Is Streaming Sustainable for The Long Term? Look Back 30 Years for A Clue

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 6 hours ago

Starting in the mid-1990s and well for a decade after, you could hear critics and consumers complaining that they did not really need the availability of 200 to 300 TV networks on their pay TV service.

They regularly watched a lot less -- maybe 10-12 channels at most. And no surprise -- they wanted to pay less. And the associated phrase "a la carte" kept being floated. 

Now almost 30 years later, we have what consumers have long desired, mostly: Individual media companies' streaming apps for consumers to pick and choose.

The question remains: Is this what consumers want? Almost.

Big legacy TV-network-based media are now struggling to bring all this to consumers -- with billions in annual losses collectively for services like Disney+, Paramount+, Peacock, AMC+ and all the rest.

After starting up these businesses in recent years -- amid special launch promotions and low pricing -- things could be dramatically changing. 

Think higher pricing, more advertising-messaging on streamers, and perhaps more limited TV/movie content. The latter comes from companies realizing they need to generate more revenue from third-party media companies.

Veteran media and advertising analyst, Brian Wieser recently referenced this concept -- starting in the 1990s -- when then Senator John McCain advocated the idea of 'a la carte' selling tv networks to consumers.

Interestingly, at the time, TV network executives rebuffed these calls for change -- saying that consumers were getting a great deal where they had access to more than 200 networks for around $50 to $60 a month.

Furthermore, they said  if these networks were sold separately, consumers could end up paying more. For example, if consumers didn't watch sports channels, they would not sign up for say ESPN. 

In turn, that would mean TV owners would see a drop in overall subscribers for specific channels from say 90 million to around 55 million, perhaps. And that would mean, media companies would get paid less carriage revenue from pay TV distributors.

While modern streaming has given consumers a lot of flexibility -- lower cost, easy access/cancellation, and tons of original and library products -- it may not be truly ‘a la carte’, since large, legacy media companies amass all their networks and programming in one streaming app package.

Problem is consumers are increasingly focused on just current or new movies and TV shows. Thus there is lots of churn, canceling and then re-signing back on to a service.

Overall the business is still plagued with billions in losses. So how long is this sustainable? 

Media Wastage: How to Reduce Inefficiencies in Advertising Spending

 

Media Wastage: How to Reduce Inefficiencies in Advertising Spending

Amira Di Costanzo

 

Publish date

July 14, 2023

Channel

Thought Leaders

    

The global marketing and advertising scenario is quite complex nowadays. Increasingly expensive platforms, progressively difficult placements to maintain, coupled with increasingly demanding and informed consumers. Those factors can be a headache, especially for small and medium-sized marketing budgets.

One of the most important challenges (at least from a budget perspective) is optimizing marketing efforts.

Despite creating and executing a wide variety of campaigns, from conventional approaches to the most creative and out-of-ordinary experimentations, the need for optimal resource utilization remains crucial. Are your campaigns reaching your intended audience, or are your resources dissipating into the vast expanse of the digital sphere?

In this column, I intend to address one of the most significant issues potentially eroding your resources, known in advertising as media wastage.

The digital domain is flooded with irrelevant and low-quality advertisements. Addressing this issue could streamline your marketing strategies and maximize your advertising budget's effectiveness in an increasingly crowded digital arena.

However, the solution to media wastage is not simply about budget adjustments or ensuring the relevance of your advertisements to the audience. Instead, it requires a holistic approach to ensure your brand stands out amid the cacophony of advertisements and consistently connects with the right audience.

What Is Media Wastage?

At its core, media wastage represents the portion of your marketing budget expended on reaching individuals who do not belong to your target audience. It is analogous to ordering a triple chocolate cake for a friend allergic to chocolate, an evident misapplication of resources.

Media wastage is a pervasive and serious issue, affecting diverse online campaigns, whether pay-per-click or video ad campaigns. In 2022, an alarming $5.6 billion of digital ad spend was squandered, making up 41% of the total digital ad expenditure. This wastage is like nearly half of the digital ad budget vanishing into thin air.

