On Mobile Trends

While it’s difficult nowadays to write about telecoms or the mobile sector without drifting off into other areas of the TMT industry, Zeitgeist spent an evening last month as a guest of Accenture in Cambridge, discussing the successes and failures of the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. It came in the middle of a year so far that has already some significant shifts from mobile companies, in terms of branding, operations and revenue streams.

2013 has seen some interesting news in mobile. The week before last marked, incredibly, the 40th anniversary of the first phone call made from a mobile phone. This year also saw Research in Motion renaming itself to BlackBerry, with shares sliding 8% by the end of the product launch announcement for its eponymous 10 device. It saw Sky acquire Telefonica’s broadband operations, while responding to major complaints about the speed of its own broadband service. It has seen Huawei, which in Q4 of 2012 sold more smartphones than either Nokia, HTC or BlackBerry, come under scrutiny particularly in the US for its lack of transparency. Moreover, after much editorial ink spilled on Facebook’s lack of initiative and innovation in mobile, the release of the ‘super-app’ Chat Heads has piqued interest as it looks to compete with Whatsapp, Viber, iMessage et al., which Ovum reckons cost MNOs $23bn in lost revenue every year. This news mostly pertained to developed markets; JWT Intelligence’s interview with Jana CEO Nathan Eagle features some interesting insights on mobile trends in emerging markets.

Interestingly, 2013 thus far has also been witness to the beginning of more flexible contracts and payments. At the end of March, T-Mobile USA announced it would offer the iPhone to customers for cheaper than its rivals, and customers would not have to sign a contract. It effectively ends handset subsidies – something which Vodafone pledged to do last year and was punished by the stock market when it failed to do so – spreading the full cost of the phone over two years “as a separate line item on the monthly bill”, which may strike many as still quite a commitment. Customers must pay the bill for the phone in full in order to be able to end their tenure with the network. The New York Times elaborates, “Despite T-Mobile’s promise to be more straightforward than other carriers, some consumers might still find it confusing that they have to pay an extra device fee after paying $100 up front for an iPhone.” In the UK, O2 is going a similar route. At the end of last week the company announced similar plans to T-Mobile. While still keeping contracts as an option, the FT explained the company was looking to a plan, dubbed O2 Refresh, “that decoupled the cost of the phone from the cost of calls, texts and data. Customers will be able to buy a phone outright, or pay in instalments over time, and then sign up to a separate service contract that can be cancelled or changed at any time.” Although O2 said in the article that they expected customers to pay the same as they would on a standard contract, the new plans by both network providers will surely add to customer churn. Brands will have to work harder to develop true loyalty rather than relying on the lock-in feeling that adds to switching costs for many customers. Conversely, this added flexibility may make the providers feel less like utilities, creating more choice and differentiation.

At the aforementioned conference Zeitgeist attended last month, Accenture hosted an evening they dubbed “MWC: Fiesta or Siesta?”. It soon became apparent that many of the speakers invited were less than enthused with the conference this year. This was partly because there were no extraordinary leaps in technology or hardware on offer. It was also because of, as one speaker lamented, “the proliferation of suits”. Another speaker complained it was like listening to The Archers: long storylines “that ended up having no conclusion”. The very essence of the conference though is not about trendsetting, or cool new consumer devices. Mobile operators are utilities, the excitement around such an event is not going to be as visceral as that of SXSW or Embedded World. It led some to wonder whether the “real innovation was being developed in such ‘niche’ events, away from the “glitz”. Moreover, perhaps Samsung’s decision not to launch their new S4 handset at the Congress alluded to this lack of excitement, or at least a wish not to be drowned out by other announcements.

Among exciting trends on display at MWC, M2M – something Zeitgeist has written about before – was front and centre at the conference, particularly with regard to cars. Phablets continued to make their foray into the consumer’s view, with bigger screens meaning more data transfer. Zeitgeist wondered whether such a transition would put even more pressure on networks already struggling with large data handling. And although Firefox’s new OS gave some – including those at GigaOm – hope that it could provide more innovation through diversified competition in the marketplace, others, including Tony Milbourn, Executive Chairman of Intelligent Wireless, speaking at the event, thought it “underwhelming” after “lots of hype”. Bendable screens were also to be found at MWC, but those speaking at the Accenture conference like Richard Windsor of Radio Free Mobile said it was early days and much was still to be seen from this new type of phone. Its potential though, he readily conceded, was formidable. Wearable technology was a huge issue at the conference and one that Zeitgeist is particularly interested to see develop, especially as companies like Apple, Sony and Google enter the fray.

It seemed then that the Mobile World Congress failed to reflect what is turning out to be a tumultuous year in telecoms. Not only is there an increasing desire to address consumer needs – in the case of more flexible contracts and more consumer-facing company names – but as economies sputter their way toward ostensible recovery we are also starting to see M&A activity return to the sector. Time will tell whether new technologies, such as M2M or bendable screens can breathe new life into the sector.

Fit to Print – Recommendations and lessons for print media

“Breaking an old business model is always going to require leaders to follow their instinct. There will always be persuasive reasons not to take a risk. But if you only do what worked in the past, you will wake up one day and find that you’ve been passed by.”

