Perkolating

via Ad Age by David Teicher

Startups can win a marketing and media strategy from a great agency.

via Ad Age by Ian Schafer

This entire post is MUST READ stuff in my opinion, but below are some of the very real truths about Real-Time Marketing’s evolution.

Real-Time Is Also About the Future
If brands want their content to be shared, it needs to be built that way. In this feed-dominated media landscape, there is more than enough data being generated every second for us to have the ability to make better decisions about what events and what kinds of content (photos, videos, etc.) will actually be shared. Successful brands will have real data inputs that enable them to confidently pre-optimize their content for sharing. Platforms or third-party tools will be integral providers of this data to brands. Cross-platform data will be the most valuable.

Real-Time Is About Reach and Relevance
Data will also inform a quicker decision-making process when it comes to planning and buying media, which must be closer in proximity to the content. Whether that means real-time content publishers are also buying media, or media buyers being more synergized with a publishing platform, time is becoming one of the most important factors when it comes to making real-time content work. As platforms’ native ad solutions mature, it will be integral for media buyers to help ensure that the right content is seen by as many of the right people as possible before the content expires. Furthermore, social platforms have become both publishing channels and media channels. We can publish ads and see how they perform before we invest media dollars in them. As we evaluate real-time content’s performance, we will no longer look at the number of retweets; we will look at that content’s velocity and reach. This represents yet another invaluable opportunity for brands to rethink their media-planning and -buying approaches—which must be scrutinized, as consumption habits have changed faster than brands have.

Real-Time Is Mobile First
“Feed culture” has reoriented our media consumption, from horizontal to vertical, and this change may be permanent. Real-time content works best in a feed, as that is typically the point of (re)sharing. One of the best side effects of being a real-time branded-content publisher is significantly improved mobile penetration—the majority of mobile-app usage is social in nature. It may very well be that many brands find that the best mobile advertising strategy is a good real-time content strategy.

Real-Time Is Operational
When brands have their “Marco Rubio moment,” they are expected to have a team of clever Photoshoppers and copywriters standing at the ready. But this is what agencies are for. Brands alone can’t just adopt a more real-time mind-set. Their agencies must evolve the ways they service marketers in an always-on world, and rethink at least part of the creative process. A “creative newsroom,” like we have in the Deep Focus Moment Studio, is one way. Other frameworks will emerge and will separate always-on agencies from those built for campaigns. I never thought I’d say this, but it is actually possible for at least part of an agency to be fast, good and inexpensive if you’re built that way.

While these truths are cornerstones of an effective real-time marketing strategy, the moves needed to make real-time a reality may be different for every brand and agency. But one thing is for sure: The biggest hurdle is the way we have always done things up to now.

For all the planning and millions of dollars that go into the creation of Super Bowl commercials, arguably the best ad of the game last night was a tweet…

“Power out?” Oreo posted to Twitter. “No problem. You can still dunk in the dark.” The tweet was retweeted 10,000 times within one hour.

The Oreo graphic was “designed, captioned and approved within minutes,” according to Sarah Hofstetter, president of the cookie brand’s digital agency of record, Dentsu-owned 360i. All the decisions were made in real time quickly because marketers and agency members were sitting together at a “mission control” center, or a social-media war room of sorts, at the agency’s headquarters in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Manhattan. Among those who were there were two brand team members from Oreo, and nearly a dozen creatives, strategists, community managers and social-media listeners.”

Brilliant.

via Ad Age by Simon Dumenco

Then, last December, after Nielsen bought SocialGuide, Nielsen and Twitter announced they were working on creating something called the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating — “a syndicated-standard metric around the reach of the TV conversation on Twitter” — in time for the fall 2013 season. I’m keeping an open mind, but a part of me felt that that was a jump-the-shark-moment for social TV. As I’ve written before, when it comes to social-media response, absolute numbers — especially when used to compare disparate shows — are largely meaningless. There are just way too many variables to correct for between viewer demographics and show genres (e.g., a low-rated CW drama can explode on Twitter thanks to tweet-happy teen girls, dwarfing the social-media response to, say, a top-rated police procedural over on older-skewing CBS).

So, yeah, what of the future of social TV? For starters, Trendrr is doing some interesting things with its curation tools — part of its “studio services” offerings — which are all about drawing insights for specific networks and showrunners from the social-media stream surrounding individual shows (i.e., the point is to listen to your audience). Bluefin Labs, another company that’s been sharing its data with Ad Age, is continuing to build out its sophisticated system for evaluating the efficacy and social reach of individual commercials.

But for my money, where it gets really interesting is when networks stop thinking about how to goose the social-media numbers surrounding the broadcast window and instead think of their shows as cross-platform (including social-media) brands that fans want to be able to engage with anytime they want. That’s the approach taken at, for example, USA Network, under digital chief Jesse Redniss. His team has pioneered in the creation of digital extensions of shows — everything from tablet comic books to elaborate, engrossing online games — that delight viewers (and sponsors) 24/7.

I think Simon is right on the novelty of Social TV or #socialtv - but the intersection between traditional TV and social media is still ripe for growth and disruption.  I still firmly believe Twitter is a square peg into round hole solution for the growing demand around co-viewing.

via Ad Age by Jeff Schroer (iBubblr co-founder)

Grateful to be given a larger voice in the conversation by the folks at Ad Age, especially David Teicher and Simon Dumenco. This post reflects our larger vision and position in the Social TV sector originally stated in the May post “How Social TV Can Make the World a Better Place”

We hope to see everyone in LA next week!

via Ad Age - Q&A w/ Evan Silverman, SVP-Digital Media at A&E Networks and Jeanine Poggi

I’m excited to hear Mr Silverman’s take at the SESTV Conference in LA.

We hope to see you in LA!

via Ad Age by Cotton Delo

Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez (Amores Perros, Babel) -

Slick, heavy handed, expensive and good. I like this spot.

via Ad Age by Rupal Parekh

Love this post.

via Ad Age by Brian Steinberg 

via Ad Age by Simon Dumenco

Always dig Mr Dumenco’s take on the sector and this post has some rich examples of how Networks can, and are, leveraging Social TV for traffic AND revenue. 

via Ad Age by Simon Dumenco

via Ad Age by Michael Learmonth

The 658 subscribers who took Ad Age’s survey over the past two weeks characterized themselves as decision-makers in social marketing. The respondents were 34% marketers, 34% agency execs, 13% media execs, and various consultants and other members of the marketing ecosystem.

The results were a mixed bag for Facebook that illuminated some of the challenges it will have in scaling ad revenue, but it also indicated that some of Facebook’s perceived challenges with marketers — such as not providing enough transparency and data — are overblown.

The results also revealed confusion on how to calculate return on investment on Facebook and how to compare that to spending in other social and traditional media channels.

Remarkably, Ad Age readers surveyed speak in virtual unison on two questions. Nearly 86% of those surveyed say they currently use Facebook as a marketing tactic. Only 55%, however, say they currently advertise on Facebook, and nearly 88% said they would implement Facebook content without advertising at all.