IanSchafer.com

Great Engagement, Great Storytelling, Great Results.

I try not to post too much about Deep Focus' work, but I couldn't resist this one.

Recently, we launched an online experience called Vroengard Academy to promote the next book in the Inheritance Cycle series (Eragon), by Christopher Paolini.

Fans of the books get to go through training exercises that prepare them for doing battle, just as the main character does in the book. The adventure lasts from June through September.

We launched the site in the first week of June and within just a week and a half we had over 15,000 registrants. The forums, blogs and Facebook pages dedicated to the game have seen a massive amount of posts with players helping each other figure out how to advance.

Random House, the publishers of the series, saw immediate sales increases of up to 30% directly attributable to the buzz that this experience has generated amongst the community and fans.

So who said you can't use storytelling to generate a measurable ROI?

Television: A Gray Anatomy?

From the 'why TV needs to do more with the internet' files, according to Broadcasting & Cable, the average age of a network TV viewer is 50 years old.

50 years old.

The 50+ set does not have the same kind of value to the average advertiser as 17-34 year-olds. Historically, that's where the money is. And while there is certainly significant spending power with audiences 50+ (thanks Paula), the networks still must not be happy with these numbers.

Silicon Alley Insider has some more analysis on this, including network by network numbers. To put it in perspective, The CW has the youngest average viewer age, at 34.

Apple ’ s iPhone, RIM, Microsoft, Google, and The Future of Mobile Browsing.

Life doesn't hand out second chances very often. But you have one now. Mobile browsing is changing the way consumers use the internet, and while that change has taken a while to materialize, I think what we're about to see is a mobile computing and browsing renaissance.

Lets look at some very telling information.

** The iPhone is currently responsible for .23% of all U.S. web traffic.

** Microsoft has said it expects license sales of its mobile operating system to outpace smartphone market growth in the next few years. It expects the market to quadruple in size in 3 to 4 years to around 400 million handsets. It will be launching a fully-featured version of its Mobile Internet Explorer browser this year.

** Google's Android Mobile OS is coming soon.

** As of Q1 this year, RIM (BlackBerry) has 44.5% of all smartphone marketshare -- a new OS is on the way, as well as 2 new phones (Bold & Thunder) that will make mobile web browsing a much fuller experience.

(chart courtesy of ars technica)

Are you prepared for what is on the way? Or even what is here now?

Here's a simple litmus test: Borrow an iPhone. Visit your brand's website.

If you can't navigate it easily, or it doesn't display in a way that makes you actually want to spend time on it, then you're not ready.

If you don't have an iPhone available, I'll save you some time. If your website uses Flash for any kind of navigation, fuhgeddaboudit. The iPhone doesn't display Flash. At least not yet.

If you've been at all involved with mobile over the last few years, you've likely been developing WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) sites. These sites were meant to be viewed on a small screen, like the one you might have on a flip-phone.

Well, phones are getting smarter. Literally.

Smartphones have bigger screens, better rendering capabilities, touch-sensing technology, and numerous other features that make those websites eyesores compared to what is possible now using higher resolution and CSS.

Phones are becoming more like laptops each and every day, and you need to be thinking about this now.

On July 11th, the new iPhone hits stores. By the end of the year, we'll have new RIM and Windows Mobile phones available. Heck, we may even see Google's Android on phones before year's end.

Are you going to wait for your consumers to have a disappointing experience once they get their hands on these phones? Or will you be there for them when they do? And if you're an agency, are you equipped to to handle this type of development?

And just wait until mobile social networking becomes one of the most popular activities on these devices. You'll wish you were ready now. Watch this Wikipedia page explode over the next 12 months.

Engage & Entertain: The Deep Focus/Yahoo! Study.

You asked for it, you got it.

As Multichannel News put it:

Viewers who go online to find out about new TV shows before they premiere are more likely to watch them regularly, and to even convince their friends to watch those programs, according to a study by Yahoo and Deep Focus.

The “Engage and Entertain” study also found that there’s a direct correlation between advertising for a show–whether on TV, through a portal or billboards–and online searches regarding a program. When asked what prompted respondents to go online to learn more about a TV show, 55% said because they “saw or heard an advertisement,” according to the study.

The research was conducted by Yahoo and Deep Focus to help TV studios figure out the best way to engage consumers online, even during the traditionally slow summer TV season.

The takeaway is that TV studios should use the Internet early on to build loyalty to new shows.

And, according to the study, TV studios should be engaging with consumers even before the new TV season begins. For example, viewers who seek out information on a show online before its actual TV premiere convince an average of 5.1 of their friends to watch that show, the survey found. The study also determined that people who seek information online about new shows before they debut are 46% more likely to watch the show regularly.

Below are the viewable, zoomable, printable, and shareable topline findings of The Deep Focus/Yahoo! Study, Engage & Entertain.

Turn TV Shows Into Brands - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Turn TV Shows Into Brands

Online Engagement For TV Shows By Genre - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Online Engagement For TV Shows By Genre

If you've got questions, let me have it.

The Twitter Stream at OMMA Social.

Follow the Twitter conversation going on at OMMA Social by clicking here.

Learn a bit about 'hashtags' in the process.

