Tag: Intel

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  • Inside Intel

    A video that was shared yeterday on Facebook by a friend got me to check out Intel’s latest global campaign – Sponsors of Tomorrow. I then remembered that a few days back I’d seen a half jacket (a page takeover on pages 1, 2) in TOI, which talked about the same thing though it seemed a cobranded effort with TOI called Innovators of tomorrow. [Disclosure: I work for the Times Group.]

    The campaign videos on YouTube were quite interesting. In addition to the ‘Rock star’ and ‘Oops’ TVCs, there are also videos of real employees at intel (is that the same Ajay Bhatt referred to in the Rock star video?) and an interactive ‘In the future i want..‘ which featured random people interviewed at the Times Square, and billboards which displayed these ‘ideas’. I was a bit intrigued by the campaign, and a Google search took me to the press kit and the official site.

    While the tagline is ‘Sponsors of tomorrow’, the campaign’s communication strategy seems to be two pronged – one, to expand on the line, and show what happens behind the scenes and how through innovation, they aim to be the ‘sponsors of tomorrow’, and two, to promote the people behind the technology. What got me intrigued was the execution.

    The single line take outs from the videos were – “Our big ideas aren’t like your big ideas”, “Our rock stars aren’t like your rock stars”. While the videos are indeed funny and convey the perspective clearly,  I wonder if those are the kind of statements, that will really inspire people to send in ideas. From the Innovators of Tomorrow effort and the website, there seems to be an agenda of interactivity, since it calls for ideas.

    On innovation and technology. Somewhere, hidden in the press release, I saw a sentence that amounted to “Its not technology, its what technology can do for them that’s important to people”. It’d have been great to see Intel expand on this and show consumers what Intel technology has made possible and what it is attempting to make possible. The global site wasn’t very impressive. “You on tomorrow” is the interactivity effort there and I promptly filled up “in the future I want__________” with “websites that load faster” and that wasn’t being frivolous. Maybe I’m reading too much science fiction, but even the 2128 Delhi video wasn’t very futuristic – holography and body scan after 19 years isn’t exactly the kind of advancement a bleeding edge  technology giant like Intel should limit its imagination to, IMHO.

    People behind the technology. Funny videos and self deprecating humour is great, the point is made. But if they wanted to showcase the people behind the efforts, this seems to be a better thing to have promoted – employee blogs. (the first comment is worth a read) And better ways using different platforms to get the people working on the technology to share how the technology they work on helps improve consumer experiences, lifestyles etc. That might generate a little more involvement than ads showing how Intel’s rock stars are different, and interactive games that deal with suiting up an engineer!! As a consumer this just made Intel geekier for me. What happens inside Intel is  definitely important, however, what it does to life outside could’ve been a more effective communication from an interactivity perspective. What do you think?

    until next time, I don’t think Intel will sponsor tomorrow’s posts 😉

    The views expressed here are solely mine, that really should go without saying. But we live in an evil world. 🙂

  • What’s on TV? The Internet

    The confluence of web and TV has been a topic of discussion for quite sometime now. The initial version of Web TV- with a set top box and keyboard, didn’t work out well, but that hasn’t stopped the next generation from making attempts, and with all the components required for access built into the TV now, things are showing some promise.

    Yahoo’s TV widgets, with Flickr, news, finance etc integrated onscreen in Samsung TVs had created quite a stir at the CES 2009 event earlier this year. Yahoo and Intel have also co-developed a range of products that lets users access pages and tools while watching a program – around 20 widgets (scaled down versions) from the NYT to MySpace and Twitter. Yahoo will also release a toolkit for developers to make new content.Yahoo is not the only player here. Netflix has tied up with LG for a new line of broadband high-def TVs with Netflix built in to it. More on that here.  Verismo Networks has a PoD device – VuNow that can stream web content onto your TV without a PC or connections. (via Bangalore Inc) On another front, there are gaming consoles and DVD players etc with built in broadband access abilities.

