DRTV MEDIA BUYER

In its attempt to merge television with the Web, Google has teamed with Sony to create Google TV.

With a hi-def TV or Blu-ray player from Sony, viewers will be able to watch regular television and movies or go online to surf services like Google’s YouTube for television content.

At its annual developer conference in June, Google cited the unfriendly menu systems of most cable and satellite television providers, explaining that Google TV will be able to give viewers the content they want when they want it.

Sony will have the player built into its high-definition televisions and Blu-ray players and gadget giant Logitech will also offer separate set-top players. Both will use Google’s Android operating system as their backdrop and devices are expected to hit stores this fall.

So far, the devices will be available only from Sony and Logitech and only at Best Buy stores. Google is working hard to convince other retailers, such as Walmart, to come on board as well. Given the price point and high cost of some components, such as the Intel Atom chips that power them, however, convincing discount retailers to carry Google TV may be a challenge.

Watch for the Sony Internet TV and Blu-ray players in Best Buy stores this fall.

Hillcrest Labs, a small company in Maryland, has potentially eliminated many of the downsides of hooking the Internet up to one’s TV – giving major networks another huge headache on top of the concerns they already have about online streaming video competing with their own offerings.

The company’s offering is a browser called Kylo that works particularly well on TV screens, with larger icons and an on-screen keyboard so that users needn’t have their laptop handy to manipulate what’s happening on the screen. It also comes with a remote control called a Loop that serves as a kind of combination mouse and remote. It can be waved in the air to move the cursor on the screen, and it has buttons that allow the cursor to click on icons and use the online keyboard to search.

These features are great for users who have struggled with the TV-computer hookup combination, but for the networks, it simply offers one less reason why users would want to pay money to watch shows on TV – or even look at the expensive advertisements and myriad of interesting infomercials.

Hulu.com recently banned Kylo users from their website, citing agreements with partners and investors that essentially agree that online video is designed to be kept online. As Kylo is especially designed for use with TV screens, Hulu.com raised a red flag.

Users are getting more innovative with their technology, however, and it seems it’s only a matter of time before the remaining disadvantages of watching TV online, such as smaller screen size, are eliminated for good.

We’ve seen that the social media crowd is fickle.

One year the hottest thing around is LiveJournal, next it’s MySpace, next it’s Friendster.

Considering the fact that most of you reading just now scoffed to think that anyone uses any of those platforms anymore, it’s not surprising that there were predictions that Facebook would lose momentum after a year or so as social media fans found other outlets.

Not so. Facebook has actually been increasing in popularity and its users show no sign of intending to go elsewhere. Many attribute this staying power to the fact that Facebook has actually encouraged its potential rivals to use its own platform to talk to new customers.

Third-party software developers work with Facebook instead of creating rival sites, which means that the latest, hottest thing can live and die on Facebook without actually risking the larger platform losing its popularity. There’s always something new and hot to get interested in.

It’s possible Facebook shot itself in the foot with the introduction of Facebook Connect, though. This development lets outside sites become “partners,” which means visitors can log in with their Facebook username and interact with their Facebook friends when they’re no longer on the Facebook site.

It’s one thing when rivals work on Facebook, but it could be extremely risky to chance Facebook showing up on rival platforms. With so many other ways to interact with their favorite Facebook features, will users decide they no longer need to show up on the official Facebook site?

Blockbuster has been losing revenue to other movie providers like Netflix and Redbox for the last few years, and it’s about to have to take on an even bigger rival: Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart already had a huge amount of Blockbuster’s retail sales when they began to offer low-price DVDs, but now they’re entering into the digital download market, and this may be the final nail in Blockbuster’s coffin.

The company is already reporting extremely low net loss for the year at $183 million, in part because of poor holiday rentals and sales. As consumers increasingly turn to downloads – the numbers have doubled in the last year alone – Blockbuster may simply not be able to provide consumers with the ease and quickness they need in a rental provider.

The company tried to solve the problem by partnering with NCR, which rents movie kiosks at locations like supermarkets so that buyers can rent their DVDs when they’re already out running other errands. Blockbuster has been closing stores and relying on the kiosks more heavily, but being able to pick up a movie at the same time as that gallon of milk may not be convenient enough.

Increasingly, viewers want to get their movies without leaving the house – and Wal-Mart has already beaten Blockbuster to the punch by getting in on the downloading market first.

This upfront season, we’re seeing CNN plant the seeds of a new strategy that may or may not bear fruit.

Greg D’Alba, EVP and COO of CNN ad sales, is putting forward a new stripped-down video pitch that shows off the true power of CNN’s 24/7 news-gathering approach – while also telling them he can guarantee away-from-home deliveries.

No one has ever attempted the away-from-home guarantee before, mostly because it’s incredibly difficult to prove and therefore very hard to convince ad buyers to pay for. The idea is that networks will tailor their news to the viewership in restaurants and bars, hotels and other third-party viewing channels, including away-from-home residences.

Part of the strategy is to begin appealing to younger viewers, who traditionally don’t often watch TV to get their news, though CNN says that studies prove that they’re the TV channel the younger generation prefers when they do tune in.

This strategy also draws the focus away from prime time, preferring to guarantee viewership on a 24-hour schedule. Previously, viewing outside of prime time netted only 10% of CNN’s total revenue – with their new strategy; it looks like CNN is hoping to shift that number upwards.

That is, if media buyers take the bait.

Marketing across the board has been seeing budget cutbacks, but digital media has seemed like a bright spot in an otherwise bleak advertising environment.