Media wastage extends beyond monetary concerns. Advertising juxtaposed against non-aligned content can diminish purchase intent, while correctly aligned adverts with relevant content can enhance purchase intent by 8%.

By non-alignment, we refer to a disconnection from your target audience's interests and expectations. You might wonder how much inefficiencies off-target ads can cause. In marketing, each dollar counts. When we talk about billions wasted annually, we point to a considerable sum that could have yielded potential returns.

Minimizing Media Wastage in Advertising Campaigns

Marketers should not be limited to flexing creative muscles or keeping up with trends -- resource management is also essential. As highlighted earlier, every dollar spent on non-targeted marketing initiatives is a dollar that could have otherwise been invested in crafting more specific, impactful campaigns, refining your product, or enhancing customer experiences.

Trying to reach customers across all of the digital landscape is impossible. Instead of casting your net indiscriminately, the key is to target the right persona, at the right moment, with the most appropriate message. This brings us to the first step in reducing media wastage: precise audience definition.

Understanding your audience serves as a compass for navigating marketing complexity. It is essential to understand their interests, behaviors, demographic characteristics and interaction patterns with your brand.

With a clear picture of your target audience, the next task is to leverage data-driven targeting. In the marketing sphere, knowledge enables the optimization of ad spending with insights based on data. Your audience insights should inform your targeting strategies. This should be done with a focused approach that minimizes the likelihood of wasting resources on individuals unaligned with your brand.

After delineating your audience, the next critical task is aligning your content with customer expectations. Eschew generic content and one-size-fits-all strategies in favor of tailored creativity for niche audiences, which is proven to foster more positive engagement. After all, everyone appreciates a personal touch. Broader, generalized approaches only lead to more media wastage.

But mastering audience definition and data-driven targeting is not enough. In fact, it is vital to ensure that your customers can find you. This requires the introduction of our third fundamental element: contextual advertising.

Aligning your ad content with the user's viewing environment enhances the relevance of your ads, thereby increasing their potential for engagement. This congruence diminishes the risk of your messages being disregarded or, worse, perceived as out of context.

We then progress into the domain where technology intersects with creativity -- programmatic advertising. Utilizing AI's capabilities to automate the buying and selling of targeted ad slots, these platforms facilitate precision targeting of customers. By analyzing vast quantities of data in real time, programmatic platforms can ensure your ads are delivered to the correct audiences, at the right moments and on the appropriate platforms, thereby significantly reducing media wastage.

Nevertheless, your task does not end once your campaigns are underway. You should monitor your campaigns' performance regularly to adjust them. Identify the platforms, ad types and messages that produce the highest results and allocate your budget to augment these high-performing elements. Moreover, assess where your media spend is being wasted and implement strategies to curb such losses in future campaigns.

In this context, retargeting strategies can serve as an effective tool. By presenting ads to users who have previously engaged with your brand, your efforts are directed at individuals who already know your products or services. This familiarity increases their likelihood of converting, thereby minimizing wasted impressions.

So, fellow marketers, the aforementioned techniques should certainly guide you towards reducing media wastage. However, it's critical to remember that these strategies merely scrape the surface. The crux of minimizing waste is embedded in sophisticated marketing strategies. Prepare to delve into some of the most efficacious tactics deployed by marketing experts in the ensuing section.

Delving Deeper: Strategies to reduce Media Wastage

We have examined the foundational aspects of minimizing media wastage, exploring basic principles and general rules of thumb. Now, we shall delve further into the professional realm, revealing how adept marketers mitigate media wastage.

Expanding your Ad Toolkit: Richer Ad Formats

In the crowded digital advertising marketplace, your ad is one of many vying for attention. Amidst this pervasive influx of information, ad fatigue and ad blindness have emerged as significant challenges for marketers. Consumers have developed such a high capacity at ignoring ads that it has become instinctual.