    Meanwhile, the convergence is happening on the reverse direction too. With the net becoming a competition to TV channels as a source of entertainment, the reverse is also happening as a lot of television content is now finding its way into the net, legally. 🙂 Comcast, Time Warner Cable etc are now entering the fray with a two fold objective – to take more content online, and make the TV experience more web like. Closer to home, Star TV had tied up with nautanki.tv earlier this year to watch shows online. A couple of months back, the Times Audience Network added Big Adda as a video content partner. More about that here. Hmm, Bigflix + Big Adda?

    It is also interesting to see web based entities going beyond their current territories. Portals, like Sulekha creating Web TV. Internet video site Hulu getting into social networking. Will expand on that in a bit.

    Meanwhile, television content (shows) have started using social media to add a layer to their interactivity. MTV recently announced plans to launch a show that will also include real-time conversations taken from Facebook and Twitter, allowing users to interact with the show as it airs.  Users will be able to upload videos (their favourites and even self generated ones) through a RockYou application.(via TC) Mad Men’s tryst with Twitter, though fan generated is also a case study.

    An interesting concept I came across on TC – Delivery Agent, which helps TV networks make use of their content by being an online marketplace for products and merchandise that are seen on television shows. It pays the network a royalty for this. According to the TC article, they have gone step further by checking the index of products scheduled to appear on the show, before the show airs, and then approach the brands concerned to buy an ad package. It seems like a win-win-win concept. With even a partially enabled web on TV, this concept could be easily integrated and made into real time purchases. Absolutely measurable for brands. Imagine saans – bahu saris, wedding costumes and even office and casual wear that can be bought online. The Jassi look, or the more recent Ballika Vadhu look, anyone? 😉

    TVLoop, which started out as a Facebook app that allowed users to have view TV show episodes on their profile , has now gotten itself a website of its own.If you comment on an episode of the show on TVLoop.com, TVLoop users on Facebook or any other social network can reply directly from their respective site. (via Mashable) The Hulu social network I mentioned earlier encourages Hulu users to connect with one another and share their video preferences. The new features are expected to help Hulu better track viewing preferences, which helps further target ads. It also helps monitor conversations around videos and therefore provides more data on viewer behaviour. In both cases, the key take out is collective feedback – on content, ads served etc. From tweaking storylines and characters to embedding products better, having conversations around them and making purchase decisions easier, there is tremendous potential.

    Web on TV, TV on web, web TV and social networking, TV and social networking, at the end of it, the point is about content on demand- across platforms, a rapid increase in interactivity, and the potential to increase the relevance of a product/service to consumers and encourage purchase almost instantly.  In an era when vanilla product placements are becoming increasingly unpopular with viewers, this content integration across platforms could be the kind of tonic that’s needed for a system that currently thrives on sponsored (and usually non related, random) advertising and  insipid product placements. From the other side, the web’s current major advertising mechanism – contextual advertising just got more content to play with, and this could spawn an entire new way of advertising.

    As for me, I’m waiting for the time when I can watch the YouTube videos, Flickr photos and Twitter updates and the TV news on the same screen, and then real time reality TV, when I use my Twitter handle to eliminate participants and generally decide their fate 😉

    until next time, users, from publishers on the web to broadcast producers

  • Figuring Social Media?

    Recently, Jeremiah Owyang wrote about Intel’s community efforts, which also throws light on the join vs create debate that has intrigued me too, for quite sometime. Intel’s marketing manager is of the view that companies should join active communities, rather than trying to create them at corporate websites. The two examples used for Intel’s efforts are those it did at Digg and Slashdot. There’s also the middle path, start the conversation on social networks and then take them outside to you own site, but I’m not a big fan of that either.

    I have a feeling that the reluctance for brands to join (as opposed to create) is because of the lack of control it entails. On their own website, it’d be easy. Besides, a neutral venue (like a social network) means that a brand cannot restrict its conversations to spokespersons it chooses, like British Airways and Virgin Atlantic found out to their dismay. There’s probably another reason why companies prefer their own websites – with company websites, it’d be easy to define and track ROI, based on the clicks, time spend etc, but how can ROI on activities on other sites be defined and calculated? Of course, there are ways to track online reputation, like Trackur, for example, but I wonder what metrics should be applied to figure out the effectiveness of an activity. After all, its no longer just a linear (banner – click, though that seems to be working well on social networks too) set of activities that happen on social networks now. But again, ROI entails that its an investment. From some of the activities I see on social media, I doubt whether many brands see it that way. Also, I agree with what’s discussed in this post – that ” The problem with trying to determine ROI for social media is you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable”. While the ‘how’ is indeed a debate, we also need to be clear about what we measure. Here’s a great post by Dina on the subject on ROI, in which she also explores the things that should be measured.