- Clayton Christensen

What do Dell, The New Yorker and the music industry have in common? All three are currently grappling fundamentally with their business models in the face of creative destruction at the hands of digital disruption. The CEO of Dell is struggling to take it private at the moment – in a proposed $24.4bn buyout – in an effort to ensure its strategy looks away from the short-term needs of investors while it restructures with a new, long-term strategy that will shift focus away from its core PC business. An issue of The New Yorker hardly makes for a quick read, but has been one of the more innovative companies among its peers to embrace and experiment with digital. We wrote about their initiatives last summer. Recently, for their anniversary issue, the publisher offered digital issues for 99c, an offer that Zeitgeist took them up on, and it was pleasing to see how well the digital edition mirrored with print one, while at the same time adding some features that took advantage of being on a digital product. Last week, The Economist published an article on the music industry, which is beginning to see glimmers of hope in its revenues from digital sales. “Sales of recorded music grew in 2012 for the first time since 1999“, although only by an anemic 0.3%. This is still better than Hollywood, which had to settle for celebrating a flattening of home entertainment revenues, after years of decline. After almost being destroyed by it, a third of the music industry’s revenues now come from digital, but they are barely keeping up with the decline in physical sales, which makes up the bulk of other revenues. Lucian Grainge, chairman and chief executive of Universal Music Group, spoke to the Financial Times at the weekend,

“The industry needs transforming. It’s for others to decide whether they want to get stuck in the past or whether they want to come on the journey… We’ve learnt an awful lot, but it’s like being in a commercial earthquake and the reality is it takes time to get out from beneath the desk where you’re protecting yourself and move forward.”

Indeed, one of the biggest issues industries must address is when is the right moment to risk their current business model in order to address change and adapt. Grainge talks about the industry need for a “constructive collision” between musicians, content owners, distributors, entrepreneurs and investors. To what extent this is happening is unclear, but it is certainly thinking outside the box, and could well be applied to other areas similarly suffering at the hands of such change. As goes the music and film industries, so goes the print industry too? How do print titles develop profitable models for generating profits in the face of such volatility in changing consumption habits and digital disruption?

New methods of media consumption have driven consumers to distraction

In December 2012, consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG) published a report entitled ‘Transforming Print Media’. The report begins on a sour note, admitting that the conventional wisdom is that newspaper and magazine publishing is “a dying business”. This is a hard assertion to counter though, and the consultancy’s own graphics show a rather alarming lack of growth in developed countries. Emerging markets, conversely, are seeing growth in both print advertising and circulation, for both newspapers and magazines. For instance, while between 2006 and 2011, the US has seen a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) decline of 12% in print advertising, China has seen an 8.5% uptick, and India a 13.9% growth. One of the immediate problems the report addresses, and one which Michael Dell is looking to neutralise is that of concentrating on short-term gain at the expense of long-term restructuring with a rigorous focus on which adjacencies work well and which do not. This can be immensely hard to justify in an environment of quarterly earnings reports and instant CNBC updates. BCG suggests implementing a strategy that will instill long-term change while also providing medium-term gains to keep investors happy. The report proposes a 3-5 year plan, and, interestingly, notes that success will rely “more on execution than insight”. Zeitgeist would counter that without both being optimal, the strategy is bound to fail. Moreover, knowing exactly who you want to target and how their methods of media consumption and interaction have altered / are altering is a critical tool for success. It also points out that new business models should not be about “trading print dollars for digital pennies”, something that the music and to some extent the film industry are both grappling with currently.

David Carey, head of Hearst Magazines, commented last year that, in publishing, “you need five or six revenue streams to make the business really successful”. One of the key points that recurs throughout the BCG report, which Zeitgeist, while working on developing strategic recommendations for the Financial Times last year, was also in favour of, was in extending the reach of the business in new directions. These directions leverage the brand equity of the company and extend into areas adjacent to the company’s expertise. For the FT, opportunities exist to extend the brand name into complementary areas of luxury with which the paper is already associated. Monocle has made in-roads into diversification by starting a radio station, which it says is very attractive to advertisers because they have a clear idea of their audience; the type of high-earning consumers who never normally listen to radio. As well as new revenue streams, Zeitgeist also focused on customer retention. One important consideration was that of both vertical and horizontal cohesion. The business as a brand must speak in a relevant, cohesive way across channels, and, in the case of the FT, speak in the appropriate way to its many different readers around the world. BCG advocates “reassessing vendor relationships; stream- lining editorial, content sharing, ad pricing, and production processes; and pooling advertising sales across titles or clusters… the right changes to financial policies— particularly to debt levels and ratios, dividends, and buybacks —can create a clear and compelling case for long-term health, can lift stock prices, and can attract more patient investors.”

Research has shown that price elasticity does not play a part for newspaper buying. Higher pricing, conversely, improves revenue

Price is a fundamental consideration too. For the FT, Zeitgeist extemporised on the importance of price. Referencing behavioural economics, price for the FT acted as an anchor. It framed the paper more by juxtaposing it with its cheaper peers than by giving it any inherent value. In reports from the last few years taken both in Europe and the US, several major broadsheet newspapers were studied. They had all raised their prices. Some of them had seen their circulation decrease. But all of them had seen increases in revenue, even the ones that had lost circulation. Zeitgeist presented the FT with an analogy; the champagne label Krug, some years ago, hiked up its price, with little notice and for no perceived reason. Production, pricing and taste had not changed. The company lost some suppliers because of this change. But overall, their revenues increased. Krug was now in the upper echelons of the luxurious world of champagne, done to coincide with a global rebrand that appeared in all the right places. BCG alludes to the price increases in its report, saying consumers will “perceive greater value in the product than the amount it is costing them… there is the ability to increase these prices by as much as 70 to 100 percent…”. The report addresses paywalls, which Zeitgeist have written about several times in the past. The key it seems is in making these paywalls permeable, not inflexible. This is one issue the FT will need to address, one its peers, like the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), The New York Times and The New Yorker, have taken steps in the direction of already. The WSJ has frequently taken down its paywall during times of emergency (such as Hurricane Sandy), or for sponsored promotions. Advertisers still play a significant role in US print advertising – a $34bn role – but it is diminishing. The New York Times reported last year that advertising revenue had dropped below subscription revenue. As worrying as this is, it should provide an opportunity for companies to focus more on producing content that the actual readers want, rather than what the advertisers want to see. Broadly, the difficulty lies in getting consumers to see the worth of a digital product versus a hard copy. Obviously this issue is not restricted to the publishing industry.

