Mark Kolier’s Blog

Archive for the ‘Entertainment’ Category

Yesterday Amazon.com introduced the concept of a ‘Music Locker’. As a longtime advocate of Amazon I have been following the development of this release and was excited about its practical nature and customer-centric approach. Amazon is trying (unlike its rivals) to offer cloud access to music independent of the device being used. The music industry is not happy about this at all and is already jumping up and down screaming foul.

From an article in Tuesday’s New York Times – http://nyti.ms/f2lEbJ …The dream of these companies (like Amazon, Google, and Apple), along with many start-ups, is for people to be able to listen to their music from any computer or phone. But they have all run into the same problem: music labels and publishers would prefer that listeners buy a new copy of a song everywhere they want to listen to it.”
I don’t know about you but the idea that I should have to pay for a new copy of the song on any device that I own does not work for me – or anyone else I suspect. Are they serious? Yes there are problems with the technology’s inability to recognize whether or not a song has been purchased ‘legally’ or not. But the solution is not to throw the burden back on the purchaser to then buy it individually for whatever device on which he or she wants to listen.
One of my early careers was a musician – composer/artist. I did not have the discipline to slog day-to-day through the difficult music business. However I do recognize the effort and artistry that goes into creating music (and art or prose of any kind for that matter). Yet having people pay for individual device access to a song (or article) does not serve the artist or author – it serves the label or publisher.
There has to be a better way. I don’t believe it is incumbent upon me to come up with that better way but I will give it some thought. In the meantime I am very interested in what you think. Could you see yourself paying for individual access to music on your IPod or MP3 player, I-pad or tablet, computer, or in your automobile? Or would it just aggravate you as much as it does me?

With a dizzying total of more than 2,200,000Twitter followers in a little over a week Charlie (aka Tiger Blood) Sheen has reset the bar for attracting attention and gaining social media status. Now terming himself “Born small…Winning…Now Huge…Bring It!…unemployed winner…”, the apparent slow moving train wreck that was Charlie Sheen appears to have been a rocket ship in disguise.

Since nearly all of us know the story I’m not going to explore how Mr. Sheen got to this point other than to say that prior to last week he was more in the running for ‘celebrity moron of the year’ than he was ‘marketer of the year.” BTW – In my book Mel Gibson still has a good chance of retaining his title as celebrity moron of the year. But Mr. Sheen has been able to parlay a bizarre anti-hero status into an endorsement business and is now a paid promotion’ engineer’.

Mr. Sheen would have you believe that he – much like Jessica Rabbit ‘isn’t bad – I’m just drawn that way’. An article in Tuesday’s NY Times http://nyti.ms/hFYt3G highlighted the idea that Mr. Sheen has been ‘coached’ and directed. So what? If Mr. Sheen is smart enough to have professional marketing people help him leverage his newfound super-fame I suggest he is far from crazy. Now that he has been fired from ‘Two and a Half Men’ (does this mean Jon Cryer is now starring in ‘One and a Half Men’?), he is free to make movies or whatever he wants to do on Twitter or anywhere else. And the $ 10 million owed to him for the balance of his CBS contract for ‘Two and a Half Men’ will probably have to be settled since his agent claims he is ready, willing and able to work. And for what it is worth he has always shown up for work despite whatever trials and tribulations he has suffered. So he is likely to get paid a substantial sum for NOT doing the show unless CBS has a change of heart. Talk about the catbird’s seat.

I don’t admire Charlie Sheen. He’s obviously got some issues going on but the notion that he is out of his mind is out of bounds. But I am intrigued with this case study on how to maximize your reach in the shortest amount of time. He has leveraged recent events about as much as could be possible and I am betting more opportunities will come his way. Will he be able to answer the bell? Nobody knows for sure least of all Mr. Sheen. But in terms of increasing awareness and becoming his own brand sensation (might he be the anti-brand?) Mr. Sheen appears to be thumbing his nose at just about everyone while having a very good time doing it.

Is Charlie Sheen a marketing genius? What do you think? Mr. Sheen has had way more than his fifteen minutes. My question is what will he do for an encore?

Three weeks ago (doesn’t it somehow seem longer?) the Super Bowl attracted a record amount of television viewers (and oddly the largest game crowd in Super Bowl history as well). As reported in Ad Age last week the cost for a 30 second spot on ABC TV during the Oscars was $ 1,700,000 http://bit.ly/ekr21s . The Oscar audience will likely be near 43 million. This year’s Super Bowl set the all time record with a reported average of 111 million viewers with overall viewers more than 160 million http://bit.ly/i78n3Z . The reported cost for a 2011 Super Bowl 30 second spot began at $ 3,000,000.

Just doing simple arithmetic it seems to me that the Oscar audience was 40% smaller and yet the cost was just only 60% less. I am here to ask why? Do people look forward to Oscar ads more than Super Bowl ads? I think not. Are they more engaged with those ads when they run? Again – I don’t think so but please correct me if you think I am mistaken.

$ 1,700,000 is still a great deal of money where I come from. I’ve questioned why advertisers would spend $ 3,000,000 for a Super Bowl 30 second spot. I am completely perplexed why an advertiser would spend even MORE per minute for an Oscar spot. And before you fire off a reply to me that the audience is not the same and more upscale for the Oscars than it is for the Super Bowl, I want you to keep in mind what I had to say about viewer engagement with Oscar ads as opposed to Super Bowl ads.

