August 2012

Cutting Through the Clutter: 5 Characteristics of Winning TV Ads

With 38 ads on average airing per minute across national TV, breaking through the clutter is essential. According to a recent analysis from Nielsen, there are five common characteristics of TV ads that resonate with consumers.

The top-five characteristics for ads that scored highly on “breakthrough,” an ad’s memorability, per consumers, are:

Audience-Appropriate Humor – Tickling America’s funny bone is a proven winning tactic for making an ad memorable.
Relatable Characters & Situations – Audiences will connect with personalities and scenarios with whom they can identify.
Simple & Upbeat Storyline – Ads should do more than convey information– they should tell a story.
Character Dialogue to Tell a Story – Changing a message from simple prose to a conversation will give the story life.
Build an Emotional Connection – The brain identifies an emotional experience as important enough to remember, which in turn resonates with the audience.

2012 TV and Radio News Staffing and Profitability Survey

The latest RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey finds the percentage of minorities is up a full percent in television from a year ago -- and even more in radio. The percentage of minority news directors also went up in both television and radio. And the percentage of minority news directors at non-Hispanic TV stations set a new high mark -- for the second year in a row.

Women overall in TV news stayed almost exactly the same, women TV news directors passed the 30% mark (30.2%) for the first time ever. Women in radio news and women radio news directors both went up noticeably. As far as minorities are concerned, the bigger picture remains unchanged. In the last 22 years, the minority population in the U.S. has risen 10.4%; but the minority workforce in TV news is up 3.7%, and the minority workforce in radio is up 0.9%.

Google's audacious bet on fiber -- and why it could work

After a promising start, the debate is far from settled over whether Google Fiber will be disruptive in the way its search engine or Gmail was, or whether it will be an interesting -- but costly -- experiment like the company's plan to sell the Nexus One through its own online store.

That debate is likely to continue for several years, because it's going to take that long for Google Fiber to have anything more than an incremental impact on the way people access a high-bandwidth Internet. What's clear is that Google Fiber, as conceived at launch, has a lot going for it. But it also has a lot going against it -- notably the entrenched power of the giant Internet service providers Google is taking on. In its favor, however, Google has launched Fiber with a thought-out plan aimed at the biggest frustration surrounding current ISP plans: relatively slow speeds at high prices. Google is also using the power of old-fashioned social networking to draw subscribers. There is also a risky cost-versus-return bet that Google is taking. The Kansas City project will cost $500 million. Scaling that up to many cities would quickly burn through Google's $43 billion in cash. But the surge in broadband content could bring Google new revenue from web and TV advertising. And by becoming an ISP, Google could win a strong presence in many U.S. living rooms.

Debates Denied, Univision Turns to Candidate Forums

Univision’s request for an official presidential debate may have been rejected, but the Spanish language network has succeeded in securing both candidates’ attendance at “Meet the Candidate” forums, the network said. President Barack Obama and former-Gov. Mitt Romney will sit down on separate nights for a question-and-answer session moderated by Univision’s Jorge Ramos and Maria Elena Salinas. The sessions will take place in front of a live audience and will most likely air on a delay with Spanish-language translation, a Univision spokeswoman said. The dates of the interviews have not yet been determined.

Study: Congressional Twitter accounts are plagued by phony followers

Congress is followed by a lot of phonies: a new study shows a large percentage of accounts following legislators on Twitter are fake.

Jon Tilton, the general manager for digital marketing firm Advocacy Media, ran a follower check last weekend on every member of Congress using StatusPeople, a tool designed specifically to check for fake followers on Twitter. He found that an average of 38 percent of accounts following representatives on Twitter and 42 percent of those following senators are a combination of fake and inactive accounts. The averages held true within a few percentage points when broken down by party.

Some Broadcast Slippage, Cable Sees Uptick In Summer Fare

Summertime ratings have an easy winner so far -- an Olympics-heavy NBC. But looking deeper -- sans the high-rated Olympics programming -- all broadcast networks and most cable networks have shown slippage.