Krug champagne used behavioural economics to alter its place in the market

The importance of the transition to digital is hard to overstate. As well as issues of pricing and paywall strategy, there is also social media to consider. Here, the FT is a good example of a brand that is playing it safe, operating for the most part with a very top-down messaging strategy that leaves little room for collaborative communication. But digital production and the expectation of instant news also means that companies are having to change the way they produce content. Speaking at the Future of Media summit at the Broadcast and Video Expo recently, Editor in Chief of Time Out London Tim Arthur said their changes were “led partly by necessity and partly by desire”. BCG outlines three models that are emerging: “dedicated print and digital editorial teams, integrated teams that operate throughout the print and digital platforms, and full editorial integration”. There are several advantages to be leveraged through digital as well. Research is a big one. Time Out’s Tim Arthur admitted they never used to carry out research until their recent transformation, which included an overhaul of their digital strategy, as well as making their hard copy paper free. It was great then to hear how the company was now using multiple channels to collate data and engage audiences at the same time. Unlike the FT, Time Out was no longer engaging in a one-way conversation, and they were operating with “less arrogance”. The company changed from a content-stacked, “trickle down” approach to one that recognised different audience needs over different platforms, which is a key insight. Furthermore, the opportunities to make advertising more engaging are also quite evident. iAds for example, allow more interaction. A recent ad in The New Yorker promoted a new book with a ‘tap to read a chapter’ function.

“These considerations inevitably lead to a series of hard choices about the degree of diversification that publishers can realistically undertake”, so summarises the BCG report, which suggests controlled experimentation to work out the best model. On an internal level, the company must convince employees that this change will be for the better and for the long-term. It must also convince shareholders of the benefits, while showing real value as early as possible. Such a transformation provides opportunities for streamlining technologies and future-proofing ways of working. It should make the brand think about what its equity is, and where else it can push out to in order to drive new revenue streams. Digital is not something to be feared, it should be embraced. The opportunities for more targeted, engaging advertising, not least through the use of consumer data, which also can help provide more tailored and attractive content – content that is “useful to others” as Arthur says – will be fundamental steps to take. The music industry, which was ravaged by Napster and its myrmidons at the end of the 20th century, took an age to wake up to realisation that money could be made from the millions of people who were already downloading songs online. The film and television industries have reacted slightly faster, and initiatives like Hulu, Ultraviolet and Tesco’s Clubcard TV will help stem the tide. Print on the whole is more on top of the game. Companies like the Financial Times and Time Out are driving innovation in the sector, but must still more readily embrace change if they are to really connect with future readers. Time will tell.

Beyond the Linear – New ways of entertaining

The days of P.T. Barnum and the sense of spectacle an audience received from seeing a live performance have long passed; codified, commodotised, sanitised and made instantly available. Or have they? The way we entertain ourselves nowadays has changed greatly, and keeps changing. But are our tastes evolving or revolving? Is there hope for such seeming anachronisms as the TV, the live performance and even the book?

Two years ago, Zeitgeist wrote a brief article on the nature of contemporary consumption of media. It began with the headline that 8-18 year olds in the US spend a quarter of their media time with multiple devices. Furthermore, almost a quarter of that age group use one other device most of the time while watching television. In 2013, this preference for multiple stimuli has only accelerated. 80% of UK smartphone owners (making up over half the phone-owning population) use their phones while watching the TV. Similar figures were reported in the US, and similar figures were also reported for tablet owners.  Such figures give marketers pause for thought as they begin to approach these complementary devices as ways to extend their brand from the television onto the second screen. JWT Intelligence has a great report on this.

However, it is easy to overstate the arrival of shiny, new devices, and the apparent death of television. The blame for this misconception lies partly with the media itself; journalism is less engaging when it merely reports on the maintenance of the status quo (i.e. ‘people are still watching TV’). Far more interesting to hear about what new objects are showing a bit of ankle at CES, and that us mere mortals might one day dare to dream of owning ourselves, at which point all other material objects become unnecessary. All the more so when the journalistic integrity is compromised by corporate meddling, as was the case with CNET’s reporting this year. It was refreshing then to read TechCrunch’s recent article with the headline, ‘TV still King in Media Consumption’. The article, quoting a recent report by Nielsen, was particularly interesting in noting the prevalence of TV when it referenced that almost half the homes with TVs in the US owned four or more sets. Startling. More startling, the average household spends six days a month watching television, far ahead of other media consumption (using the Internet on a computer, at a little over 28 hours a month, came a distant second). The FT writes,

Over the past decade, despite the proliferation of video content on the web, TV consumption in the UK has remained steady with the average person watching about four hours a day. Almost 80 per cent of this viewing is on the top five channels, virtually unchanged from 10 years ago.

Creative destruction is something Zeitgeist takes an active interest in and has written about several times before on this blog. It takes hold in some industries (and households in this case) more quickly than in others. The same Nielsen study found that over 55% of US homes still had working VCRs. Moreover, despite much editorial to the contrary over recent years, the PC has not yet been wiped out by creative destruction and remains a staple for several reasons in both Western and emerging economies. According to Deloitte’s recent publication, “Technology, Media and Telecoms Predictions 2013″, although the attraction of tablets – and now ‘phablets’ – mean powerful computing and a cheaper cost, allowing the potential for leapfrogging of PCs in emerging markets, qualitative research shows a small but significant demand remains for PC ownership. Moreover, many businesses in the West, currently struggling with the implications of BYO devices, are not about to jettison the PC either. Switching costs, Zeitgeist suspects, are at play here, as with those stubborn VCR owners. Click here for more of our thoughts on switching costs.