The issue is not that these users are physically incapable of seeing these ads; rather, the ads fail to strike a chord and hence remain overlooked and forgotten. Further exacerbating this issue is the diminishing novelty of social media ads, which leaves users longing for something more innovative and engaging.

Is there a solution to this mounting apathy? Investment in superior, diverse and richer ad formats.

Although full-screen ads are frequently used, they are often more of an annoyance rather than appreciated due to their intrusive nature. The real game-changer lies in adopting rich media formats. These offer users an immersive and innovative experience that distinguishes them from traditional ads.

Your goal is not only to be seen, but also to be remembered when you incorporate more diversity and richness into your ad formats.

Need an example? One of the first things that comes to mind is 3D ads. These interactive advertisements add a whole new dimension to conventional banners. Consider showcasing the latest car model in your ad: Rather than a static image or a brief video, the user can interactively examine the vehicle's interior in a 3D space, zooming in and truly appreciating the model's aesthetics.

However, the journey into rich media doesn't end with 3D. Augmented Reality Virtual try-on banners are gaining traction among marketers and consumers alike. A fashion brand, for example, could use AR to allow consumers to virtually try on a pair of sunglasses or a new outfit right from the comfort of their homes. This creates a personalized, interactive experience that engages the user and provides them with a realistic feel of the product.

Lastly, there are Gamified Ads, a term that describes experiences that combine advertising and gaming. This concept elevates ad engagement by transforming ads into mini-games. For instance, suppose you're an energy drink brand. Instead of a typical ad, you create a mini-game in which users race against the clock, collecting energy drinks to increase their speed. This approach is entertaining, interactive and incorporates your product into a memorable experience.

Optimizing Ad Placement: The Value of a High-End Distribution Network

In the grand strategy game of advertising, the positioning of your assets -- in this instance, your ads -- can significantly sway the results. Sure, crafting high-quality content is essential, but it's equally critical to ensure it's positioned in engaging, relevant environments that resonate with your brand.

Social media platforms have become the default routes for ad distribution for many marketers. However, these platforms are double-edged. While they provide access to vast audiences, their very breadth can lead to your brand disappearing in the constant flurry of content that engulfs users.

So, what's the solution to this? It lies in -, such as high-end publisher sites. But why, you might ask? Consider this: Users often scroll aimlessly through social media due to the overwhelming amount of irrelevant content they encounter. Conversely, users on news sites scroll more deliberately, attentively absorbing the content displayed to them.

By associating your brand with high-end environments, you enhance your ads' visibility and foster an impression of quality and trust with users. The outcome? Your ads rise above the noise, leaving a lasting impression rather than simply being another fleeting point on the user's content radar.

The investment may be high, but with the right audience selection and contextual content matching, the improvement in the return on your ad spending is often significant.

Beyond Impressions: Embracing Attention-Based Measurement

As the digital advertising landscape transforms, so too must our strategies for gauging campaign success. Impressions and viewability were once the gold standard, but as we move into the modern era of advertising, these metrics are no longer sufficient.

In the quest for a zero-waste media strategy, it's becoming increasingly crucial for marketers to monitor not only where their ads are displayed but also if they're genuinely capturing consumer attention.

This requirement has prompted a shift across the industry -- the adoption of attention as the new universal metric. It's not about whether your ad was viewed, but if it made the viewer stop, engage, and most importantly, pay attention.

This brings us to outcome-based buying. This strategy prioritizes the measurable impact of an ad, concentrating on meaningful engagement rather than mere exposure. This shift is facilitated by advanced eye-tracking technology, which is revolutionizing how we measure ad effectiveness. The new attention metrics include in-view time, exposure time, and screen real estate. These parameters offer a window into the time a user spends actually absorbing an ad, providing advertisers with invaluable insights to refine their campaigns.

This transition's ripple effects extend beyond mere tracking and reporting. The shift towards attention-centric metrics enables marketers to purchase media based on attention rather than impressions, resulting in less squandered resources.

By embracing attention-centric measurement, you're shifting towards a deeper comprehension of your ads' effectiveness. It aids in pinpointing what's effective, what's not, and where adjustments are needed to more effectively seize your audience's attention.