Looking at the live plus seven day DVR playback through August 19, NBC has averaged 3.1 rating among 18-49 viewers when looking at all its summer programming -- but a 1.5 rating without the Olympics. This number is down 8% from a year ago -- not bad considering that other networks have hit lower levels, percentage-wise. Fox is getting a 1.6 rating now, down 11%; ABC, at a 1.5 rating, off 15; and CBS, down 17% to a 1.1 rating.

Judge Rules Ebay Not Covered By Americans With Disabilities Act

Siding with eBay, a federal judge has dismissed allegations that the online auction violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by requiring sellers to use a telephone to verify their identities.

U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila in San Jose (CA) ruled that the federal law -- which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities -- doesn't apply to online companies like eBay. The 1990 statute says it applies to "places of public accommodation." The ruling, issued earlier this month, dismissed the bulk of a potential class-action lawsuit filed in 2010 by Melissa Earll. She alleged that as a "profoundly deaf" person, she was unable to register with eBay because the company verifies identity through telephone calls. eBay allegedly gives prospective merchants passwords over the telephone; the registrants must then enter those passwords online.

We the Coders: Open-Sourcing We the People, the White House's Online Petitions System

I'm thrilled to announce that we are publishing the source code for We the People, the online petitions system that has been a popular way for the public to connect with the White House over the past year.

Since We the People went live, thousands of petitions have gathered millions of signatures from people across the country. As those petitions have come in, the White House has posted responses about an open internet & SOPA/PIPA, puppy mills, reducing student load debt, working to fix our broken immigration system, reaffirming the President's opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, and more. When President Obama talked about We the People at the Open Government Partnership last year, he promised to, "share that technology so any government in the world can enable its citizens to do the same." Now anybody, from other countries to the smallest organizations to civic hackers can take this code and put to their own use. One of the most exciting prospects of open sourcing We the People is getting feedback, ideas and code contributions from the public. There is so much that can be done to improve this system, and we only benefit by being able to more easily collaborate with designers and engineers around the country - and the world.

Personalized 9-1-1 Profiles Help Improve Emergency Response

When dealing with an emergency, first responders need information – and they need it quickly. Smart911 from AT&T gives citizens the opportunity to create their own private SmartSafety online profiles that are automatically displayed on 9-1-1 operators’ screens if the citizen calls 9-1-1, so law enforcement, fire departments and Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) are better prepared to help.

At the APCO International Conference and Expo, AT&T announced that it will begin offering Smart911 from AT&T to 9-1-1 centers across the country next month. The service is designed to improve 9-1-1 call processing and dispatching effectiveness. Smart911 from AT&T allows citizens to go online and create their own SmartSafety profiles, which are collected in a highly secure Smart911 database. Citizens can choose to record their own information such as medical conditions, disabilities, special needs, locations of relevant rooms in their houses or apartments, and any other details they think 9-1-1 operators should see in the case of an emergency call.

Consumers Asked DISH Network to Leave Them Alone, But FTC Says Calls Kept Coming

DISH Network, one of the nation's largest providers of satellite television service, faces a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit alleging that it illegally called millions of consumers who had previously asked telemarketers from the company or its affiliates not to call them again.

The calls allegedly violated provisions of the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule that state that even if a consumer is not on the National Do Not Call Registry, a telemarketer may not call him or her again if the consumer specifically asks to be placed on the company's own entity-specific do-not-call list. According to the FTC's complaint, DISH Network violated the agency's Telemarketing Sales Rule while calling consumers nationwide in an attempt to sell its satellite television programming. DISH Network makes these telemarketing calls both directly to consumers and via a network of authorized dealers who make calls on its behalf. Specifically, the FTC alleges that DISH has made millions of outbound telephone calls since about September 1, 2007 to consumers who had already told them that they did not want to receive any more telemarketing calls from the company.

Benton

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