NBC Plans Digital Ubiquity For 2018 Winter Olympics

• by Alex Weprin , Yesterday

With the opening ceremonies for the 2018 Winter Olympics set for Friday in PyeongChang, South Korea, NBC -- which has the exclusive U.S. rights to the games -- is embarking on what may be its most ambitious digital coverage effort yet.
This year’s games will be marked by digital ubiquity, with live coverage, highlights and analysis not only across NBC’s digital platforms, but across the internet.
There is, of course, live video coverage of the games itself -- a tradition by now. NBC says it will stream 1,800 hours of content from the games live, including -- for the first time -- the opening ceremonies, as well as 50 hours of live virtual reality coverage.
The 2016 Rio Olympics saw NBC’s linear ratings decline, and the company is hoping its revamped digital strategy will -- in the words of NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel -- “cast that very wide net and reassemble that massive Olympic audience.”

Zenkel, speaking at a press preview event for the games, tested a “deeper” partnership with Snapchat, adding that the company is applying what it learned from the 2016 games to this year’s event.
If you open Snapchat during the Olympics over the next few weeks, you may see live coverage of some of the events (a first for the popular mobile application), or highlights from a medal competition. BuzzFeed, which NBCUniversal is an investor in, will also create stories for the app.

But that is just the beginning of NBC’s effort to get viewers to watch Olympics content.
If you order an Uber, you will be treated to what NBC calls “a custom in-ride video experience” in the app, featuring highlights and interviews with athletes.

If you have a Peleton indoor exercise bike, you can take cycling classes streamed live from South Korea, with NBC talent and Olympic athletes participating.

If you watch videos from YouTube vloggers Monica Church or Jenn Im, or open the app musical.ly, you will see Olympics-related content, some of it filmed at the games.

If you walk the streets of New York, Chicago or Philadelphia, interactive screens on street corners will blare highlights piped in from South Korea, delivered by the smart cities and technology company Intersection.

If you check out content from Vox Media, you may discover “The Podium,” a podcast the company (which counts NBCUniversal as an investor) is producing during the games.

“We spent last spring and summer diving further into Olympic consumer insights and strategically came out with six unique segments, each with their own needs and behaviors. Having these segments really helps us be relevant and authentic to consumers,” Jennifer Storms, chief marketing officer for NBC Sports Group, said at the preview event for the Olympics.

“So whether you’re watching promotion on TV, in mobile, in a taxi, in a mall, on a plane, or you’re opening an email from us, we speak directly to you with platform-specific content that resonates on an individual level.”

NBC is attempting to measure all this consumption through Total Audience Delivery metrics, which track all live viewership across channels and devices and debuted during the 2016 Summer Olympics. On average, NBC says it counted 1.7 million viewers for those games -- viewers who were not watching live on traditional platforms.

The linear TV ratings may very well be down when compared to the 2014 Winter games, held in Sochi, Russia, but compared to four years ago, the media ecosystem has changed dramatically.

NBC is betting that by attempting to be everywhere, it can drive some of those viewers back to TV -- or at least to the app on their mobile phones, for some live streaming

Advanced TV To Propel Local Video Ad Market

TVToPropelLocalVideoAdMarket

A new BIA/Kelsey report says local video ad sales are expected to hit $37 billion by 2022.

 February 6, 2018 5:45 AM EST

Progress in advanced TV and the industry’s commitment to new methods that will improve interactivity and the viewer experience will help with the ascent of local video advertising in 2018. The market is expected to rise to $32.6 billion this year and will reach $37.1 billion by 2022, according to BIA/Kelsey’s new report, “Advanced TV: Executive Views on Industry Progress & New Directions.”

BIA/Kelsey defines "advanced TV" as linear TV platforms including automated TV, programmatic TV, addressable TV, OTT, smart TV, connected TV, and with the recent FCC approval of Next-Gen local TV standards, ATSC 3.0.

 

“Local TV must become more competitive to maintain growth in a market where local ad spending is migrating to digital ad platforms, driven by the secular trend of increased people-based marketing,” said Rick Ducey, BIA/Kelsey managing director and the report’s co-author. “Advanced TV could be a viable solution because it brings data-infused audience targeting beyond just gender and age and delivers analytics between TV ad exposure and subsequent consumer behaviors. Eventual success will come down to continued efforts in developing and transitioning to new automated workflows.”

