the F rant

I’m quoted towards the end of the piece: How Facebook and Twitter are changing the face of advertising.

…Here’s the similar Sydney Morning Herald version.

FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends

I’ve been quoted in a new piece in Campaign Asia Magazine on Social Gaming.  Here’s a link to the piece: Campaign Asia April 11 Social Gaming

My full response for Campaign Asia:

Q: What has been the impact of social gaming on the general gaming landscape?

Gaming was always seen by people as anti-social, but social gaming has destroyed that myth. Social gaming – whether games specifically based on social networking sites (Such as FarmVille and CityVille), Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (such as World of Warcraft or Everquest) or Console Networking games (such as Call of duty: Black Ops or FIFA 11) have opened up gaming in a number of ways; it has increased the number of gamers (with a strong growth in older females), it has increased the number of gaming sessions (as people are encouraged to play with their friends, and it has also increased the duration of gaming sessions (as the previous limitations of computer based intelligence are now superceded by the ability to play against real people).

In short, it has provided a new dimension to gaming, a new relevance and greater consumer touchpoints – it’s not just about the old PC vs console battle, but the ability to play games in browser, in social network, on mobile and other touchpoints.

Q: What is the chief revenue driver for social game developers? How important is ad-based revenue?

In the old days, games were either freeware/shareware or paid products. Now, we have a broad mix of revenue opportunities: paid (buy the game for $x), subscription (per month $), paid updates (buy the new levels for $x), advertising based (in game displays or sponsorship), and increasingly in-game purchase (virtual goods such as clothes, weapons, and other virtual goods that make for a better in game experience). Mostly, gaming developers should be looking at a mix of these opportunities. Ad based revenue is at it’s best when incorporated into the game in an engaging way – rather than just using the game as a billboard for display ads.

Q: Does the advent of gaming via SNS mean that marketers need to rethink how they strategise their in-game advertising? How then should brands be engaging with social gamers? What are the challenges involved?

Yes – just as marketing communications need to be engaging and relevant, so does their integration into games – particularly how they will work in a highly social environment. The key is to recognise that you are not building a platform or a tool, but a community – and every decision should be made to encourage the satisfaction, enjoyment and interaction of that community. While many marketers are fearful of social media because they “lose control” of conversation, social gaming allows the marketer to create the world and set the expectations and actions of the participants. It’s a relatively more controlled environment.

Q: To what extent are game developers and brands partnering to build games that satisfy both consumers and brands?

One of the earliest examples of this was the Playstation game “Boxster Challenge” which was developed by Porsche to coincide with the launch of the original Boxster way back in 1997. It was more or less a completely immersive, highly engaging virtual test drive experience for the Porsche Boxster.

One other great advantage of gaming for marketers is that unlike movies or music, gaming sequels tend to get better, therefore it’s easier to predict and partner with successful gaming franchises. More recently, we’ve seen changes in the way marketers use existing gaming franchises to promote their products: H&M used The Sims to promote and sell their clothing in game and McDonalds in FarmVille. Snoop Dogg has sold over $USD700,000 in branded virtual goods.

The bottom line is – games are incredibly popular – marketers aren’t doing enough to partner with game developers.

FUN: Music, Culture and Entertainment, FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends

Yes, of course people hate those ugly video pre-rolls that appear before video content on YouTube or other video publisher sites. Video pre-rolls are totally annoying – almost as annoying as page takeovers that completely interrupt / destroy the user experience, because we have no control over them.

Let’s consider the context of an interruptive 30 second pre-roll.  We’ve sat through highly interruptive videos in the form of traditional TVCs for years, and despite benefit of using those times to run off and put the kettle on or using ad breaks as a toilet break, they’ve not been particularly good or bad. We don’t get too annoyed by TVCs.

So why are single video pre-rolls so f*cking annoying? Because we are interrupted in an environment where otherwise, we have complete control. Whilst in the digital space, we control our preferences, our options, our screen sizes, our content – everything is customisable, everything is under our command. One of the most attractive elements of technology and social media is the customisation of it – the purity of delivery and our ablity to mold it to our will completely.