The How And Why of Selling a Twitter Sponsorship.

Back on May 28th, I announced that I would be auctioning off a sponsorship of my Twitter profile and feed -- for charity (The David Wright Foundation), of course.

Well, after a week of intense bidding, and a month of creative approvals, Metacafe won the auction with a bid of $1,082.01 (duking it out with VideoEgg) -- and the sponsorship is now live.

You'll note that I insisted that the words 'sponsored by' or 'advertisement' be featured on any Metacafe image, so as not to confuse anyone as to the nature or intent. I actually received the images without those accompanying words, so I added them myself in Photoshop and got Metacafe's approval.

News coverage of this auction reached far and wide, from Mashable to Adverganza to Adrants.

Ev Williams, one of Twitter's founders, even chimed in via a comment on Mashable:

...That said, we're cool with people monetizing their own use of Twitter, in general (as long as they're above-board about it). Because it's all opt-in, if people are annoyed or not getting value, unfollow is easy.

As a side note, and for the record, while we don't mind the community brainstorming, we're not in desperate search for a business model. We have some ideas we'll try out when the time is right, but Twitter isn't going to go away for lack of one any time soon (nor will reliability issues be solved with one)...

From my perspective, the reason for me doing this was clear -- to start a conversation, get marketers looking at emerging technologies, and collaborate on finding ways to monetize them. As I've said before, consumer behavior is evolving faster than advertising, and we run the risk of today's best new technologies running out of funding before finding monetizable solutions.

From Metacafe's perspective, according to Michelle Cox of Metacafe:

Living in the world of social media as we at Metacafe do, we’re always thinking about new ways to reach and engage our target audiences – entertainment enthusiasts, short-form video creators, and advertising agencies and brand marketers. Sponsoring Ian’s Twitter feed for a month is a great way to do just this. And, hey, the money goes to a good cause! We first learned of the opportunity by reading Ian’s blog post, and it immediately struck us as a pretty cool idea. All of us in the digital entertainment and social media industries are focused on figuring out the monetization puzzle – in our business, we work tirelessly to help our clients meet their marketing objectives with innovative campaigns well suited to the short-form video entertainment environment. And, in this case, we appreciate Ian helping us meet ours through this first-of-its-kind sponsorship. Tweet Tweet!

Well said.

What do you think about the way that I went about doing this? About how it turned out? About the amount that was paid?

Lets keep the conversation going, shall we? Comment away...

Random Thought on Marketers ’ (Lack Of) Twitter/Social Media Usage.

How come every time I go to a developers' conference Twitter lights up, but when I go to a marketing conference there are no tweets at all? Why is there so little blog coverage of what goes on at these marketing-focused conferences?

I think that's the problem...not enough marketers -- or even agency folks -- are using social media technologies and platforms (other than party pics on myspace and facebook, of course). They should be blogging. Microblogging. Sharing.

How can you innovate if you're not making innovation a part of your life?

Twitter This: Me @ OMMA Social on Monday, June 23rd.

I'll be performing live at OMMA Social at 4:15pm on Monday, June 23rd at the Yale Club (getting back at them for not accepting my application), speaking on a panel devoted to social media metrics.

I've sat on the sidelines for this discussion way too long. Seen too many panels on social media metrics that didn't address them at all. I'm hoping to do all I can to change that with this panel.

Here are the lascivious details:

4:15pm: Valuable by Any Measure: Metrics that Mean Something in Social Media

A soft drink advertiser boasts about the brand’s thousands of Facebook fans; a car advertiser is thrilled that its new car model is the talk of the blogosphere. Certainly this interest in their brands is better than the alternative, but what does it all mean? The search for metrics that mean something in social media.


Moderator: Jodi McDermott, Director of Product Management for Widgets, Clearspring Technologies

Heidi Browning, SVP, Client Solutions, MySpace

Blake Cahill, SVP Marketing, Visible Technologies

Ian Schafer, CEO, Deep Focus

Adam Weinroth, Director of Product Marketing, Pluck Corp

Stephanie Pike, Strategic Program Manager for Digital Marketing, Circuitcity.com

Be there, and be part of the solution.

And take the discussion to Twitter, people.

Coverage of My Appearance at WidgetWebExpo.

Advertising Age's Abbey Klaasen reports from my panel at WidgetWebExpo, and captures the essence of the conversation. Weirdly, as the only one who actually spends money on the panel, I was put in the position of having to remind everyone that widgets are great, social media is great, but we need to figure out ways to not just use it as a public relations tool, but as an ad medium as well.

Abbey called out something I said (so I don't have to quote myself -- or is it MySelf?) which pretty much sums it up:

"Yes, it's about conversation, collaboration but it has to be about compensation sometime. In order for these to exist they have to make money," said Schafer. "I think there needs to be a conversation about the compensation and hopefully collaboration will net a result to make sure [the services] keep happening."

MySpace Homepage Redesign, Starring Batman.

MySpace Homepage 6-19-08, originally uploaded by Penny Kim.

I really, really like the MySpace redesign. I'm just not a big fan of the execution of The Dark Knight homepage takeover. I don't know...I guess I was just expecting...more.

What do you think?