Summing Up: Sealing the Leak on Media Wastage

I hope I've equipped you with some noteworthy insights. I've untangled the complex webs of media wastage, illuminating the obstacles it poses and strategies to surmount them. As marketers, our goal is to maximize impact while minimizing wastage. Gaining knowledge of how to achieve this is the first step.

I've delved into how marketing experts are capitalizing on larger, more enriched ad formats, investing in high-end distribution environments, and refocusing their attention from impressions and viewability to attention-based metrics. All these tactics are directed towards one ultimate objective -- sealing the leak on media wastage.

While the steps might seem complicated, the payoff is a productive, engaging and cost-effective marketing strategy.

It's about transitioning from an all-encompassing approach to a more accurate, targeted strategy that garners attention and triggers action.

Posted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership self-publishing platform

 

 This is a good read to share with local-direct automotive clients as a means to capture the business of Gen Y&Z as they enter the marketplace! Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

AUTOMOTIVE

OnStar Helps General Motors Emphasize Technology

• by Tanya Gazdik , Today

As General Motors transitions to an all-electric future, OnStar is playing a key role in helping its parent brand go from automaker to tech company. 

On July 24, OnStar is reintroducing the 25-year-old brand with the launch of a new ad campaign and brand platform: “Better Never Stops” from Campbell-Ewald.

Today, OnStar offers an expanded portfolio of digital products and connected services in four main customer-benefit categories: safety, entertainment, control and drives.  

The service enables users to reach an advisor in their vehicle, on their phone or at home. Movies, music, podcasts and in-vehicle Apps are available from any seat.

Users can connect to their vehicle from anywhere with the vehicle mobile app and can get real-time maps, hands-free driving and off-road upgrades. 

The campaign aims to showcase each GM vehicle brand and the breadth of the technologies and features that OnStar provides.

This reinforces the idea that GM vehicles from Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac can get better over time with the added ingredient of OnStar, through the expanded portfolio of digital products and connected services it offers.

OnStar partnered with Campbell Ewald and Impossible Objects production on the creative. The ad was shot with the same technology used in Hollywood on shows like "The Mandalorian," allowing efficiency while still having dynamic scenes to execute the creative, according to the agency.

Many of OnStar’s tech features are exclusive to GM vehicles, which aim to make them even more compelling to customers,  says Laura Thornton, marketing director, GM Digital Business and OnStar.

“While OnStar is not currently available on non-GM vehicles, the OnStar Guardian app is available to any customer in the U.S. and Canada, giving them access to OnStar and its advisors, and can be used inside and outside any vehicle,” she says.

The company is targeting a younger customers with the effort.

“While we believe most demographics can find value in OnStar’s features, this new campaign is targeted towards technologically minded Gen Z and millennial drivers,” Thornton tells Marketing Daily. “This audience is seeking technology that restores balance in their busy days – offering convenience, entertainment, and more, in their daily grind.”

This open-ended multichannel campaign will run across strategic media partners including video streaming services like Roku, Hulu, YouTube and more, as well as social media, digital advertising, Digital Out of Home and audio streaming (Pandora and Spotify).

As an industry leader, OnStar has been synonymous with safety for more than 25 years, she says.

“This campaign is laying the foundation for OnStar’s evolution,” Thornton says. “Following extensive research, OnStar is evolving its brand with the tag of ‘Better Never Stops,’ where OnStar now stands for safety as well as the full-suite of in-vehicle experiences.”

 The Washington Post

The creator economy was already exploding. Then Hollywood went on strike.

The last big strikes reshaped the movie business and fueled the rise of reality TV. The latest walkout likely will help turn established actors into TikTok stars — and vice versa.

By Drew Harwell

 and 

Taylor Lorenz

July 23, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Strikers outside the Netflix headquarters in Hollywood this month. (Sean Scheidt for The Washington Post)

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The historic double strike that is paralyzing Hollywood could supercharge the creator economy, the wildly popular market of online influencers and video makers who increasingly rival industry titans for money, attention and cultural power.