We’re annoyed because they’re ultimately sh*t and they cannot be controlled in an otherwise totally controllable environment. Most of the time we spend on them, we spend looking or the little small “x” to close the video. (That some publishers / media companies claim this as a “click” is another story – and similarly annoying).

Control is something that we do not get from TV, that we’ve never had, therefore our expectations are lower, as are our frustrations when we are interrupted with ads. Even when we fast forward through TV recordings, we recognise the trade off between being able to time-shift and the delay in which we’ve been able to consume it – we’ve customised it.

We trust more when we control more. It’s why trust in technology companies is higher than most other companies – in dealing with technology companies and products, we assume that eager nerds have delivered pure products that we can control, interact with and pour our lives into. When this changes, we recoil in horror.

FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends

Awards nights are about telling stories and creating stories. The Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA) Awards currently do neither.

The night should change – make them the “music industry” awards: Including soundtracks, best use of music in games, best gigs, best festivals, best use of music in a commercial venture, best mashups, best tour, best music industry character, etc.

“Recording industry awards” is an anachronism in the digital / experiential age.  The ARIA awards celebrate a distribution channel and the companies built from this channel, rather than a magic form of art.

The ARIA Awards are lame, they’re outdated, they’re introspective, they’re disconnected from the music industry; most importantly, they’re disconnected from music fans.

FUN: Music, Culture and Entertainment, FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends

Most, if not all regular net surfers would be familiar with the “LOLKatz” meme, whereby pictures of cats are accompanied by a funny caption, first invented on 4Chan, and popularised on the I Can Has Cheezburger site.

Now that we’re about to hear about the decision of the three independents and the eventual formation of the Federal Government, Bob Katter is now the star of his own LOLKatz meme, LOLKat.

Be afraid people!

FREEDOM: Economics, Politics and Business

People have always created things in their spare time – whether tinkering in their sheds, fixing cars, making quilts, painting, taking photos or other creative hobbies.  This is not new.  However, what is new is that the digital space is allowing millions of people to combine these efforts on mass scale, huge projects of potentially incredible benefit.  Clay Shirky recently introduced a term to describe this human contribution in non-work hours, “Cognitive Surplus”.

Here is an example of cognitive surplus visualised:

For years, we have consumed media – now we may find that digital media allows us to simultaneously consume and create.  Media as a collaborative service, rather than a product.  Passive and active consumption are options.  Think about the changes to sports viewing, to live TV, to debate, to conversation.  More than just doing something as inane as tweeting while a show is on, we’re talking about genuine co-creation – choose your own adventure – across all media, across any topic or issue.  Crowdsourced problem solving, beyond distributed computing, into distributed thinking. The opportunities are bloody exciting.

FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends

You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll shake your head.

FOOTY: Sport in general

Apple has just launched an updated version of the Safari web browser. One of the key features is an in-built “reader”, that identifies an article (of any type) and displays it in a floating screen, free from clutter, advertisements and other content.

Content looks lovely in the reader – almost as it does on a printed page. Clean, simple, scrollable.

Check out these comparisons below:

This will pose a big problem for advertisers, as people have now been given a simple way of avoiding ads. It’s a big issue for publishers, who have created an overwhelming, many might say ludicrous amount of advertising inventory on their sites, with digital advertisements such as “Over The Pages” and “Page Takeovers”, many of which are site initiated – disturbing and annoying us in a vain attempt to “disrupt” our reading and make us pay attention to the product.

Simply, now as much as ever, compelling, permission based content and engagement is crucial. Marketeers and organisations have to earn their permission to speak, to engage and to encourage reaction. So many marketeers have avoided the elephant in the digital room – that so few people even look at their ads, let alone interact with them. Their default options of raising awareness via mass digital media broadcast are simply running out.

FREEDOM: Economics, Politics and Business, FUTURE: Digital Media, Marketing, Insights and Trends advertising, apple, media