VCR owners though will one day cease to be in the majority. New avenues of distribution and consumption are opening up, though not as quickly as first thought in some cases, particularly in that of live, streaming TV, which has faced many regulatory hurdles. Variety elaborates, “Loudly trumpeted efforts have fallen short, victims of poor design decisions, overpriced services and/or confusion about the target audience”. Yet alternatives are there. One of the more interesting streaming TV options in the US currently is that of Dyle, with 90 stations in 35 markets. It is run by a partnership that includes Fox, NBC, Hearst Television and others. The really interesting thing about the service is that it neutralises the problem many smartphone users will have of returning data caps by streaming off a separate network spectrum, which doesn’t impact on data allowances. Nice thinking.

Is the increasing popularity of streaming, and the content viewers prefer to watch over such a channel, already beginning to effect the types of films being produced?

Though new technology has not created new tastes in content or viewing habits, it has undeniably acted as a catalyst to desires already present. Zeitgeist remembers hearing a LoveFilm representative speak last year at AdTech in London about the increasing share streaming films took in the marketplace. Nothing too extraordinary in that statement, especially from a purveyor of streaming content. The rub came when he went on to elaborate that people tend to stream films when they are in the mood for instant gratification, in the form usually of an action film or romantic comedy. The increasing popularity of streaming, and therefore the increasing popularity of these particular genres, means the way the medium is distributed may very likely have a very significant influence on the type of content in the future that is commissioned. It was no surprise then to see, on a recent cinema trip, trailers for three films that neatly fit into that category for instant gratification (see above). Zeitgeist wrote at length on the need for film studios to address arbitrary platform release windows at the end of last year. Our article was mentioned in the lead editorial of entertainment trade paper Variety. Part of our argument is beginning to be addressed already. The FT recently published news that studios had managed to stem the six year decline in home viewing figures for films last year. The article elaborates that this is in part due to the strength of digital downloads, with films sometimes being available for digital distribution before they were available on DVD. Taken 2, a superb candidate for streaming given the previous statement by LoveFilm, was released Christmas Day in the US on digital platforms, “weeks before its release on DVD”. Such thinking goes hand-in-hand with the new UltraViolet format, to which several studios are subscribing. This allows those purchasing a movie on DVD – such as the recent Dark Knight Rises – to watch it with ease on multiple platforms. Mashable carried an article last week stating that several electronics firms have now also signed up to the UltraViolet partnership. Consumers will receive ten free movies when they sign up to the service, as incentive.

The example of Netflix is an interesting one in trying to understand the balance between consumers’ desire for multiple media and instantly-accessible content, and content owners desires to drive maximum revenue from their product. The company has been making a bigger push into providing TV shows of late, and is being rewarded for it, particularly with regard to older shows. A cultural trend many a pundit has put their finger on since the credit crunch began to bite back in 2008, nostalgia has manifested itself in consumers’ desire for old shows, including Midsomer Murders and Rising Damp, reports the FT. This long tail effect is turning a tidy profit for Netflix, as well as the original broadcaster, ITV. As a complement to this, the company is also fostering new partnerships, first with Disney in December, giving it “exclusive rights from 2016 to movies from Disney, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, Marvel Studios, and Disneynature”. Then, at the beginning of this year, it inked a deal with Warner Brothers, to show new and old TV shows from the studio. It should be noted however, as with all these new deals and technological developments and marches into previously uncharted territory, regulatory wranglings have ensued, in this case with sister company Time Warner Cable. The problem in this situation is not perhaps so much that Netflix is trying hard to push its availability into lateral markets, but that it is not trying hard enough to create a cohesive platform that is available across all complementary platforms and devices. One thing which Netflix will want desperately to escape being accused of – and it has done so with much success thus far – is being a niche provider of content. Sadly, the days of the point-and-shoot camera, the dedicated games console, etc., are numbered, according to a recent report by Accenture.

It is evidently with such a strategic outlook in mind that Disney have recently announced their Infinity gaming platform. Variety describes it as an “online treasure chest”, featuring a plethora of Disney characters from over the years that can be interacted with over multiple platforms, whether on mobile or on videogame consoles. Importantly, the concept is designed to be an iterative, one that will grow and add characters over time, presumably as new IP is created. It certainly pays heed to the second screen phenomenon by recognising the need for multiple device access. It also plays off the trend started by the game ‘Skylanders’, which involves both physical toys and digital interaction. The same principle will apply with new toys developed for Infinity, which can then be used to create unique stories and drive narratives. The idea of having disparate characters from different Disney franchises is potentially a frightening one for those in charge of the individual brand essences of said titles, but the potential for success can be found by looking no further than the Toy Story films, which feature an assortment of different genre toys that mix well in situ.

We’ve discussed the changing models of consumption for most of the article, but it is worth noting briefly how our cultural tastes are also changing, brought on by technology (again), but also globalisation. Pundits are often quick to point out nowadays that there is a substantial demand for the live experience. Yet if we look at music, one of the most profound things to experience live, recent figures showed attendance to concerts had dipped. At the end of last year, in an insightful roundtable, The New York Times interviewed several talking heads, asking them to round up their thoughts on 2012 in the music industry. One of the more interesting points repeatedly made was that of the abundant opportunity that the Internet now provides for musical talent. Moreover, the Internet at large has become just as viable – if not a more viable – starting place for an emerging artist than signing with a record label:

“Now this year something’s been proven: Pop performers can become truly famous by building their careers themselves online, maybe more efficiently and faster than a major company can help them to do.

… you look at the first-week sales numbers of someone like Kendrick Lamar, who had an independent album that was digital only and is now on [the major-label] Interscope, but basically has no major radio hits, even if he is well-liked by mainstream hip-hop. He comes out and sells about 240,000 in his first week. A couple weeks later Rihanna comes out — not her first album and at the height of her pop fame — and sells a few thousand less than Kendrick did.”

