Delivering the keynote address at the B&C/Multichannel News OnDemand Summit June 10 in Philadelphia, Cablevision Advanced Platform's Senior Vice President Barry Frey outlined the company's success in pioneering advertising via Video On Demand with companies such as Disney Parks and U.S. Navy. Frey also underscored the MSO's plan to allow for same-day insertion of advertising and warned the cable industry to learn the separate lessons of the music business and newspaper businesses in neither overprotecting content nor giving it all away for free.
The transcript of the speech follows...
Good Afternoon. Hopefully
you've enjoyed your lunch and our short video presentation. The video showed some of the original vision
for VOD and advanced advertising and today we'll talk about some of the actual fruition
of where we are today as kicked off by my friend Tinkerbelle.
We're certainly now in an on demand world as predicted, but
nonetheless we're here. So let's talk today
regarding how operators, programmers and advertisers can work best together to
grow our businesses.
You know, I started writing these remarks in a very demanding
environment. I started after sending e-mails,
tweeting, IM ing my kids on Facebook (yes they allow me to be their friends) and
then watching a broadcast of "Meet the Press"!
And I was doing this all on demand at 38,000 feet flying from NY to LA! Amazing!
Quick poll: How many of you folks have used wireless web
connections on demand on planes? Who
likes the idea of wireless on planes? Let
me see. Who actually thinks it disturbs
the last bastion of peace that we can all enjoy?
So, EVEN up in the sky change is upon us. Today more than
ever, technology continues to innovate and create new media choices and products
for the consumer. If these products are
good consumers will use them. And when
consumers start using them advertisers need to follow.
This changing environment brings about some real challenges
and some real opportunities to work with the ad community in this on demand
world!
So let's discuss today how the Cable Industry has leadership
in our grasp. But, first, let's take a quick view at some other industries that
mishandled change.
As we know, the music industry sat on the sidelines of
change didn't react boldly or quickly and therefore saw a huge disruption if
not destruction of their business.
On the other hand, the publishing business, rushed in probably
too quickly blindly or perhaps nearsightedly giving away their content. Now they're trying to get that publishing cat
back in some sort of subscription bag but it won't be easy.
The winning position is to acknowledge change embrace it and
have the vision to step in at the right moment with the right strategy.
Now Cable has begun to create new products and revenue
streams tied to customer value. Yet we
need to do more.
And as an industry we have started the process of embracing
paradigm shifts. Yet we need to do more.
And programmers and operators have started using new
technologies to deliver advertiser value. Yet we need to do more.
In this regard, at Cablevision, we believe we've started the
process of doing more!
We're focusing sharply on the ad community and have worked
hard to develop advanced advertising products and partner relationships that
may provide some examples and learning.
We have been guided by some core principles that may apply
to many in the room:
- We're
exploring new revenue streams that help differentiate us from other media. - We're
studying how the web has made money, then replicate and improve upon it - And then
we try to tap into customer use of VOD and ITV and empower our thirty
second units.
All while listening to viewers and advertisers and deploying
new technologies in order to build desirable products.
Premier product
Branded Advertiser channel
- Totally
branded environments - Direct
Tune, Channel #, position in guide - Video
galleries for on demand video, - Photos,
text, displays, polling - Dialogue
with consumers - ***Pre
populated lead generation system
- Scores
of advertisers - Unilever,
Mars, Sony, Auto Companies, US Navy - Visits,
impressions, uniques, ff, rw, pause, lengths of visits - Census
based-Nielsen 800 boxes, pulse of 18 million NY'ers - In
TiVo/DVR world, 7-12 minutes engagements - Click
to Call, press remote, 5 minutes, 23%
Expensive trips - Navy,
officers staff store fronts
So we expose viewers to products, brand attributes then they
engage and take action.
Here's the beauty in this. We have opened, developed, and
closed the sales continuum for marketers!
You see, historically television first created awareness for a brand,
product or service, and then print media gave the product details, beauty
shots, in depth descriptions, etc. Radio
followed in driving messages home to targeted audiences then people would walk
into a store and take action. Now, we
are doing all of this via television. We
have taken the most powerful medium and made it even more powerful!
And to continue on TV power we drive consumers to these branded
ad channels via an array of promotional and navigation elements in which our
Power 30s lead the charge! Unlike your
father's 30 second commercial or those of broadcast, our 30's (we've
trademarked them Power 30s) lead to long term engagement are interactive and
deliver great advertiser content on demand!
On Demand advertising is NOW coming into its own! This was
predicted years ago in an AD AGE cover story. In fact, the TV editor led her
story "If you don't know VOD....you're DOA!"
