According to latest reports from Cisco, video currently generates more traffic in the US than was transmitted across the entire Internet backbone in 2000. Even though video online collapsed for a short while after the internet bubble burst, the technology, bandwidth and desire to watch video online has bounced right back and this time, it’s no bubble.

Additional research is showing that people, and in particular, young men, are moving their entertainment centers to their computers and watching content online: what they want, when they want it. Along with the heightened experience, data shows that users/viewers are watching longer segments than before, further enforcing the idea that the computer is fast becoming a viable and desirable entertainment device. Interestingly, these migrants from TV to internet are much more accepting of inline ads (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll).

Content developers and other people involved i the traditional TV industry still argue against the ‘a la carte model’ and online remains to poor cousin. Despite of lower quality compression for online, people are voting with their feet and marching straight to their computers to watch only the (quality) shows they want to watch at time that suit them.

In my opinion, the advertising opportunities are far great here as we can truly create a targeted ad model against a medium that affords us 100% accountability. What’s not to love, eh?

Rather than preaching about why computers, internet and pay per view / a la carte are the future, I want to redirect my observations and questions to the delivery mechanisms themselves and the skill behind programming. For me, there are two things that must carry over from TV to our smaller screens:

1. Programming: I truly believe that web 2.0 has forgotten an important part of passive viewing, listening. We watch TV and used to listen to radio because we trusted the presenters, programmers, DJs to introduce us to something we might not have found by ourselves or via our peer groups. We need to re-introduce an element of programming and taste along with the content we create. Portals such as YouTube are good at what they do, but a vast majority of users only ever view content that is sent to them by the (much smaller) group of people who create or crawl. So much of YouTube’s audience is highly ephemeral and the related videos stream manages to capture the casual user for, perhaps, one more viewing.

My assertion here is that we need to find a new device for keeping people at the new sites/entertainment portals we create and the first part of this is a new approach to programming, perhaps though targeted content based on user profiles/behaviour. Pretty similar to how traditional programming is currently done on TV.

2. Interface Design: in response to this new targeted content, advertising and programming model we need to develop new GUIs for watching video that allow people to interact with the device in a simplified, more linear fashion. We still need to offer tools for customization, search, sharing etc. for the smaller percentage of more active people, but we must identify the elements that will keep people viewing longer and enjoy the experience more.

Apple does their part with the constant development of video codecs and even adobe with their Flash video platform is coming on leaps and bounds in terms of higher quality whilst maintaining, seemingly unfeasible, small file sizes. HD content is cropping up more and more to make our high pixel density screens sing and 5.1 surround sound is a reality. So, for 2009 I think we need to see video line take a different path to the less effective web 2.0 approaches we’ve seen so far.

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The headline article in today’s AdAge looks at how car dealerships are utilizing video. It focuses on one particular dealership who has created a nice little (viral) video espousing the concept of transparency and honesty. Hold on, a car dealership saying it’s honest? It might take more than a highly staged video to convince us of that, but nevertheless the event is interesting to me on a number of levels:

1. The accessibility of video: largely thanks to Apple, video creation tools (both hardware and software) professional video creation can meet almost any budget. Of course this depends on your expectation and demands for quality. Distribution tools such as YouTube also offer access to a broad audience, if the content is good enough. Imagine spending $50k on a video and reaching a million people without any additional media spend. Amazing (potentially). Added to this, the fact that the spend is easily measured and analyzed.

2. Increasing the effectiveness of your website: according to Larry Pryg , national marketing and ad manager for General Motors Corps, certified-used-auto business, websites with video are twice as likely to general calls or emails from shoppers to dealers.

Of course, this video has to be engaging and entertaining and, most importantly in my opinion, demonstrate utility; it’s got to be informative, useful and empower the viewer to make intelligent qualified decisions - hopefully quick ones that result in check writing etc. Many dealers still just re-purpose TV commercials, which is OK, as many car ads are stil among the best (most entertaining and well produced) but, of course, there’s an opportunity with the online space and a great expectation of users to offer more interaction and information.

3. Transparency: the main ad this article references from the Clay Corp in Norwood, Mass, attempts to offer transparency and honestly by explaining the typical ways (other) car dealers try to screw you over. Ever since Naomi Klein wrote ‘No Logo’ in 2000 I’ve been convinced by the idea of discussion between a brand and it’s audience/customers, rather than the old industrialist approach of preaching brand values from a well staged, er stage. This video doesn’t really embody that notion completely but we feel that it’s vital to empower our clients with the knowledge to make the right decisions regarding digital agencies. So in that vein, we’ve created short documents explaining how to look for and how to buy digital services such as SEO - a practice that is still largely shrouded in smoke and mirrors.

The comparison I’m making here is a potential one: that many agencies, especially digital agencies are already building reputations as charlatans and spinning a web of confusing processes, technologies and TLAs (three letter acronyms). Time to get undresses, and bare all I reckon.