The other trend, globalisation, has meant that voices increasingly other than those that are Western, are more easily heard. The irrepressible Psy had the honour of being the performer in the first YouTube video to cross one billion views. Conversely, in his home country of South Korea, ‘Gangnam Style’ has accrued a pitiful “$50,000 from CD sales and $61,000 from 3.6m downloads”. The point remains, however, that the fallacy of the West as the cradle of pop culture is being exposed. Christopher Caldwell illustrates this masterfully, writing for the FT in December.

Zeitgeist has written before about the upheaval new trends and preferences for media consumption – impacted significantly by the arrival of the Internet – have wrought on financial growth in the media and entertainment sector. Digital, in the form of Napster and its myrmidons in particular, has a lot to answer for. There was some relief then that at the beginning of the year when UK digital sales topped GBP1 billion for the first time (though still failing to off-set the physical media decline). Moreover, Boston Consulting Group predicted last month – in an excellent report entitled Changing Engines in Midflight: The 2012 TMT Value Creators Report – that by 2015 the digital services ecosystem will reach $1 trillion by 2015 (see above).

It is interesting to see where the ownership of content starts and ends across layers, and how content owners are trying to monetise these platforms and grab as much market share as possible from their competitors. Amazon recently began offering digital downloads of any CD you have purchased from them since 1998. It would be a great surprise to see if they do the same for books anytime soon. Fortunately, reading still constitutes an avenue of entertainment, for those of all ages. A recent piece by The New York Times reported that digital reading was on the rise for children. The article notes the numbers give some room for discrepancy, but states “about one-fourth of the boys who had read an e-book said they were reading more books for fun”, which is a desperately important emotional connection to maintain. While e-reading is a commendable past-time, is there any merit in pushing further, and advocating for interacting with a medium that does not involve a digital display? Such a turn of events, perhaps aided by the trend for nostalgia mentioned earlier, is presenting itself in the luxury hotel market, with physical libraries returning to shelves. It has been termed ‘rematerialism’.

So what does this all mean for consumer entertainment? There are evidently lots of new technologies being released, from smart TVs to new gaming devices, that will attempt to capture eyeballs. These devices, far from having to think of their natural competitors, still have the common television – and, as we have seen, even VCRs – to compete with and overthrow first. TV commands such a huge slice of viewing time, but it is under threat from distracted viewers who are now very comfortable – and more importantly socially accepting – of using a tablet, laptop or phone during a show. There are also regulatory implications t consider, which will most likely be shaped, ex-post, along the way. Taking consumers on a journey across multiple platforms and media in a seamless way will be key. Disney’s Infinity platform, when it is released, will hopefully serve as an excellent example to others of how to combine physical and digital entertainment.

Branding on a Broken Web – The APG @ The Economist

Exciting. Inspirational. Thought-provoking. And that was just the view from the room we were in. Last month, the Account Planners Group hosted an event called Ideas Exchange, in association with The Economist. Unlike New York, it is always remarkable just how far you can see being only fourteen floors in the air. The London Eye, Big Ben, the Shard and Canary Wharf reached into the sky, with rolling Surrey hills in the background. Many a visiting planner was captivated, before being regrettably distracted by some sort of talk going on elsewhere in the room.

Unfulfilled potential?

Opening the exchange of ideas was Aleks Krotoski, author of ‘Untangling the Web’ and visiting fellow of the London School of Economics. Aleks’ polemic rests on the idea that the Internet is not quite the idyll we initially imagined it would be. The Internet, according to Aleks, gave society a tabula rasa, a chance to create and nurture a platform that was unblemished with influence, or history, or imperfection. Instead we just went about transposing all the biases, prejudices and ways of working from the offline world onto the online one, creating the same communities and social hierarchies. The Internet was supposed to help us reach beyond our closeted knowledge and beliefs, to interact with those we had not met before, the types of people we would have not otherwise interacted with. Instead the opposite has become the case. There has been no utopian transcendence; none of us is virtually swanning round something akin to the pleasure gardens in Metropolis.

Moreover, the serendipity of the Internet that was, among other things, supposed to bring about such felicitous interactions, has been trampled on and abused (think Chatroulette). Aleks declared the web “broken”, breaking a little more every time a user has pushed to them what they want– or what they think they want – instead of having to proactively go looking for something. What we want is supposedly served up on a platter for us now, whether it be Amazon recommendations, or advertisements for sites / products we looked at quickly but have long since lost interest in. This collation and analysis of user behaviour has led to a backlash of sorts, evident in Microsoft’s recent announcement that it will have ‘Do Not Track’ set as a default option on its new browser.

The power of social influence and the declinism of serendipity

In discussing messaging and influence online, Aleks contended that attitudes and behaviour were shaped and formed in exactly the same way online as they are offline. She called the notion of influence “messy” and “unpredictable”. But on the question of how users decide which stuff to pay attention to online, the answer was clear; social influence. The way people become aware of content (and, by extension, opinion) is increasingly through social media, particularly on Twitter. Because we tend to seek out people similar to us online as in real life, this does not bode well for the objectivity of, for example, Fox News fans, as online their beliefs will be reinforced by the echo chamber they have created for themselves. Worse, this echo chamber is created more or less unbeknownst to the user, imperceptible as it is. Not entirely encouraging…

 

Alan Dunachie, director of operations at The Economist Group, focussed more explicitly on the business challenge of how brand owners can communicate in a world of, to paraphrase Aleks, tangled webs, and the role that ideas play in the network.