This prescient and prolific pundit will now proffer poignant panel thoughts
as Claire Atkinson, now with Broadcasting & Cable moderates the panel after
this. Hi Claire!
Another focus, at Cablevision and across our industry, has
been the enabling of more relevant and measurable commercials or commonly
referred to as addressable advertising.
We've proudly deployed the largest addressable execution in
the country currently at 500K homes and by soon to be in over a million!
We saw the POWER of this when we tested our own triple play
products in this addressable environment, we experienced double-digit lifts in sales.
This works by blind matching, geographic and demographic
household characteristics on an anonymous aggregated basis (whew!) with
advertisers' specific marketing segmentations.
Individual households can now see different more relevant commercials.
Of the many advertisers we're working
with our smart phone client has commercials appearing in households with
business people received business application for the phone and in houses with
youth texting capabilities were showcased.
In fact, many advertisers from Universal McCann, Starcom and
Group M have welcomed this more advanced measurement and increased tune time
for these relevant commercials.
And what's great is that viewers stay longer with the more
relevant commercials! Makes sense!
Now for years we've all thought pre-roll advertising for VOD
would be the great leap forward with targeted content and virtually must see
commercials.
Unfortunately, we've had a series of stale commercial spots,
baked into VOD content for months at a time.
The commercials lack timely relevance and this has become an arduous and
disappointing process.
For VOD advertising to succeed, this needs to change. And change it will! Now earlier today, we
announced that Cablevision has sliced this time gap! We will be offering advertisers the ability
to insert pre roll VOD commercials and re-fresh within 24 hours. We call this "same-day insertion" And we're
also delivering all of the vital click-stream data.
- There'll
be more products and more to come from us and you in this room!
- plus
more empowering of the thirty second unit - Soon, at
Cablevision we'll be saving content, requesting leads and even soon. - Offering consumers to buy a product
- all on
demand - all
from the thirty! Or I should say
the "Power 30"
As an industry we
- should
be studying the data, - listening
to viewers and - optimizing
the experiences from these learning's.
For example, at Cablevision; we continually hold focus
groups that bring to bear many insights including how sophisticated today's consumers
are! For instance, when they see our advertiser
channels, they know they're being sold to! Yet their reaction is "Give me something that
is relevant, informative and entertaining... and I will stay, participate and
take action."
Now, many of our operator and programmer friends are taking
the right steps in this arena. Innovation
and vision are both taking place throughout your organizations and it must
continue.
Canoe Ventures for example is pushing the agenda to organize
- Advanced
advertising and data opportunities on a large scale basis
And speaking of advanced advertising, I'd like to paraphrase
a recent artfully written review in one of the media trades "Marketers are
sweet on advanced advertising because it spikes the punch of TV commercials
with the bracing liquor of quantifiable data and true brand engagement". Nice ay?
So here are a few things to keep in mind:
1. We can all make
our thirties even more powerful as they become interactive, addressable and offer
gateways to dialogue, engagement and action.
2. Let's push the
agenda in our organizations to invest in new technologies, innovate, test,
deploy and address all of our customer needs. Acting when prudent!
We must continue to innovate as innovative companies can lose
their way. A little known fact about
the recording industry (told to me by radio legend Norman Wain) is that it was very
innovative. After the recession RCA
Victor built their recording business by offering an alternative music source to
radio broadcasting. All of their ads and
record labels were stamped with the following slogan: The music you want-when
you want it---sound familiar?
3. And our third
point Deliver especially in tough economic times real ROI and true accountability
to our advertising partners.
And most importantly, realize we're working in television! There
is nothing like the sight, sound, motion and emotion of TV to create brands desire
for brands and reasons to act on brands.
Now, much focus has been on the web and Google as ad
vehicles, but here's the reality as consumers:
- The internet
can help you with a product that you know about and need - But
television can uniquely and powerfully bring you a new reason to try a new
brand, product or service
This is what truly drives the economy and is what the
country needs today!
Let's feel great about TV!
As recent studies from Nielsen and Ball State University have indicated TV is still by
far the dominant medium, accounting for 99% of all video viewership. Even among 18-24 year olds, it was 98 percent! Furthermore, TV viewing is still rising up 7%
from 08 over 07!
So in summary, it's critical for cable TV to continually
show real leadership in this digital age and understand all of our customer's
needs. For if we are listening as good listeners
and as good leaders our road map is clear.
Winston Churchill said during the war "Great leadership is
not necessarily pushing people in a direction but it is keenly understanding where
they need to go and helping them to get there."
We in cable can listen, can keenly understand, can innovate and we can lead!
Now back to the screen or "Back to the Future" of advertising
which is here today! Thank you!
