Hey, the 2012 London Olympics games have started! Actually, the games began two days ago, on Wednesday, with the commencement of the Women’s Football tournament, followed by the Men’s Football tourney on Thursday. But the Opening Ceremony only just took place today. The 2012 London Games thus have had ‘two beginnings’.
The ‘first’ beginning – the start of the Football tournaments – announced the arrival of the Games from an attention standpoint. This made sense, seeing as soccer/football is the most popular sport in the world, and is played at so many different levels of competition, it seems as if the sport never ‘stops’. Football/soccer is the attention sport.
It’s fitting to note that the second and third most-popular sports are ‘Cricket’ and ‘Field Hockey’, if only because their popularity would be news to many people. Why? Because these two sports pale in comparison to the amount of attention they garner, compared to soccer.
But the same thing can be said about the majority of events that comprise the slate of competitions contested at an Olympic Games: they are ‘what’s that’ sports. They are largely ignored for 3.5 years or so, only to be thrust back into the consciousness of the world with the start of the 3 week Olympic games. Sometimes, the events contested are so strange, they take on a cult-like ‘ironic attention’ wave, like the winter Olympic sport of ‘curling’ :
But, for the most part, obscure sports in the Olympic games can anticipate being overlooked for the more glamorous events, like the 100m sprint, the Soccer/Basketball tournaments, swimming, and gymnastic events. This phenomenon was quite understandable in the ‘pre-broadband’ era of cable-provider dominance of live events. Knowing that they had a ‘captive audience’, the broadcasters could guarantee that if the event shown was compelling enough, the ratings would reflect that. After all, if everything that is broadcast on the television is some form of ‘entertainment’ (it is), it’s natural for the broadcasters to only show stuff they know viewers in their markets want to watch. Anything else would be out-of-sight-out-of-mind.
But we entered the ‘broadband’ era about 8 years ago, in the year 2004. It was at this time that, due to many Americans’ desire to stream, download, and share various multimedia files, many bought cable modems, and dsl lines so as to more easily accommodate the amount of digital data they were trafficking. Smart broadcasting companies and networks followed suit, realizing the magnitude of the paradigm shift that had occurred with America’s ‘broadbanding.’ It was the digital equivalent of a phenomenon tv networks confronted in the late 90’s: audience splintering.
from dmnews.com
Internet Creates Splintered Audience
The niche orientation of cable TV programming is smoothing the transition or convergence of that medium with cyberspace. Just as cable tries to offer entertainment programming meant to satisfy nearly every conceivable curiosity, hobby or interest, the Internet offers Web sites filled with specific information. This individualized attention has appeal not just to consumers, but also to advertisers.
“Unlike TV, the Web is not as much breadth in programming as it is depth in detail,” said Sean Finnegan, a partner and media director at JWT Digital Communications, New York. “The types of mined-down content that lends itself to the Web platform are sports, stats, recipes, court transcripts, personal gaming, empirical data on historical events and breaking news feeds that cater to [the individual’s] schedule.”
“Anytime a viewer is engaged with a program, the advertiser benefits from that focus and personal attention,” he said.
“What makes all this exciting is that we’re not going to be limited to desktop computers for linkage to the Internet and all its wonderful interactive opportunities,” said J.G. Sandom, president, Ogilvy Interactive, New York. “All of the hand-held mobile, personal devices, like the PDAs, are rooted in similar technology, Internet Protocol, which is the one completely global telecommunications standard.”
“What’s compelling is this technology that can send the same signals to any interactive device, whether it’s broadband, like cable TV, or hand-held technology,” Sandom said. “Convergence simply brings together the best aspects of broadcast and digital technology. It’s all about parsing out content and funneling it through interactive devices, whether a cable-modem, a PDA or interactive TV.”
What the Internet and interactivity brings to direct response advertisers is the increasingly precise ability to identify target audiences and customize personal messages to those particular consumers.
Even for marketers, such as Ford Motor Co., which have not yet reached the point of actually selling their products over the Internet, a priority is to develop “sticky” Web sites that have the ability to keep users on site for long periods of time and keep them coming back regularly.
In April, Ford launched the latest edition of its iCollection online store, filled with licensed merchandise, from clothing to collectibles.
“The overriding goal is to ensure we’re building online relationships, and that means a lot of different things, because the Ford Motor Company itself means a lot of different things to different consumers,” said Tom Cornellier, Internet Retail Strategy Manager, Ford Motor Company, Detroit. “For some, there’s information about collecting. For others, it’s a chance to buy licensed merchandise and apparel. For others, there’s a chance to configure a car and become directly connected to a dealer for a quote.”
The company plans to launch interactive Web sites for local Ford dealers this year. “This is important because the Internet is a user-driven, interactive medium,” says Cornellier. “The customer wants to do business electronically. So we have to shift the way we view our relationship with our customers, understanding that choice today is a mouse-click away. We have to do this in a meaningful and engaging way so that they come back to Ford again and again.”
From the customer’s standpoint, there is a tremendous amount of information that can be gathered from Internet sites like Ford’s. For its part, Ford is also gathering information about the visitors to its site, which in turn can be turned back into more useful Web site attractions.
There are many elements that can be borrowed from cable TV and direct-response advertising and incorporated into Web sites, said Ogilvy’s Sandom. “The idea is to make this entire Web experience an interactive and engaging one, because each step of the interaction with a Web site can impact the brand’s image.”
All of the elements of direct response can be put to greater use on a Web site, since the site itself can pose leading questions to visitors, that can be used immediately to customize the experience, Sandom said.
“One of the advantages of this converged world, with faster speed, video, audio and broadband ability, is there can be more utility value embedded in the advertising itself,” Sandon said. “The more complex a product is, and the more expensive it is, the more marketers should be driving customers to Web sites, and using interactive means to keep them there.”
It will stream every event live on the web for the first time
By Diego Vasquez
July 24, 2012
This year for the very first time NBC will air every Olympic event live, either on the internet, on television or both. Viewers and media critics have long clamored for such coverage, arguing that in the age of the internet it makes little sense to present taped events in primetime as though they were happening live, as had been NBC’s policy in the past. But the move is not without risk. Showing the events live as they happen online could eat in to NBC’s primetime coverage, where it will still show the most highly anticipated events, such as swimming, gymnastics and track and field, on a tape delay.