Tangled Distribution

Alan noted that for ideas to be powerful, they need to be shared and discussed. This sharing encourages something to spread far more quickly than it would have done in the past. The downside of such a system of distribution, as Alan admitted, was that, for anything a brand owner says, consumers can get instant feedback from friends, family and others. This goes for everything from chocolate bars to hotels and wine. Brands must express a view rather than tout a product.

Using stories to influence

The Economist Intelligence Unit, part of the Group, has helped brands solve problem with, what he calls, “editorially-oriented ideas”. Philips wanted to be seen by consumers as a ‘wellbeing’, rather than an electronics company. The Unit developed the idea of Liveanomics with the aim of making cities more productive, and thus enhance wellbeing. They collated urban experts, government policymakers and other from disparate associations, whose conversations then sparked engagement over social networks and traditional media with opinion leaders around the world, enhancing and reshaping Philips’ reputation.

The group also turned their attention inwards, developing the recent advertising campaign for The Economist with their “Where Do You Stand?” campaign, looking at the feeling a reader gets when engaging with the magazine, rather than just selling on its own reputation. As a result, the magazine saw an 11% increase in circulation, a 15% readership increase and 16,000 SMS responses, half of whom ended up subscribing.

All in all it was a fascinating debate on the Internet; how we shape it as users and how we can hope to influence it acting as intermediaries between the brand and the consumer.

The US Open, with strings attached

While Britain recovers from the expected nadir of Murray’s loss and the majestic Federer’s subsequent victory at Wimbledon, and the tennis world celebrates a champion of the sport, the next Slam – the US Open, in New York – looms close by on the horizon. Zeitgeist will be going, but, like many others, had a terrible time purchasing tickets online.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free”. So says the moniker on the Statue of Liberty in New York, welcoming immigrants to the United States. The US Open grand slam tennis tournament released its tickets to the public several weeks ago, and for the first time offered fans on Facebook the opportunity to purchase tickets a day before anyone else. Unfortunately, not only did they neglect to stipulate that this offer was only available to American buyers, they also had more broader problems with their system that day, creating an enormous backlash of ill will seen on Facebook. On Twitter, the US Open official account kept having to explain itself.

Providing fans with the tickets they want is a hard business. Someone will always be disappointed. And credit should be given to the organisers for trying to do something innovative and rewarding. However, thinking that the reach of the US Open does not extend beyond the nation’s boundaries was a massive, massive mistake in today’s world. They really lost a lot of their brand equity and trust that day.

Femfresh’s not so fragrant Facebook fail

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

But maybe someone might have anticipated that mixing female hygiene products and social media might be asking for trouble.

Indeed, having recently won a bunch of IPM awards for their experiential events, Femfresh‘s bubble has been well and truly burst by recent activity on their Facebook page.

One crucial difference between their marketing activities is that you can choose where you host your experiential events and make sure that your product has relevance to the people you are interacting with.

Facebook however is much more open and anyone can come and tell you what they think, so while one media might be appropriate for your brand, the other might not.

Clearly, marketing such intimate products is a delicate task, but the Femfresh tone of voice, referring to genitals as ‘kitty’, ‘nooni’, ‘lala’ and ‘froo froo’ has upset a number of women who find it both patronising and childish.

And they haven’t been shy in making their opinions known.

As the dissent grew, people began questioning why such a product is needed anyway, accusing owners Church & Dwight of giving women yet another thing to feel insecure about on top having to be skinny, have perfect skin, teeth and hair and so on and so on.

One user points out that the NHS advises women to only use water to clean themselves. Many others claim that using such chemical products will only lead to health problems and should you have any unusual odours or discharges you should be seeing a doctor not using Femfresh.

Inevitably, the fuss has also attracted a fair number of men who have kindly offered their own colloquialisms for future campaigns and suggested brand extensions.

So far, Femfresh‘s reponse has been to delete some of the comments and ask for respect.

No doubt they are busy plotting their way out of the mess.

Well, they needn’t worry about the men who will get bored and find something else to laugh at tomorrow.

However, they would do well to listen to the ladies who have raised some important issues for the brand to mull over.

Firstly, it’s clear that the campaign, with its childish names, alienates a number of women.

Whether or not Femfresh decide to rethink their comms strategy will depend on how confident they are that it is right. Are the recent angry visitors to their page representative of their target audience or just a load of noisy nuisances? Gap faced a similar problem when they launched their ill-fated new logo.

Secondly, they need to address criticism of the product.

One, that it is irrelevant and irresponsible.

And two, that it is actually unhealthy and damaging.

Failure to address these issues and take control of the debate would be a huge risk as they are genuine concerns from their target audience. If Femfresh ignore them, any conversation on the subject could still happen without them and using a forum that doesn’t allow them to delete the posts they don’t like.

Indeed bloggers have already started to voice their irritation.

Finally, they might want to rethink whether Facebook is the right platform for them to engage consumers.

It is a social network in the true sense, and while people might not mind their friends knowing that they like brands like Coca-Cola or Adidas, they might be reluctant to like or interact with Femfresh so publicly.

The New Yorker in a digital state of mind

Part of Zeitgeist is currently working on the strategy for an acquisition and retention scheme for a major international newspaper. Monetising the digital side of the paper’s efforts is a source of great intrigue and interest. Earlier this week, Enders Analysis published findings showing The New York Times “generated $243 million from its digital services in the four quarters since the launch of its new subscription strategy, representing about 15%” of the Group’s total revenues, an impressive stat. We’ve talked previously about how newspapers are dealing with the Internet, from the introduction of paywalls in the UK, to sponsored takedowns at the Wall Street Journal. Magazines are having a slightly easier time of it, reported The Economist last week. The New Yorker, one of the most stimulating publications out there, itself featured a long essay on the future of the news, back in 2010.

