Leaving an impression, eye contact + making time matter

The self appointed senior deputy official accounters of anytime, anywhere media measurement, Nielsen, announced that they will soon provide data for online TV viewing. This, it is said, will complement their 'people meter'-derived homes data, which currently calls the hits and the misses for traditional tv viewing (i.e., the kind that actually requires a television set). Nielsen release here.

On the surface, Nielsen's claim that it is important to account for online TV viewing seems reasonable. Multiple data sources, including Quantcast, Google, comScore and Nielsen are in violent agreement that more and more of us are watching TV shows on our computer screens. Unfortunately, Nielsen's move to more accurately, er, comprehensively account for tv viewing just isn't that big of a deal.

Say What?

The Nielsen approach attempts to take that which no longer is distinct (the TV) and treat it as if it were. Not to 'dis Nielsen, the same challenge presents itself in the way many traditional media interests have viewed the move online: they've taken the analog vehicle (e.g., TV set, newspaper, album) and tried to move that model online as if it were still distinct. Newspapers, music publishers, books...moving them online integrates video, text, images and audio behind a single, digitally-enabled vehicle...one screen to rule them all...with speakers...and a keyboard.

So the idea that Nielsen's online TV viewing measurement matters much would require that traditional television programming must matter. Of course it does, just not as much as the salad days when we had less to do, with fewer tools to do it. Because now, our friend's silly video of their kid's soccer game matters more than primetime TV. So do our Twitter grunts and Facebook statuses. And we don't like it much when MadMen try to get between us and our context with interruptive, irrelevant advertising online.

So What?

Of course, like healthcare, we all want everything free: free media that is free of advertising and subscription costs. But unlike healthcare, we're willing to pay for ad-free viewing when we upgrade to OnDemand or TiVo-like equipment.

So, let me propose a measure that matters: time spent. It's the common currency that we all share equally...just 24 hours in everyone's bank.

Rather than treat us all as eyeballs and charge for impressions, let's get the best and brightest at Nielsen to track time spent...and where...did we watch 2 videos and read a status on Facebook? Did we watch 10 minutes of The Office on Hulu then 5 minutes of EpicFail?

Each online property can price it's minutes of engagement commensurate with individual's willingness to engage there. Rather than pretending that only 250,000 of us matter when it comes to measuring online media, let's pretend we all do. And rather than pretending that there is 'an audience' let's get content whereever there is one or more audiences.

Spend alot of time commenting on your friend's wall? Sending hundreds of Tweets a day to your sheeps on Twitter? Let your preferred screen sell you based on your time spent...not the number of screens you refresh. You can even let your preferred screen know what you are worth by bidding your time back. Willing to sell your time short? Tell your preferred screen what you are willing to tolerate. I'll tolerate one 60-second ad for every 15 minutes of ad-free experience.

Better yet, give me a bank of earned 'ad-free' time that I accumulate by watching ads...then when I really want to watch a show, visit a site or watch my Friend Feed refresh, without added interruption, I cash out my ad balance by changing my expereince profile to 'ad-free'.

In such a manner, Nielsen doesn't care what show gets billions of eyeballs (because none of them do), they care which sites get millions of minutes...or hundreds of minutes...of attention. And like a utility, sites can price their user's attention individually, variably, and in realtime. The user has a say in how durable a site's demand is by their willingness to accept or cash out ad-free credits.

In the end, the networks matter as either content networks or distribution networks. If the former, you want to be wherever, whenever their is a willing audience on the latter. If the latter, you have to price on what the customer will pay (i.e., your users).

In the end end, Keynes says we're all dead. So as advertisers and consumers let's make the most of the time we spend together rather than being satisfied with mere eye contact.

Finding the right answers, part 2: Ad Networks, Search, and Word of Mouse

Just as the destination is less important than the journey we take to get there, finding the right answers sometimes means we'll just discover better questions.

First post on the question here, second post on the answers, part 1 here. And so the question we pick up is "How do you reach people where they are spending 90% of their visits online?"

Ad networks are an advertising answer.

(Click to enlarge)

As seen in the chart above, the major ad networks reach most of the online population, though frequency and the unique visitors are sometimes called into question as valid proxies for audience measurement.

A typical web user’s total monthly habit of 105 sites and 2300 page views means that the total likely monthly inventory for all online universe is 437Billion impressions (assuming 1 impression per page view). This would require all 50 of the top 50 ad networks to serve an average 100 impressions per user per month to use the available inventory (which grows daily).

No single online ad network is capable of delivering reach AND frequency. And covering every ad network is financially impractical.

In general, display advertising (i.e., banners) struggles to efficiently reach online audiences with sufficient frequency to support its awareness/branding mission (Clicks are generally not a role that banners fuflfill well--they aren't sold on that basis for a reason--and we won't even mention the triple challenges of banner blindness, intrusiveness, and falling CPM rates).

Search advertising is another answer. Search is more about engagement than reach because it has the potential to reach the greatest number of online prospects in terms that they use to define themselves (through the dialogue of the search query)...in essence making a frequency of "1" ideal. But search does nothing for those who already know where they are going.

Word of mouse is a 3rd approach for those who know what they want and where to get it. Meeting these folks and getting a few of them to carry the message to the many, or at least a few more, requires more individualized approaches via blogs, discussion boards or social networks. (the term 'viral' is probably not the best way to reference this type of approach online for all the obvious connotations). Again, a frequency of 1 would be ideal.

So for this circular journey of three posts, the right answer to the question is itself an honest couple of questions to ask repeatedly: "If everyone is online, does a media consumption index matter?" and "If frequency doesn't matter--or isn't definable--online, how will success be measured?"

The approaches for reach are: the traditional model (via banner ad networks), the search model (via, um, search engine marketing) and word of mouse (direct engagement).

For more on targetted online placement, demographics and online research, you may want to check out this post on Google's AdPlanner which seems to be sowing the seeds of do-it-yourself online planning.

Prime time: Just another brick in the wall

In part 2 of what is shaping up as Accenture Week (see part 1 here), I'm catching up on Accenture's Consumer Broadcast Study. The document has lots of lovely findings from their global look at consumer interest in the medium formerly known as television.

To quote the challenge being made to the traditional definition of the network television model:

"Consumers are seeking out the content brands they want regardless of channels, rather than sticking with a channel they know. The message is clear: the days of the line-up are numbered − and the value of “must-see TV” in prime time is falling."

Another way to say this is that technology separates the value of the network from the content that rides it. Network television has always tried to own both.

Now, though, if you are a content owner, you want your content on every network that will distribute it. If you are a network owner, you want all the content you can get. YouTube for instance. Or Flikr. Millions of content owners seeking their own audiences. So there's that.

And in addition to the usual youth-is-the-trend-to-watch findings (they want what they want and they want it when they want it on any device they choose...who'd have thought it!), there is a set of charts in the report that caught my eye(s) on the relationship between advertising and economics:

Looking at both charts, regardless of age: more people would choose to pay to download a TV show they want to watch than would choose to watch advertisements in lieu of paying.

Of course I'd like to see how the question was asked and to explore the nuance of the responses (e.g., how much would you be willing to pay, for instance), but it certainly seems that, in a broad sense, advertising's perceived 'underwriting value' to consumers isn't something to bank on.

Then again, online you don't have to implement mass-media approaches. Let those who would pay, pay. And for those who would trade their time on the planet for ad-supported content? Well, let them eat advertising.

Diversionary link on the value of being a brick in the wall: