NBC Universal's President of Research and Media Development, Alan Wurtzel, made waves a couple of days ago in an interview with the Financial Times when he claimed that social media "is not a game changer yet" in driving television viewing. The revelation was a bit of a shock to those of us who regularly see hashtags planted in the corner of our favorite television shows, and assumed that we were the only ones not tweeting at every discussion-worthy plot twist.
As it turns out, Wurtzel drew his conclusions based on the Winter Olympics, which NBC had exclusive rights to broadcast. Across the 1500+ hours of coverage over 18 days, his team's research found that approx 3 million unique users, or about 19% of the television viewing audience, posted 10.6 million Tweets, and around 20 million people somehow engaged with Olympics-related commentary on Facebook. His conclusion? Popular shows drive social media activity, not the other way around.
Not everyone agrees with his conclusion.
No one in the digital advertising space has missed the explosion of social media activity by large brands over the past few years, particularly during major media and sporting events when everyone's eyes are shuttling between their television and their phone or tablet. After every year's Oscars and Super Bowl, the advertising world is abuzz with chatter about which social media forays garnered outsized attention for brands (think Oreo at the Super Bowl in 2013 and Arby's at the Grammys this year). Brands with an impeccable sense of timing and creative smarts earn well-deserved kudos.
Flite's co-founder and President of Product and Technology Giles Goodwin was honored to be interviewed here in Flite's San Francisco office a few weeks ago, as part of Dell's #Founders Chats series on CIO.com.
In a couple of minutes, and with a colorful backdrop of our busy office, Giles imparts wisdom gleaned from his experience as a successful startup founder in the digital ad space. Here are a few highlights from this #Founders chat.
The current state of digital advertising
Most of us don’t have a favorable view of ads online, and we think that can be changed. There’s all this great content, great sites, great apps - and we think with the right tools and the right platform that ads can be just as good.
Want to be “that person" who starts the buzz conversation of the night? Ask this question and watch as anyone remotely involved with technology perks up: “With all the technology around us, why are we still using pens and paper, especially for the important stuff?”
Paper processes— think physically signing documents or sending contracts— are no longer realistic in today’s world of real-time and immediate results. People are performing business transactions all the time and live online, both inside and out of work. A staggering 500 million tweets and nearly 45 billion emails are sent daily. The digital revolution is infusing into every area of our lives and is only picking up speed.
Many have called 2013 the year of mobility and this momentum has only increased into 2014. While we might experience a temporary slowing of new device releases into the mobile market, applications and technology integrated into the mobile ecosystem are taking center stage and flourishing. Integration, in a multitude of facets, has produced huge success in some of the world’s most influential industries.
This year, brands will use real-time marketing to enhance the World Cup viewing experience. Instead of being drowned out by the massively-popular event, telling brand stories in real-time offers brands an opportunity to be part of the conversation.
Coke, for instance, has stated they're going full speed ahead with real-time marketing during the 2014 World Cup.
Paul Dwan, Head of Assets and Experiential at Coke explained the importance of real-time marketing during panel at Advertising Week Europe 2014...
You could say that I like ads.
I know that to “like ads” sounds funny, but I’m in the business. Some people not in advertising don’t seem to be as keen about ads as I am. That's fair.
At best, I think most folks begrudgingly accept that ads are necessary to make other great things happen, like make apps or content free. Ads have the noble function of helping reward good companies with a source revenue. But if ads do have a bit of a PR problem with the public at large, it's because they don’t make the value they provide explicit enough.
Think about it.
Most display ads these days are functionally very similar to what they were 10 years ago. I find this odd, given how the rest of online marketing has marched forward to embrace new modes of interacting with potential customers. Are you advertising like it’s 1999? I hope not.