WSJ’s example represents a real opportunity for publishers, and it is surprising this tactic has not been employed since (that we know of). And while some might deem it opportunisitic, we love the thinking The New Yorker had recently, when science-fiction author Ray Bradbury passed away. Rather than simply chiming in on Facebook with a paltry “RIP”, they made the most of their association with the man, and offered a token bit of generosity at the same time (see above image). A nice way to satisfy your fans, boost the brand, and pay respect to an influential writer. This is no standalone piece of activity either, but seemingly part of a broader digital strategy. The New Yorker has been investing heavily in its website of late, reports Mashable, with traffic up around 50% YOY. But, says newyorker.com editor Nicholas Thompson, more than traffic,

“Success is when someone says, ‘I just feel great about coming to the website, I’m going to find things I love,’ or, ‘I haven’t read the magazine before, that’s interesting, let me subscribe.’”

Engage! – What is the point of advertising?

Facebook’s recent IPO launch has had what Zeitgeist would describe kindly as a bumpy ride. There are multiple reasons for this, not least of which is the question of monetising mobile users of the platform – all 450m of them.

More broadly, another debate has been ongoing as to just what brands are getting out of having a presence on Zuckerberg’s walled garden. A great article on WARC points out, after much quantitative analysis of how people ‘engage’ with fan pages, and what the ‘People talking about this’ metric actually means,

“At the very core of the social media mantra is the premise that brands need to engage their customers in order to grow but there is only a tenuous link between the effects of engagement and subsequent sales. Even if these top 200 brands achieved ten times their current level of engagement, what that ultimately means for the brand is uncertain. The push for engagement fails to explain what return, in real terms, a brand achieves by having highly engaging ads, on highly engaging vehicles or media.”

Rather more worryingly for the advertising industry as a whole, the article also notes,

“[I]f advertising simply works by reminding people of the brand, leading to it “coming to mind, being familiar, safe, and satisficing (that is, being ‘good enough’)” (Ehrenberg et al, 2002), there may be little gain in doing anything more than reminding them of the brand. When focusing on achieving high levels of engagement we should question whether we are still trying to persuade consumers, even if our view of how advertising works is no longer aligned with this aim.”

With this uncomfortable diagnosis in mind, does this mean the likes of Nike and Louis Vuitton should be throwing in the towel with their wonderfully engaging, award-winning campaigns? If advertising’s only point to consumers is to act as a reminder, rather than to overtly influence, what are we wasting our time on?

What Creative Destruction means for Kodak, China and Romney

Some things are built to last. Some businesses are made this way. They are in the end ultimately just as susceptible to market forces as their counterparts. Originally a Marxist idea, creative destruction has found its way into popular economics. Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan mentions the phrase often in his autobiography. Zeitgeist has previously mentioned the late, great economist Schumpeter, too. His notion of ‘disequilibrium’ was that within the market, though you may have a great product or solution, there are external forces that can render said product or solution redundant. These innovations often come in leaps of ingenuity that might initially seem to be extraneous to the current product or solution’s market. Finally though, the new innovation ends up eradicating any synonymous inefficiencies. Think first about Henry Ford’s famous quotation,

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

Along with the insight that customer research is not always the best way to go – Apple’s avoidance of it is a case in point – what this quotation also illustrates is our tendency toward myopia when it comes to seeing strategic competition from a seemingly unrelated field. Harvard Business Review have an excellent paper on strategy that covers this. It is unlikely that anyone thought the motorcar would replace horses, or that it would even be popular. This eradication of the other, more inefficient product or solution is a great example of creative destruction. Apple’s iTunes and it’s myrmidons, and the damage it has inflicted on CD sales, is another example.

Speaking of cars, attention on the auto industry was front and centre during half-time of the recent Superbowl in the US. The automaker Chrysler, which produced a similarly provocative commercial that aired during last year’s Superbowl, has caused much chatter over television, radio, print and social media. It’s an affecting advert, not least because it is built on a fallacy. Though Zeitgeist believes that bailing out the auto industry was the right thing to do, this commercial, and politicians of different stripes (including Newt Gingrich and Obama), have all been harping on about the manufacturing renaissance coming to the US: America Redux. The simple, horrible truth is that while manufacturing as an industry has room to grow it will not return to what it was.

Moreover, those jobs that will be required demand increasingly skilled, technical labourers, i.e. college-educated. There will be a great many people who are now out of work in the US who will be unlikely to find work again due to a lack of required skills. This is not President Obama’s fault, just as it is not Bush Jr. or Daddy Bush’s fault. Though some would point the finger at policies endorsing outsourcing, this would be incorrect. Insourcing is an increasing phenomenon as wages improve in regions like China. It is the way of things, as a recent editorial explains in the FT explains,

Mr Obama [has] bought into the fallacy… that manufactures are declining in the US, but his work suffers from conceptual flaws. Take just one problem: services splinter off from manufacturing even as vertical integration yields to specialisation. Over time, manufacturing yields to services. This gigantic change that is taking place has nothing to do with outsourcing.

And speaking of China, the country sits on the brink of mass creative destruction. While money poured into the country during times of less fiscal restraint, China funneled it into myriad infrastructure and planning projects. Now the easy credit is drying up, the country is in a difficult situation, not helped by mass protests across the land as workers demand remuneration that could almost be considered wages. As with the US, there will be an inexorable shift from a manufacturing industry to a services industry. How horrific this shift will be depends upon timing, among things, as a recent article in The Economist points out,

“The long-term plan is for China to wean itself off its reliance on exports and investment projects such as roads, railways and overpriced property developments, and for domestic consumption of goods and services to play a much bigger role in fuelling growth. But this rebalancing will be a long, hard slog. Officials do not want shock therapy because it could threaten the jobs of many of the 160m migrants who come from the countryside to provide the cheap labour behind China’s exports.”