Social media, search, video, and mobile were the most popular and cost-effective new advertising techniques that appears to actually be gathering strength in spite of the recession.

Unfortunately, that mindset may me a little hyped-up. eMarketer just cut its growth forecast for the medium to 4.5%, down from their previous optimistic number of 9%. Online advertising may not even increase from 2009 to 2010, seeing as 2009 failed to meet the predictions of continual growth.

It’s not all bad; 2010 will see more effort put into extended digital media campaigns. While many companies in 2009 were still catching up to the digital revolution and needing serious persuasion from their ad buyers to invest money into digital media, there’s a lot of evidence that shows 2010 won’t have those same setbacks. Companies are planning more extended campaigns with more research and planning put in, which may actually turn around the problems with digital media we saw in 2009.

Video advertising is another bright spot, especially with the rise of websites like YouTube and Hulu, where there are long-form advertising options in a medium that companies are well used to utilizing – video commercials. Mobile is another advertising medium that may see an uptick in 2010, with more companies looking into advertising on smartphones using apps tailored to their target demographic. Finally, display advertising is expected to increase slightly, from $4.6 billion to $4.8 billion.

Digital media may not be the sanctuary it’s been touted as, but it isn’t worth turning your back on it. It’s still one of the best ROIs in the business.

Is the younger generation really driving social media as much as we give it credit for?

Twitter is just one of the social media sites that finds the tween demographic (ages 13-17) isn’t all it’s hyped up to be when it comes to determining the longevity of any given service. MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and similar social networking sites all might have initially been picked up by younger demographics, but as they age, they see the ages of the majority of their users trend upward.

One of the reasons for such a shift is that as more adults get involved in any given social media, there start to be more “adult” uses for the service. MySpace, for example, became a way for musicians and singers to market themselves on a free platform. Facebook is certainly still used by youngsters taking the latest quiz about what Hogwarts house they belong to, but it is also used by adults who promote their services and engage in adult conversations and interactions with their peers.

Twitter is especially sensitive for the younger demographic because of its public nature. The whole point of Twitter is that anyone can see – and follow – your Tweets, which makes it a much more public medium than Facebook or Friendster. Adults are usually quite comfortable with controlling the information they put out there, and are more focused on creating interesting conversation.

Tweens, on the other hand, may well be smart to give Twitter a bye until they feel more secure with the world knowing their whereabouts.

The Redbox Automated Retail LLC seemed like a pretty brilliant idea, capitalizing on a concept made popular by Netflix.

Get your movies at a convenient place for a low cost…With Netflix, they came to your home. With Redbox, you got them at the same place you got another essential – your groceries.

The video-rental boxes are under some scrutiny from studios, however. Though originally there were claims that Redbox was cutting into their sales margins, some studies are beginning to change their tune. This may have something to do with the fact that studio revenue from disc sales to retailers and rental stores is going to fall by about $850 million this year. Meanwhile, kiosk sales are slated to grow by $125 million. Studios are taking notice.

The difference between video stores and Redbox seems pretty minimal, much like the difference between buying a candy bar from a vending machine vs. buying one from a gas station service person. Either way, you get the candy bar and the candy company gets a chunk of the revenue.

That’s how it works with video rental stores: Every time they rent a movie, they give a piece of the profits to the studios. With Redbox, that isn’t the case – and studio giants are trying to make it so. If they succeed in cutting a deal with Redbox, they might just manage to make up some of their lost sales. That cheap $1 rental price might not survive the transition, though.

Cable networks in particular have been panicking about more video than ever being available online. This new research from Nielsen may be comforting to them; apparently Americans are watching more TV – on their TVs, no less – than ever before.

The average American watches approximately 153 hours of TV every month at home, which is up 1.2% from last year’s hourly count. By contrast, Americans watch an average of only 3 hours of video online each month, and that number only includes the average of all Americans who watch video on the Internet at all. If you factor in the fact that many more Americans own and watch a TV than watch video online, it’s a little surprising that networks have gotten so panicky about the possibility of losing their cable subscribers.

Of course, 35% of those who both have a cable connection and watch video online said they might consider dropping their subscription. However, that demographic isn’t necessarily large enough to be concerned about. Many of the 131 million Americans who watch video online have never had a cable subscription, as the majority of them are younger viewers who are only just beginning to choose to pay for certain services.

That still leaves the question of whether cable will survive as the generations shift, but the improved numbers on television watching may soothe cable company’s fears a little bit.

In 1993, tobacco giant Philip Morris held a meeting to say that Marlboro would be cutting its cigarette prices significantly in an attempt to hold on to their market.

The 20% cut did more than that – it launched a new phase of marketing for Philip Morris and began a series of techniques that other companies ultimately copied and continue to use today.

In a move whose initial phases look remarkably similar, Proctor and Gamble is going to be holding a meeting to discuss Tide detergents, and the anticipation is that a similar change is about to take place in P&G’s marketing strategy. Whether it will be enough to pull them out of increasingly lagging consumer spending is yet to be seen.

The economy and laundry detergent
In a down economy, women who normally are brand-loyal to a particular detergent may choose cheaper alternatives temporarily, a finding P&G confirmed with surveys. They’ve lost about 19% of the market to discount brands, though 80% of those surveyed say they’ll be back to buying Tide when their budgets aren’t quite so tight.

If P&G is planning a price cut on the level of Marlboro’s, those women may be back to their favorite brands quicker than they thought.