Tag: Nielsen

  • Broadcast 2.0 then?

    Facebook is planning a new video-ad product that will offer video advertisers the chance to target video ads to large numbers of Facebook users in their news feeds across devices. It is also becoming more public about its Publishing Garage, that aims to put into place a set of measurements to demonstrate how well campaigns are working. Twitter has partnered with Nielsen for the the “Nielsen Twitter TV Rating” – an industry standard metric for measuring the conversation that TV shows spur on Twitter.

    The commonality I see is the shift from social to media, though to be fair, the Twitter-Nielsen partnership also talks of sentiment being measured in the future, in addition to tracking the volumes generated. I am using the term ‘social’ for two of the biggest platforms around now – FB and Twitter, but considering they have been the trendsetters, it is likely that the others will follow suit. Yes, there would be exceptions, I’m sure, but let me generalise a bit. While time will dictate whether this shift is smart or not, I’d think this shift is massively underplaying the true potential that social has thus displayed as a disruptive force. Social is now walking the measurement rules laid for a thoroughly different kind of media. (I liked this post at GigaOm because it throws light on, and questions why every social network is trying to turn into a broadcast platform) Doesn’t this put them on the same path of vulnerability that traditional media is facing now? Is this inevitable or is this sheer laziness and/or conforming? Also, from a user perspective, isn’t this a fundamentally different direction from the original premise/reason for existence of these platforms?

    Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that this is happening at the same time as users (increasingly) are treating social as broadcast – from the shoot-from-the-hip opinions on everything to the careful posturing. Not so suddenly, it’s more about numbers than actual conversations. Now what does that remind me of? 🙂 I don’t know how much of it is unconscious and how much of it is subtle nudging (read) by the networks and their features. But whatever the reasons, imagine a future where everyone behaves the way media behaves today – loud, pompous, full of themselves, ignorant to their own faults, violent towards any criticism, and generally abhorred. What happens then?

    So in the current direction I see the networks (and users) taking, the future media mashup will show more characteristics of traditional broadcast platforms than the social traits displayed by the social networks in the early days. My concern in such a scenario is because of what Godin has stated in another context – “Media doesn’t just change what we focus on, it changes the culture it is part of.” That’s when I wish social/we would be more ridiculous.

    until next time, growing pains

  • Aggregation and Segregation

    The ‘Morgan Stanley report‘, compiled by their 15 year old intern- on how teens (UK ) consume media- released a few days ago, got less than an enthusiastic response on the web, in spite of (or because?) their introduction stating that they don’t ‘claim representation or statistical accuracy’.

    While newspapers and radio find least favour with the teen crowd, with TV interest waning (except for spikes – sports/ specific shows), even the star on the horizon – Twitter is not spared their inattention, but Facebook, YouTube, and even Google are mentioned as regularly used services. Mobiles are used for talking and texting, and sharing files via bluetooth. (via RWW and TechCrunch) The report is based on anecdotal evidence (not statistical), so its no surprise that its been ripped on many sites. As TC mentions, probably the idea was only to spark off a debate, and not to showcase it as conclusive insights. It still shows how there is clearly not much data available on this age group, so anything goes.

    But I do remember a research published by Nielsen sometime back on how teens use media (US). According to that report, TV usage has gone up in this age group, teens spend less than half the time adults do on the internet, a quarter of them read a newspaper and texting is huge. In both reports, the relative unimportance of the internet is a revelation, especially when it is seen by many as THE medium that’s popular in this age group. As per a 16 year old’s post on TC, (this is anecdotal too 🙂 ) the other point to note is that the walled garden nature of Facebook is actually seen in positive light by this group. Twitter’s relative openness means that they have lesser control on who sees their status updates. The other factor is that they don’t want to waste money texting messages to Twitter, when they’d rather text their specific friends.

    So there are similarities within the age group and there are differences too. This is not the first ‘generation’ study out there. I remember reading at least a couple of comparative studies on how different generations use the net, or technology per se, and there again were trends. There were also quite a few articles on Gen Y (those born between 1980 – 95) – their top social networks (take a look, you’ll find very interesting sites, which you might not have heard about before) , how marketers goof up when targeting them, and a favourite post (and video – The Lost Generation. yes i know it is inspired 😐 ) of mine that talks about the motivations of different generations.

    Trendwatching had the concept of Generation G ( G for generosity), with the trend drivers of recession and consumer disgust, longing for institutions that care, and giving being the new taking, and sharing being the new giving. It also gives ways in which corporates can join this generation, and talks about joining being a fundamental requirement if they wanted to stay relevant to this generation.

    The Morgan Stanley report and the backlash that followed made me wonder as to how, even as we admit that there is indeed media fragmentation and user fragmentation, realise that a ‘one size fits all’ approach will not work, and that digital media gives users so much of content that there is choices galore and something for every niche, we still try to figure out broad patterns to carry out segmentation, and create some structure around all the crowds that inhabit all the spaces – real and virtual. We even call it social media so that we can put it under one umbrella and make a single plan for all the sites that come under it. Is it because marketers are afraid that dealing with an unstructured audience means fresher, better ideas all the while, without easy ways of targeting, without ready made templates and without real knowledge of how it will all end up?

    I also wonder whether this is a transition phase when new media are evolving, along with new communication protocols, or is this the way it is going to be from now on – a thoroughly fragmented audience which cannot be fitted into any stereotype – not even as Gen Y Facebook users? As the costs of distribution become lower thanks to multiple platforms/channels with fewer audiences and reversals of content demand-supply chains, will the spend actually be on the creation of multiple kinds of communication that will be designed with a tiny audience in mind, and the content creators could be anyone – a brand manager/ creative agency/ consumer or a combination, and the activities of a brand are as unstructured as the real time arena it operates in? Do you think it would ever come to that, or is this just the chaos in between while we figure out new ways of sorting consumers for new forms of media?

    until next time, agents of chaos 🙂

    PS. While on generations, read yet another great post from Umair Haque – the Generation M manifesto