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, as is the lot of someone frequently perceived as front-runner in the candidate race, has been the focus of unrelenting criticism from his fellow party members. Some of this criticism has focussed on his time working for the private equity wing of uber-consultancy Bain & Co., specifically on how many people’s jobs the man cost during his tenure there. Though Romney claims to have created a net sum of 100,000 jobs, he has since withdrawn that rather nebulous figure as his arithmetic has been questioned. His Republican opponents, as well as grass-roots Democratic lobbying group MoveOn (below), have been airing ads featuring blue-collared workers who were let go thanks to Romney’s strategies and implementations.

Mr. Romney, though his flaws and foibles may be many – he recently praised the height of Michigan’s trees as being “just right” – is not responsible for the trend of efficiency savings in America, as the Schumpeter editorial in The Economist points out,

“[I]t was also a symptom of a wider change. It was not just people like Mr Romney who were pushing American companies to shape up. It was also the new rigours of global competition. Firms of every description sought to squeeze out inefficiencies, sell off non-core businesses and close redundant operations, all in the name of shareholder value. [I]t was the shift from manufacturing to services.”

To attack Romney for such practices is to attack the foundations of modern capitalism. Which one is most welcome to do, but presumably something that most Republicans would want to shy away from, continuing as they do to bizarrely refer to Obama as a socialist. One can’t have it both ways.

Similarly caught unawares was the film industry back in the silent era, which underestimated the massive success it would have on its hands with the arrival of sound. While excellent news for film studios, many of the talent in front and behind cameras suddenly found their way of storytelling outdated and unpopular. The Artist, which won Best Picture and Best Director awards at the Oscars at the weekend, perfectly illustrates this change. The ceremony was a grand affair as usual, hosted in the same venue as it has been for years, The Kodak Theater. Reuters recently reported that Kodak has asked to have its name removed from the building as it tries to reduce its debts.

Kodak’s recent fall into bankruptcy serves as a superb example of the forces of creative destruction. The brand is surely one of the most famous of the 20th century. The Economist called it the Google of its day, and surely there are few companies that manage to enter the public lexicon. Until the 1990s it was “regularly rated as one of the world’s most valuable brands”.  The phrase “Kodak moment” has long since left the zeitgeist. The company built one of the first digital cameras ever back in 1975, the cheapest of which cost $1,000. Its share price has fallen 90% in the past year. Its competitor Fujifilm was cheaper and quicker to adapt. Creative destruction first made physical film cameras obsolete, and increasingly digital cameras as smartphones become equipped with high-definition cameras.

After trying to diversify into chemicals, George Fisher, boss of Kodak from 1993-99, “decided that its expertise lay not in chemicals but in imaging. He cranked out digital cameras and offered customers the ability to post and share pictures online.” This could have led to the creation of something akin to Facebook, but for one reason or another it did not. The Economist blames Fisher, and whatever the cause, the company has also suffered from inconsistent strategies due to a revolving door of senior management. Tony Jackson, writing in the FT, defines the creative destruction as one of “technological disruption… cheaper than the existing version and initially not as good. Faced with a cheap and dirty alternative… it goes against the grain to devote resources to it.” One of Kodak’s problems was also its passion; for physical film itself. This passion essentially made them blind to investing fully in the coming digital revolution. There was an acknowledgement that a change was coming, but it was underestimated.

Creative destruction works in terms of the stock market too, of course. What this clip, from the excellent film Margin Call, is alluding to, is that good times lead to indolence; crashes trim the fat. It is nothing new. The series is a cyclical, unending one, difficult to influence, let alone prevent. (That’s why it was so ludicrous when Gordon Brown, as short-lived UK Prime Minister, grandiloquently announced “no return to boom and bust”). Each new cycle brings new regulations, new ideologies and practices. New products, new solutions. The ways the booms and busts happen changes. The products we make and the strategies we implement change and become more and more innovative. But the cycle never ends. Enjoy the ride.

Luxury Retail Activation

A couple of superb examples of retail activation at the premium and luxury end of the spectrum. Interestingly, both are examples of companies relying heavily on associations with the past, in particular nostalgia. It’s no surprise that people want to forget their current predicaments, and presumably the upcoming Future Laboratory trends briefing – Not/stalgia – will touch on this.

Louis Vuitton is cementing its cultural ties with bygone eras and modern masterpieces. It is lending “support” – presumably financial – to the new fourth plinth installation at London’s Trafalgar Square. Variety magazine reported last week that the brand has also signed a “three year partnership with Rome’s venerable Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, comprised of sponsoring scholarships… tutoring and… workshops”. Zeitgeist has been to the Louis Vuitton store in Rome a couple of times over the years, and always thought it a bit small. The addition of a bookshop, let alone a cinema, to the list of requirements, was far from expected. The brand, whose heritage stretches back to 1854, has recently unveiled a new flagship store in the eternal city. According to PSFK, “The Louis Vuitton Maison Etoile Rome includes a book room dedicated to Italian cinema… It also features a 19-seat cinema, which will screen short films, documentaries and original creations.” It is a beautiful-looking store that leverages its own history by using complementary environmental, geographic and artistic devices. Zeitgeist looks forward to visiting soon.

Those readers in New York might recently have found themselves briefly feeling like they had stepped back in time 90 years or so. Boardwalk Empire is a critically acclaimed and popular television series produced by the pay-cable channel HBO, of whose merits The Economist elucidated in detail recently. The programme’s Facebook page recently reached 1 million fans. It is a story set in the era of Prohibition, a time of sharp suits, Trilby hats, suspect crates and conversely a large amount of liquor. Faced with a stagnant market for DVDs, HBO conjured a bespoke shop, exclusively to celebrate the launch of the boxed set. But just as the bootleggers of the day had to be nifty and mobile, so did the brand, setting up streetside vendors. Simple but imaginative, effective and inspired.