The fast-growing cast of amateur and professional creators — chefs, comedians, models, musicians and many others — already attracts tens of millions of fans on platforms like YouTube and TikTok without the resources or support of more established mass media.

Now, as American film and TV production grinds to a halt, possibly for months, they stand at the center of a major shift that could change entertainment and further blur the lines between traditional and digital fame.

Studios and producers are scrambling to recruit creators to help fill a content void, stoking tensions over scab work and changing styles of storytelling. But striking actors and writers are increasingly less reliant on Hollywood, too, experimenting with new ideas on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Twitch in ways that could net them lasting followings — if not steady paychecks — that go beyond traditional industry success.

The last Hollywood strike radically reshaped the media landscape by fueling the rise of unscripted content, like documentary series and reality TV shows, that were cheaper to make and easier to mass-produce, such as “Cops” in the late ’80s and “The Celebrity Apprentice” in 2008.

“The Celebrity Apprentice” in 2005. (Courtesy of NBC-TV/Kobal/Shutterstock)

The ongoing walkout of tens of thousands of actors and writers, Hollywood’s first double strike in 63 years, could have similarly sweeping ripple effects, by potentially eroding Hollywood’s institutional advantages and elevating a new generation of stars.

Creators once saw online virality largely as a way to break into established TV or movie gigs. But some now make so much money selling sponsored content, merchandise or monthly subscriptions that traditional entertainment, with its uncertain paychecks and relevance, can seem like less of a draw.

 

Strike TV Program Forecast: Cloudy with a Chance of Unscripted TV

• by Wayne Friedman , July 21, 2023

If the writers' and actors' strikes last well into the new TV season, starting in September,  many broadcast networks' schedules will be affected -- but perhaps only to a smaller degree in terms of historical estimates of time spent among scripted TV series.

Analysis of networks' fourth-quarter 2022 programming reveals that CBS had 21% of its time viewed coming from scripted TV series in terms of first-run airings, according to MoffettNathanson Research. ABC came in at 14%, with NBC at 11%.

Only 5% of Fox Television Network's viewing time came from scripted TV a year ago. The network gets a massive 81% share of its total viewing from sports programming -- from content including NFL and Major League Baseball.

Research from a year ago shows that unscripted programming actually has a greater share of total day time viewed among CBS, ABC, and NBC -- getting 36% 54%, and 52%, respectively.

Comparatively, unscripted -- and other non-scripted TV content -- has a much larger share of time viewed when it comes to cable TV networks.

Paramount Global cable networks are at a 94% share, while Warner Bros. Discovery is at 74%; NBCUniversal, 51%; and Walt Disney 50%.

Mid-size cable groups -- AMC Network and A&E Networks -- are at 97% and 92%, respectively.

In addition, TV advertising monetization for cable networks is pushed by rerun programming of all types -- scripted, unscripted and otherwise.

Robert Fishman, media analyst of MoffettNathanson Research, writes: “The strikes should have less of an impact across cable networks than broadcast networks as reruns already drive most of the viewership across every company’s portfolio.”

Overall, many network prime-time schedules have been “reworked to exclude most new scripted content, instead leaning heavier on unscripted programming and reruns.”  

This also includes reruns of originals that ran streaming platforms and other cable networks.

An example of this is Paramount Network’s hit show “Yellowstone,” where reruns will run on CBS' prime-time schedule this fall.

Overall, Fishman says, a strike period that is long in duration will see current linear TV double-digit viewing declines accelerating:  “The loss of scripted content...  could lead to greater declines of an even more dramatic nature.”

 

Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft Agree to AI Safeguards Urged by White House

• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, July 21, 2023

The Biden administration reached a deal with big tech companies Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI to put more safeguards around artificial intelligence (AI), including the development of a watermarking system to help users identify AI-generated content. The effort aims to curb misinformation and other risks that stem from the technology. 