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There are some distinct advantages to being British and doing work in the US but there’s also a few disadvantages. Today I am reminded of one in particular: modesty. It’s a blessing and a curse all by itself and very often I’m prompted to be less shy about boasting our company’s achievements.

Last Exit was borne out of a company called Deepend. Started by three Royal college mavericks, one of them the inimitable Gary Lockton, the company was twice named world’s #1 creative interactive agency. We were a design powerhouse and also a technology pioneer, notching up firsts in Flash development, iTV (interactive television), mobile, integrated campaigns and online video. When I started Last Exit with Andy Beach, online video was a speciality of ours and as one of Apple’s technology partners we produced boutique encoding services and development services for interactive QuickTime. Interactive video, we were sure, would be big and bigger, would be distribution and sharing of video. To that end, we developed the first interactive QuickTime powered by a full content management system. Long time friend to Last Exit, Eyeball NYC was our first commercial success as we produced a video library for their archive - all in QuickTime. The amazing thing was that you could senf the QT skin to someone via email, it would launch and draw the content over the net from our servers. It was a bloody masterpiece and was such a success that we went on to develop several iterations, finally going for an HTML interface and branding it “WaterCooler”. Ken McGorry wrote an article about it back in early 2003 (click here to see the article) and we won several contracts including one with Voltage Video - a traditional tape house/archive - for whom we customized the entire system and built out transcoding infrastructure at their New York city HQ. This enabled their clients to securely long on, and manage all their video based assets and even distribute in any media via Voltages distribution channels. But technology was merely transportation for the creative campaigns we were developing and other fantastic tools started to emerge that we began to use also.

We now utilize a range of solutions as best fit our clients and have built a very successful creative agency. I do want to pin a big fat medal on our collective chests though as (very) early mover in the world of online video. We now continue to exploit all the best aspects of video online and it is now part of almost every campaign we’re involved with. Good job we have the nous to to deploy it properly, effectively and relevantly.

Some examples:

My TiVO Gets Me

Canon

Control Freak

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As a digital agency, one might think it odd that we’re producing our reel as a hard media, DVD. In deed, it has been a bone of contention for some time and thats why, several months after completing our 2008 Design Reel
, we are only just approving the production. After laboring over the reel itself, we’re spending a fair penny on mastering, duplication, packaging and distribution. So I’m still asking why? when we’ve done a great job encoding at different sizes and serving. Electronic distribution is easy and basically free and above all: immediate. As a digital agency, perhaps we should be committed to the channels we predominantly work within? The answer is punctuated by a single word that my partner at Last Exit often heralds “RELEVANCE”. On top of that, I would like to add “penetration” and “visibility”. Our in-boxes are, unfortunately crowded with enough spam to fill a million cheap sandwiches and whilst we can use many different creative tactics to draw attention to a mailer, we believe in a multi-channel and relevant approach that taps into the the behavioral characteristics of our audience. Ours is splie between CMOs at the brands themselves and producers/CDs at ad agencies. Both sets have spent much more time in TV/Radio than in interactive and whilst the transition is happening it’s important to bridge the gap, speak the right language and not to be too disruptive.

So, our belief is that receiving a well designed, beautifully produced DVD (spot glossing and all) will, at the very least, leave an impression in the recipients mind (even if they never actually load the disk into a player) backed by the appropriate and well timed follow up. This is a tried and true and simple tactic that has worked for many reps and EPs in the advertising and motion business and whilst there’s not model for reps in interactive, we’ll give this a go.

Here’s a few screen shots. You can view the reel here, or let us know if you’d like to receive DVD.

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I finally brought myself to go check out Applebee’s Real Videos campaign. In light of some press we’re putting out about Control Freak , I wanted to put together a few case studies of brands utilizing a social media aspect, of which there are many of course. So, it all seems pretty straightforward, video yourself and your friends having a good time at one of Applebee’s many locations and submit via a nicely prominent section on the main website. That’s it! I assumed there was some competition aspect where I might win a year’s supply of Applebee’s coupons, or a party for me and my friends or something. Nope, just to be part of a growing community of similar subscribers and the chance to appear on their homepage and maybe, just maybe TV. Yes, simply that: to be on TV. OK, this appeals to a certain audience but this audience is a large chunk of America and the rest of the world. I kind of like that it represents a simple pleasure/payoff and not one based around winning more stuff. So, while the masses jockey to be on TV, the medium in it’s most basic form is not for the knackers yard yet and it’s refreshing to see a brand change the game a little whilst taking advantage of producing extremely low cost ads!