    I think its too early for brands to take examples of others’ activities and use them as a template for their own activities. After all, according to this article, a majority of marketing guys are still learning the media,  and apparently, close to 90% of them who are involved in programs are not measuring the ROI of theor efforts. Or maybe ‘too early’ is a wrong phrase, with the dynamic nature of social media, perhaps the time for fixed templates is over. Perhaps, there are only broad indications and inferences that can be derived, but brands would have to evolve their own set of activities, and their own methods of defining and tracking ‘ROI’ on social media, basis their strategic intent. (Nike seems to have done a smart job in that respect) ‘ROI’, because, I can’t think of any other term that would mean ‘results for the efforts made’. In this context, I’d also recommend this post very highly – the 5 critical responsibilities of a social media expert.

    But perhaps, as this article notes, it needs to start way earlier, like companies allowing employees, access to YouTube, facebook etc in office, and understanding that the media consumption habits that digital natives have created are also creating changes in business environments and communication methodologies. Maybe that’s a good place to start a reworking of business strategy.

    until next time, the medium is the message

    PS. A great read on how remarkable companies are creating consumer evangelists (download pdf) (via Himanshu’s blog)

  • Its just getting bigger…

    A big news earlier this week was the launch of Big TV, with 20 channels to be launched – music, movie, lifestyle, regional..according to this article from some time ago.  (via medianama) Right at the bottom of the article is a paragraph on their internet plans. I, for one, am always intrigued by the BIG plans, since Reliance has a way of upsetting the entire setup, irrespective of the category, and using it to their advantage – whether its through scale, pricing or whatever disruptive means they can think up. This article says that a budget of Rs.100 crore has been earmarked for the marketing and communication of this entity, and also gives the pricing. With that budget, they can afford the tagline “Ho to Big Ho” 🙂

    I remember writing a BIG post, quite a while back touching upon the synergy that could be derived out of all the BIG entities – FM, Adlabs, BigFlix, Mobile, Music, Adda, and I had mentioned DTH too. With existing providers scampering about to announce who got a matrimonial tie up faster, reliance, with their content and distribution options could really muscle their way in. Adlabs and Big Adda, for example, are working quite well together, by promoting new movies with a Big Adda site. But what I missed out in that post was the stuff I’m more interested in now – BIG’s IPTV venture, in partnership with Microsoft, about which I’ve been hearing about for quite sometime now. Coincidentally, I also read this article today, which talks about the government approval for IPTV being on the way. For those who are wobbly on IPTV (like me), I’d suggest reading up here and here, though the latter is a bit dated.

    As is always the case when I think BIG, my thoughts end up usually on the potential synergy. IPTV brings all the content that you’ve traditionally on TV, but with an interactive and customised aspect. And its not just TV, but also Video On Demand (Tata Sky Showcase). How well BigFlix and Adlabs could be made to work in tandem here. Move over, all those silly games that are showcased on DTH, how about playing some Zapak based cool MMORPG s. Maybe they can even use Big Adda to create a social networking generation of Indian housewives, who’d be gosipping online while watching their favourite saans and bahus. (Tell me when I go overboard) And if their websites have some online shopping options, with the improved targeting  and context that the Internet offers, they could make a killing. I just saw a Big Adda TVC promoting social networking on mobile, so even a ‘quadruple play’ mentioned in the IPTV wiki article might be possible. Also in context, Adlabs-> Reliance Big Pictures -> Big Cinemas.

    So, in essence, all the current developments are just about to make BIG bigger.

    Meanwhile, a tangential big news is Yahoo’s tie up with Intel to launch an interactive TV channel. Read a good post on it here. And if you thought all of that was big, spend the weekend contemplating these futuristic interfaces.

    until next time, just the biginning 😉

    BIG update: The TVC is out, and check out the synergy in ‘Rock On’ – Big Pictures, FM, Music, Adda. Now we’re talking!!