As examined in the report, growth in the market for local video impressions and related ad spending comes from the mobile and digital (i.e., desktop and tablet ad platforms) categories. Marketers plan to increase their spending in these categories because of the ability to develop and measure data-infused video campaigns that can target video audiences on an individual basis using segmenting attributes. To remain competitive both within the TV station category, and certainly with digital competitors, local TV looks to the various types of advanced TV solutions to provide similar, powerful capabilities.
“Our goal for our report series on Advanced TV is to track progress and report on successes, challenges and new opportunities. We are also delivering industry forecasts that provide context for the opportunity and deliver business intelligence for decision making,” said Ducey.

Leading from a High Horse

The following is a wonderful essay on Leadership I found for all our sales management subscribers.
WE welcome your input. Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

New post on LeadToday

Leading from a High Horse by Steve Keating I had a nice long “catch-up” conversation with a friend I’ve known a long long time. Since High School actually so it’s kind of a shockingly long time. She works for one of the largest manufacturing companies in the world, she started right out of college, and she has done very very well for herself. She runs a very profitable part of the company and has a significant number of people who report either directly to her or to one of her direct reports.  During our conversation she asked me something that I thought, given her success, was pretty surprising. She asked me how she could get her people to stop giving her their opinion without hurting their feelings. When I asked her why she wanted them to stop giving their opinions she said it was just a matter of time. She simply didn’t have time to listen to people whose opinion didn’t really matter.  It was at this point that I had to just stop for a minute (seemed like an hour) and think of how to respond. There was so much wrong with the statement I didn’t really know where to begin. Now this is a person I have great respect for, I remember her when she was so afraid of her own shadow that she couldn’t try out for the cheerleading squad. She has truly grown so much through the years and she is a wonderful person.  But the statement was so incredibly insulting to her people that I couldn’t hardly believe she had said it.  I asked her how long she had felt that way and she couldn’t pinpoint when it started but she said the feeling was growing and she was getting more frustrated with her people by the day.  So I offered her these two ideas. I said that she really didn’t need to do anything, the “problem” would soon take care of itself. I said if her team had any brains at all they would soon realize that she didn’t value their input and the input would simply dry up on it’s own. I told her that hurt feelings would be the least of her problems because her team would simply disengage and be far less valuable employees and that the disengagement would be her responsibility.  Then I told her that it wasn’t her team’s responsibility to stop offering ideas and suggestions; it was her responsibility to get down off her high horse and learn to value their opinions. I said if she had hired someone, or allowed someone to be hired, that she couldn’t learn from then she had allowed the wrong person to be hired.  She was pretty quiet.  I reminded her that when she was moving through the ranks that her leaders DID value her opinions and encouraged her to share them frequently. It was one of the big reasons she advanced in the company. I asked her where she would be today if her former bosses had thought of her opinions that same way she was now feeling about her people’s opinions.  Here’s the lesson folks; sometimes we “lead” by letting the people we lead teach us. Sometimes we lead by simply listening to our people. We always lead by demonstrating that we value the people we lead.  If you’re a leader who has gotten so full of yourself that you can’t learn anything from the people you lead then you have gotten to the point that you can no longer actually lead. If you’ve forgotten that you can learn from anyone and everyone then you’ve forgotten how you became a leader in the first place. Get down off that high horse and retrace your path to becoming a leader, you may just be surprised at how much you don’t remember.

“So What?”

By

Bob McCurdy

February 4, 2018

(By Bob McCurdy) It had been a while since I’d heard the line, “So what and why should I care?” but it resonated as much earlier this week as when I first heard it. A successful agency owner referenced it while discussing the art of writing effective copy.

He uttered this phrase in the context of the copywriter mastering the art of “reduction,” making the commercial as long as necessary, but as short as possible and eliminating all extraneous verbiage. His point: Let nothing get in the way of “tight.”

There are several takeaways from these seven words that can make us more productive radio professionals.

The three key principles in media planning are “impact,” “targeting,” and “presence.” Keeping the “So what and why should I care?” line in mind when crafting copy addresses two of them: impact and presence.

Impact from the standpoint that a tighter, more focused commercial will likely be more effective in this era of splintered attention.

Presence from the standpoint that tighter, more focused, and shorter commercials cost less than longer, bloated ones.

Shorter, focused, and less expensive commercials enable an advertiser to maintain presence for longer periods of time. This presence leads to what’s known within the media planning community as “acceleration”. Acceleration is based on the premise that advertising campaigns typically become more effective the longer they air. The reason for this is simple, being on the air keeps an advertiser’s message in the public’s ear.