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Funny how even though I spent hours and hours and bundles of cash setting up an awesome home entertainment system, that the television remains predominantly my wife’s domain. It’s OK, because mostly I think TV is filled with crap. We enjoy movies together and show photos and home video (thanks to AppleTV), so I get my slice. So last night I took advantage of having the apartment to myself (oh and my dogs) to turn the volume up, crank up the sub-woofer and watch the animated Batman - Gotham Knight. Navigating the AppleTV interface is, as you would expect, perfectly intuitive and quite enjoyable, and when I landed on said movie, I thought that maybe I’d want to own it. However, my options were restricted to: Rent, Rent HD and buy, but with the buy option you only get the standard definition version.

DAMN!!! Content providers are still, unbelievably fighting digital distribution and hiding behind ignorance and paranoia. Their fear being that if they allowed you to buy the HD version, that you would automatically go rip it, burn it, duplicate it and sell it buy the thousands down on New York,s Canal Street , thus financially crippling the studios, networks and anyone else who’s cowering in the ignorance corner.

The fact remains and always will that piracy will always be here but will always be restricted to those making a (small) business out of it or/and are bothered to go through the countless steps to do so. Personally, I have the ability, technology and infrastructure to rip/download movies strip out the DRM and share with my friends and family. But I don’t because I can’t be bothered. I have endless better things to do with my time and sooner charge my time out to clients, who need me, for multiples over the value of a $15 movie.

As we all know, Apple boldly made this step with iTunes much to the derision of the entertainment community who mostly believed it wouldn’t work and that everyone would continue to download music via peer-peer networks. Wrong. Give people the right way to do things in an easy to use manner representing an enjoyable and utilitarian experience and they will (well over a billion songs sold on iTunes so far). Yes, the big record companies are still crying in their milk but their just too big and too old to change quickly. So is it just me, or is it crazy that the studios and networks are still fighting it?

Back to last night and my personal experience: I rented the HD movie for $4.99. I wouldn’t buy the SD version for $10, not with my awesome home entertainment system, no sir!! But, I would have gladly given them $15 of my hard earned moolah for a copy of the HD version, which would have sat very happily on my AppleTV, without ever being ripped, burned and shared with anyone else.

The next in my line of fire is the Telcos - an industry which has basically devolved into a monopoly once again - and the slow development of wireless technology in infrastructure and handsets compared with the rest of the world. Again, we see Apple rock the boat . Regardless of the shambles demonstrated at time of launch for the new 3G iPhone and regardless of what you or I think of the device. The most important aspect has been the incredible approach to digital distribution, here in terms of the developers kit and the application store. Super Monkey Ball has already made approximately $5million for Sega! Bloody incredible. I read a fantastic blog posting regarding mobile app development this morning. Worth a read and further evidence that traditional distribution channels are altering - significantly.

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Sadly this video was taken down and we can’t find another copy

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Last Exit has just (soft) launched a new campaign for our clients MOLI. The campaign is based around a series of 5 short films about a character called Marcus - an insufferable control freak - who runs a young ad agency. Though he’s rather hateful, the aim was for us, the creative class, to see something of ourselves in this insidious person. The question is, whether we rejoice in this or bow our heads in shame. Well, the site goes some way into celebrating control freaks. Yes, it’s something we have to learn to let go of and ultimately chill out as our companies grow but in the early days it may be seen as essential.

So, the site is hosted by the good doctor, Dr. Zizberg - the foremost authority on control freakism. He has developed an elaborate brain scan test which reverse engineers your computer monitor to scan your cranium when pressed against the screen. Amazing!!

The site was a lot of fun to work on and a lot fun to use. And, MOLI are giving away 25 iPod touches as part of a sweepstakes competition. So go in, create a profile, take the test and GOOD LUCK!!!

http://www.controlfreaktv.com/

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OK OK, I really am slow to post but I just got a bunch of work done and we just won a really big pitch and I’m only now catching up with a bunch of reading and enjoying some truly entertaining advertising.

Cadbury’s new internal production company has certainly produced a wonderful piece of work and I might find it particularly entertaining as I am, myself, a drummer and though I hated Phil Collins once he got of the drum stool after Peter Garbiel left Genesis in ‘74, I did like many other drummers play along to this track. The burst of double fisted beats introducing the percussion element of the song is explosive and I never before related it to the chest beating of a 600lb gorilla. I have a beautiful kit set up in the office and when everyone has left at the end of the day, I think I might relive it myself.

Regarding the message, I guess it’s quite simple; ecstasy? Though if cadbury are committed to quality, they’re going to have to stop licensing the product to Hershey in the US. YUCK!!!

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How do you explain that your overhead projector technology is better than others? Dentsu America created a visually rich, character-driven campaign entitled “Our Pixels Are Really Close” to re-enforce the Canon REALiS next-generation overhead projector technology and its key advantage - the sharpness and accuracy of the displayed image. At Last Exit, we produced the site incorporating lots of visual effects as well as, of course, the pixel characters.

<<Click here to launch Canon - REALiS>>

The success of the project is a testament to the highly collaborative relationship between our two companies. Fantastic!

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