How much talk around the water cooler will there be on Monday after the Oscars? Will people be going online after the Oscars to view the ads they missed or review the ones they wanted to see again? The point is that Super Bowl ads often live on after the event and they can be provocative, memorable and ground-breaking – even if this year’s lineup fell short. I don’t feel the same way about Oscar ads do you?

Even though I always enjoy the Oscars, I look at commercial breaks as great opportunities to go to the bathroom or get something to eat or drink. As opposed to Super Bowl ads for which I often have to cross my legs and make sure everyone stays quiet so I can get the full effect.

Agree? Disagree?

The easy answer is yes. But what if you had to choose one or the other? Last night’s big winner was the group Lady Antebellum. Twenty years ago the Grammy winners would experience a nice bump in record sales (actually even then they were CD’s and not LP’s). Artists did not need to tour nearly as much as they do today, as twenty years ago selling tens or hundreds of thousands of CD’s afforded them a nice living. Sales of recorded music has changed due to the popularity of Apple’s iTunes, and illegal download sites like Limewire (which has since been shut down), Kazaa and other like sites.

From the RIAA site (Recording industry Association of America) – “One credible analysis by the Institute for Policy Innovation concludes that global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year, 71,060 U.S. jobs lost, a loss of $2.7 billion in workers’ earnings, and a loss of $422 million in tax revenues, $291 million in personal income tax and $131 million in lost corporate income and production taxes. For copies of the report, please visit www.ipi.org”

Last night’s 53rd Grammy Awards (‘Music’s biggest night’) were advertised to be all about the music and performances and not as much about awards. Originally called a Gramaphone award, Grammy’s are handed out by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry.

Many top industry executives agree that the music industry is in a downward spiral and counsel up and coming artists, especially the plethora of trend following pop and hip hop artists and producers, to “get out while they still can.” If the Grammys’ are not about promoting recorded music it would follow that they are about the artists themselves. And thus promoters like Live Nation are now firmly in control of performance venues and merchandise. Ever wonder why Live Nation is not sponsoring the Grammy Awards? That’s an easy one. Because they don’t need to. The 360 deals pioneered by Robbie Williams of EMI back in 2008, now encompass recordings, live concerts and merchandise.

The Grammy Awards are no longer about music. They are about entertainment and the show. You saw Barbra Streisand last night win an achievement award for her contributions to the recording industry. But that industry is nothing like what it was when Ms. Streisand was putting out #1 records. And as an artist who never cared much for public performances Ms. Streisand would have a much more difficult time today making an impact solely with her amazing voice. That can be said for more than just Barbra Streisand by the way. Today’s artists must perform live in order to make a living even if a Grammy Award offer a short term spike in a recording artist’s sales. The problem is that spike in sales is not sustainable.

Did you watch? Do you care? Do you buy more or less music than you did five years ago? Ten years ago?

Well it’s safe to say that Fox TV will be the biggest, if not one of the biggest winners. NFL viewership was off the charts this season and with the bad weather much of the U.S. experienced this winter more people have taken to watching pro football like never before. With a :30 spot going for close to $ 3 million this year Fox is poised to have unprecedented Super Bowl success . Even the cast of ‘Glee’ is going to be in a much anticipated spot.

Doritos will assume its rightful place, as will GoDaddy.com with the addition ‘Biggest Loser’ star Jillian Michaels joining Danica Patrick for a spot that leads viewers to the web to finish the ‘mystery’.

The beer wars will be in force, but Denny’s will be absent which I find interesting after two consecutive Super Bowls promoting its offer of a ‘Free Grand Slam’ Breakfast. I blogged about those spots a couple of times but we never did learn whether or not they were successful. Until now. Denny’s has a new CMO Frances Allen who has decided to move away from advertising on the Super Bowl and instead invested in focus groups learning more about Denny’s customers and how they view the brand and what Denny’s can do to better satisfy what their customers want. In fact in Denny’s new campaign – not to be seen on the Super Bowl – http://nyti.ms/hgQXXw – Denny’s ‘Diner’ concept is highlighted.

There will be the normal animal type spots (think, Bridgestone and Career Builder), maybe a baby or two (think E-Trade) and car ads from, Kia, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, GM and Chrysler to name a few.
What you won’t see are direct response ads. In fact the last true DR ad was from Sales Genie in 2008 and while some people were offended it was very successful but apparently not enough for them to do it again since. The opportunity to have 100 million people respond to your ad directly by using a phone number or web URL should surely be more tempting shouldn’t it?

More than 100 million people around the world will tune into watch two of the NFL’s most venerated franchises, the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers do battle on the field. My New York Jets were sadly eliminated (again) in the conference finals two weeks ago. So while contest itself is of mild interest I will enjoy chicken wings, chili and my favorite beverage and watch the ads (and Fergie with the Black Eyed Peas at halftime).

What I also wonder is why our marketing group would ever recommend to one of our clients to invest $ 3 million to buy time on the Super Bowl for 30 seconds. For many of our clients $ 3 million more than is an entire year’s marketing budget. But I’d love our team to have the opportunity to make that decision sometime.

Do you leave the room to get something to eat or take a break during the Super Bowl ads? Or during the game itself?