When it comes to copy, why say more when there are benefits to saying “less”, more powerfully and economically? So saying less might actually enable an advertiser to say more by contributing to an advertiser’s continued presence, where more via the principle of acceleration is truly more.
But keeping the “So what and why do I care?” line firmly in mind when in front of clients is also important.

Salespeople should never lose sight of the fact that it is never about them but about the client to whom they’re speaking. Phrases like “We have more…” “We’re number one…” “My rating is…” “We’ve been…” “They are…” “I just…” are often counterproductive and met with a “Why should I care?” response, as every time we use the word “we,” “they,” “I,” or “my” it becomes less about them. If a fact can’t be followed up with an obvious benefit specific to the client, it is likely better off remaining unstated.

By the way, “as long as necessary but as short as possible” not only applies to copy but our decks as well. Knowing what to leave out can be more important than knowing what to include. As French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery once said, “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

By remaining hyper-focused on our clients marketing challenges and our solutions to these challenges, it will be easy for them to understand why they should indeed care.
Good things will surely happen by keeping the phrase “So what and why should I care?” firmly in mind when communicating with clients and crafting copy.

5 Consumer Goods Trends That Will Shape 2018

Commentary

Below is a good commentary and education on consumer behavior in the field of Consumer Packaged Goods that hit your local-direct client each week. Philip Jay LeNoble, Ph.D.

• by John Zealley , Columnist, 4 hours ago

No matter what stage of the ever-evolving journey of transformation consumer goods companies are on, 2018 is the year to commit to having a dynamic “moving to modern” agenda that is focused on the goal of unlocking new sources of value.
Here are five trends and predictions facing the consumer goods industry in the year ahead:
1. Some of the CPG powerhouses will begin to scale following the new rules.
Where once multinational CPG companies dominated the market, today, new, small and fast companies are capturing consumers’s attention — and wallets. We are seeing that, now more than ever, competition is between brands and not companies, with consumers increasingly drawn to the multitude of smaller players who are stealing market share from historical leaders. We have also seen disruptors expanding their place in consumer by satisfying unmet, and often unidentified, consumer wants and needs.

Some CPGs have started to adapt to this new world order by building an extended ecosystem through which they can learn from their smaller counterparts. Collaborating with niche players will not only provide an invaluable opportunity to gather insights, it will also provide access to new capabilities and the opportunity to co-create complete consumer solutions. In 2018, the number of CPGs moving in this direction will rise but there will likely be new leaders.

2. Be the “data master” of your categories and market combinations.  
To maintain a competitive edge, CPG companies must, on one hand, continue to be the experts in their category and, on the other, be responsive and relevant in meeting consumers’s enduring needs. While retailers have a broad knowledge of shoppers, CPG organizations can compete on depth of knowledge and understanding around specific consumer demands. And in this scenario, knowledge and understanding is power. This implies the next generation of category management, in which the CPG uses its deep consumer insights to extend beyond existing products to expand the definition of categories to serve end-to-end consumer solutions, allowing successful leaders to stay one step ahead of the rest.

3. The home is increasingly the “point of choice” for consumers with voice as the gateway to those choices.
Consumer behavior is notoriously difficult to predict; however, consumers are increasingly willing to try out the latest, greatest, must-have innovations. Voice is the first medium in which we learn to communicate, so is it any wonder that it is now working its way into our homes through myriad devices? We’re seeing a fundamental shift towards the home as the battleground for consumer attention and engagement. For instance, voice ordering is giving busy consumers a level of ease and convenience they’ve never had before. Voice may be the “latest thing” but it won’t be the last. Finding a way to be welcomed into the homes of consumers will be the ultimate test for CPGs in the future.

4. Impulse is everywhere as the new generation of consumers emerge.
The rise of data-driven social campaigns combined with the emergence of a new generation of young consumers, known as Gen Z — who have grown up in a social-first world — will mean that more and more choices will be impulse based. Catering to the demand of the tech-savvy, generation, which seeks instant gratification by demanding same-day delivery of purchases, will require CPG companies to work with their ecosystem partners to create better experiences as well as fast sales and delivery through an omnichannel operation.

5. Collaboration and development of connected ecosystems will help deliver innovation consumers want.
The challenge for CPG companies is to be outstanding at the core business while simultaneously fostering an environment that supports the incubation, experimenting and iterating ideas as they are built and tested. No single company will be able to generate and harness the full range of innovation available from the broader ecosystem. CPG companies will need to learn from a broad range of both disruptors and agile incumbents who continually reinvent how they reach consumers in the digital age, embrace a truly consumer-centric mindset and seek to create connections that magnetically pull brands through every available channel.

