfv3g #
• From IanSchafer.com: See Me At Content Delivery Econmics in NYC On April 22nd. http://tinyurl.com/4bzo8v #
• From IanSchafer.com: Twitter Updates for 2008-04-14. http://tinyurl.com/5lx9gd #
• @Armano Ian thinks there’s something dually funny/disturbing about a Cougar being shot in Chicago. #

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