Seven U.S. companies, which also includes AI startups Anthropic, and Inflection, have voluntary committed to work to ensure their AI products are safe before releasing them. Some of the commitments call for third-party oversight of the workings of commercial AI systems. Thought it's not yet known the names of details around the audit system that will hold companies accountable.

The increase in commercial investment in generative AI (GAI) tools from Google Bard, Microsoft Bing Search, as well as newly announced platforms from Newswire and others that can write convincingly human-like text and create new images and other media out of descriptive words and photographs has brought on concerns about the spread of disinformation and falsehoods. 

The companies have also committed to methods for reporting vulnerabilities to their systems and to use digital watermarking to help distinguish between real and deepfakes, which are AI-generated images. The companies also agreed to publicly report flaws and risks in their respective technology, including effects on fairness and bias.

The White House said that the commitment announced today is part of a broader commitment by the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure AI is developed safely and responsibly, and to protect Americans from harm and discrimination. A Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights also was developed to safeguard Americans’ rights and safety, and U.S. government agencies have increased efforts to protect Americans from the risks

The news comes days after Microsoft and Meta announced an extended alliance to expanded an artificial intelligence (AI) partnership with the release of the new large language model (LLM), Llama 2, free for research and commercial use. 

The U.N. Security Council earlier this week held its first formal meeting to discuss potential economic and security impact from using AI. China wants to embrace AI, but also dominate in the technology.

The state media outlet Xinhua on in May issued a statement summarizing the Politburo’s quarterly meeting on China’s social and economic development, the Politburo – headed by President Xi Jinping. It concluded that China must “pay attention to the development of [artificial general intelligence], create an ecosystem for innovation but at the same time take risk prevention into account.”

 Linear TV still the best form of direct-to-consumer media marketing!  Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

COMMENTARY

Social Commerce: Too Big to Fail?

• by Bill Durrant , July 20, 2023

Were you surprised when Instagram removed the Shops logo from its homepage? Social commerce was supposed to be the next big thing in e-comm! Did Meta’s step back mean it was all just hype? Definitely not. Social commerce is still going to explode in the next several years, because the prize for succeeding is too enormous not to make it work.

Fits and starts

A 2022 Accenture study predicted social commerce would grow exponentially to become a $1.2 trillion industry by 2025, “affording new opportunities for people to participate in the global economy as consumers, creators, influencers and sellers, resulting in a power shift from big to small.” Sure enough, Instagram added product tags to posts, and TikTok launched TikTok Shop.

But then the tide turned. Meta (the very birthplace of influencer marketing and the larger creator economy) obscured the Instagram Shops page, discontinued live shopping, and turned its attention toward the metaverse and AI instead. Maybe Meta felt it was investing too much money and screen space in social commerce and decided to retrench? It’s not exactly clear.

Battle of the platforms

TikTok is spearheading the social commerce movement, knowing Gen Z now uses it as a search engine for product recommendations and cultural trends. TikTok is developing visual search capabilities to compete with Google and even inspiring the feed interface of Amazon.

Alphabet bit back with shoppable video ads on YouTube (even from TV!) and Google Perspectives, an AI-driven search tool that collects real human responses to queries a la Quora or Reddit. Pinterest has shoppable Pins, and Snapchat has AR try-ons for CPG brands.

So, what’s the holdup?

The Accenture research showed consumers felt apprehensive about the security of their credit card information and frustrated with the difficulty of returns and exchanges. Perhaps it’s fitting that social networks which spread disinformation and have eroded public trust are the ones struggling most to break through. It’s up to social media networks to engender consumer trust and provide the infrastructure for brands to succeed.            

What brands need to know

Yes, we want an immediate sale. But first, we need to design aspirational, visually appealing ads that elicit user interaction and take advantage of the platform’s call-to-action features. Walk through your shopper’s journey from post to product to checkout to returns. The whole experience should feel seamless. Agencies should facilitate easy collaboration between ecommerce and paid-social experts. Leverage each department’s expertise wisely to realize the potential of social commerce as an omnichannel approach to marketing.