At the same time, CPG companies need to focus on working alongside multi-channel retailers as they seek to redefine their own end-to-end experiences. Build an ecosystem of suppliers, peers, distributors, start-ups, and customers to support the expansion of the digital value chain and help widen the sources for creating and prototyping new innovative products and services.

Make “Moving to Modern” CPG your resolution for 2018
In what is an increasingly dynamic CPG landscape, speed and agility are where the battle for growth will be lost or won. This makes the move to modern an essential play for CPG companies.

Speak Softly -- And Don't Carry A Stick At All

Commentary

• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, January 31, 2018

The original quote actually goes, “Speak softly and carry a big stick” and is initially attributed to Teddy Roosevelt.  

 
Unfortunately, this is too often the predominant approach of media salespeople.  Far too many of them talk first and try to bludgeon you with their product rather than ask questions and listen.
I recently switched out of ad tech and into a different tech arena, where I’m much more a marketer than a vendor. So I’m reminded that salespeople can be — let’s say it nicely — a bit aggressive and gruff.

I‘ve written versions of this story over the years but I think it’s probably been about four years since I last tried to tackle this issue.  I’ve also recently been working on a presentation that dives into the “Lost Art of Listening,” which reminds me that the very best salespeople listen first and speak second.

Too often I’m on a call or in a meeting where a salesperson wants to sell me their product.  Instead they should be selling their solution to my needs, not their product.

It’s a subtle difference.  If you ask questions and listen to the responses you get, you end up with a significantly better understanding of the challenges facing your customer.  When you understand the challenges, you can position your product the correct way: as a solution for what they are trying to do.

Too often I see a salesperson who comes in with buzzwords blazing, trying to force-feed a solution down our neck.   I had this happen just last week. From the very first minute it was clear I was not interested, but I was being nice enough to let them go on for a couple of minutes.  In the old days, I would have shut them down quickly and moved on.  I guess I’m getting calmer in my old age.

Sales is also about creating a dual connection.  First, it’s about connecting your product to a challenge that the customer is facing.  Second, it’s about creating a personal connection between two people, or one person and a brand.  That connection needs to demonstrate some level of credibility and trust,which only comes from a mutual understanding aided by time and an exchange of value.
Sales is a hard job.  It requires a lot of patience, and sometimes you are stressed or maybe behind on your goals, and so some of this process and decorum gets tossed right out the window in favor of volume.  I get that, but if you sit and talk with any veteran salesperson, she will tell you that volume will always lose out to that personal connection.

You can’t enter into a sales relationship carrying a big stick and trying to beat your customer into submission, forcing them to buy your product.  You have to take the required time to establish the connection, understand their needs and position your product in a viable, authentic manner.
If your product doesn’t have the correct solution, then admit that and move on.  It’s better to lose the sale now but retain the relationship for later than it is to try too hard to force the sale now, risk the connection and definitely not deliver with the product. The best salesmanship  is a long-term game. Otherwise, you may hit your numbers now, but you’ll inevitably miss them in the long run.
Before your next sales meeting, be sure to have a couple of questions prepared and try not to monopolize the conversation.  Try to limit your talking to the first 15-20 minutes and let the customer do the rest.  Practice the right kinds of body language and the skills that people refer to as active listening/hearing.  These will help you in the long run -- and I can pretty much guarantee you’ll sell more. too.

Local Mobile Ads Soar, Growth Forecast To Surpass Traditional Media Ads

• by Wayne Friedman , Yesterday

Local advertising on mobile devices is estimated to show continued strong growth for the next five years, overtaking local TV as the second-biggest local media platform.

This year, revenues will rise 30% to $22 billion from $17 billion last year, according to BIA/Kelsey, a local advertising researcher. Of the $22 billion, $3 billion will come from traditional media companies: radio, television and newspapers.

Over the next five years, local mobile advertising is expected to rise by a 17.8% and compound annual growth to $38.7 billion.

In 2018, direct mail retained its top position in local advertising -- with a 25.4% share ($38.5 billion); local TV is next at 13.8% ($20.8 billion).

Pure-play mobile providers will see $19 billion in 2018, representing 12.6% share. This is on a pace to reach 19.2% by 2022, overtaking local TV.

Overall, for this year, BIA/Kelsey says local advertising is set to rise 5.2% to $151.2 billion -- from $143.8 billion in 2017. Traditional media will comprise 64.7% of the revenue, with online/digital securing 35.3%.

BIA/Kelsey estimates come from analyzing the top 12 local media platforms.