The New TV
Is YouTube the same as TV – do they even compete? Just as they compete for viewers and attention, they also compete for marketing spend and attention. YouTube is on fire. As much as it is about the medium, its also about sales execution. What the market and commentators miss so often is that YouTube – in fact all of Google – have a killer sales machine. It’s better than any other out there. As a result the medium could be 50-70% as good as TV.
Google’s Australian managing director Maile Carnegie put the heat on TV broadcasters on Friday, claiming Google’s video platform YouTube reached more 18-54 year olds in Australia than “any single individual TV channel” and “has more than twice the reach of subscription TV”.
Good read on new marketing forces
Looking forward, here’s what brands and agencies must have a grip on to get down to 1:1 business:
Scale: It may seem like an oxymoron that the Law of One needs scale, but without personalized content to reach individuals, your precision marketing doesn’t stick. Create processes that allow you to align multiple sets of personalized creative content with various trigger points so you can deliver the true impact of 1:1.
Big data: You’ll need data from the back end (like behavioral data from websites) and customer-facing channels (like social, forms and surveys) to reach new heights of personalization. Set your tech plans in motion now.
Cross-channel integration: From desktop to mobile to retail, every channel should be informed by what you know about every customer. They shouldn’t have to explain the same issue to you on email that they just voiced over the phone. Integrate channels for a happier and more loyal customer.
The Apple Watch
My experience has been really mixed. I’ve avoided writing about it mainly because I think the experience is largely going to be personal – and its an experience worth trying. Then I stumbled across this interview with William Gibson:
What are your thoughts on Apple’s introduction of a product that, in a very specific way, is attempting to occupy the place once held by wristwatches? Is the Apple watch a watch at all?
I backed Pebble’s original Kickstarter, then wore Pebble exclusively for the better part of a year. Fascinating experience. It’s not “a watch”, as I assume the Apple, which I’ve yet to try, also isn’t. The fundamental difference between a watch and a smartwatch is that a watch’s central functionality is to tell time in isolation. That’s the essential core goal of the science of horology, really. A watch can perform its functions perfectly from within a Faraday cage. A smartwatch can’t: its function is to be a node in a distributed network. That was easy to see in the first Pebble: it had all the physical gravitas of the cheapest Bic pen, but, eventually, it had amazingly varied functionality, via connectivity. The Apple looks like jewelry. It’ll aspire to heirloom status but I doubt it will ever be that. Attempts to render smartphones as power jewelry fail. The Apple watch, I imagine, will be a dead platform in a few years, no more collectible than old iPhones. Because it’s nothing, really, without access to a system, and the system constantly outgrows it, evolves beyond it.
How have you found it?
The Shift
One of the greatest shifts occurring as a result of the rise of mobile devices is how we go about completing everyday tasks.
Checking our bank balance, paying a bill, upgrading an account, applying for a credit card – all are examples of activity we once dedicated time to. We planned to visit a branch. We filled out application forms and waited. We sat in front of a browser and dedicated attention to completing a task.
Now, many of those tasks are things we do while we are doing something else. Riding on the train or bus; sitting in a meeting; or when the Ads roll at the cinema or on TV. As we shift those tasks into other activity, we compress the time we are willing to dedicate to completing them.
Those that are winning in mobile have typically simplified processes to be so simple and easy you can do them while doing something else – and, ensured that the task can be completed in the average TV ad break.
Simple, easy and speedy are the watchwords for winners in the dominantly mobile economy.
Building Great Products & Long Walks
Reads and feeds for the day:
- How to build and market great products: “We are an exceptional software development team. But, we now also need be an excellent customer development team. That’s why, in the first section of this doc, I said “build a customer base” rather than “gain market share”: the nature of the task is different, and we will work together to understand, anticipate and better serve the people who trust us with their teams’ communications, one customer at a time.”
- Lots of “lean in” passion out there – I liked this piece on what P&G is doing. I’ve been guilty of setting meetings too early and am grateful for the team members that coached me to smarter ways.
- It might be time for a long walk… seriously. More here on the benefits.
- Am finding Grammarly more and more indispensable. Love it.
