ITV

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  • Changing nature of TV advertising in an interactive environment stressed at forum

    MUMBAI: While in India interactivity in television is restricted to SMS, in the US it is a complex phenomenon for advertisers to deal with. Now you have a plethora of devices like the digital video recorder from Tivo which allows consumers to skip ads.

    This will give rise to new business models in the American television advertising sphere. Some of the models that could work going forward were discussed at a seminar organised by 212NYC an interactive advertising organisation based in New York.

     
    MSN’s Todd Herman was quoted in a report saying that one alternative for the ad community to guard against the ad skipping menace was to go online. For example MSN recently signed a deal with Fox Sports for content streaming. When a game is on users cannot skip a commercial. In the future MSN could give users the option of choosing the ads they wanted to see. What this alliance has done is to expand the online options for sports marketers. The site has personalisation options, interactive features and coverage of the biggest sporting events in the US. MSN claims to be attracting more than 350 million unique users worldwide per month.
    Meanwhile OpenTV sales VP John Gee which deals with interactive television applications felt that television could still be an effective medium in the shifting landscape. He pointed out that advertisers have opportunities to embed interactive features in TV programming. For instance the company’s SpotOn product allows television ads to target certain set-top boxes.

    Tivo’s Neil Strow noted that ad-skipping was prevalent. Tivo homes see users skip up to 80 per cent of commercials. The silver lining is that users also choose to watch long-form commercials placed by advertisers on the TiVo device. Some companies that have signed on with Tivo include beverage major Coca Cola.

    For the uninitiated TiVo’s technology records TV programmes without the hassles of videotape. It lets users pause live TV, do instant replays and begin watching programmes even before the recording has finished. In the wake of its success other companies putting together a set-top box started doing the same thing. That of course is another story.

  • Need for govt. support to animation stressed at seminar

    Need for govt. support to animation stressed at seminar

    MUMBAI: The animation industry in India would receive a fillup if the government took steps to supports it. One of the steps could be that it mandates that animation channels carry at least 10 per cent of local content.

    This was a suggestion made by Padmalaya, Zica’s Rajiv Sangari at the Broadcast India 2004 Technical Symposium. He noted that France has six animation channels. The French government’s rule is that 60 per cent of content come from Europe. Out of that 40 per cent should be from France. “In India, on the other hand, there is zero consumption of local content. Doordarshan has never bothered about local content.

    “While I appreciate the fact that too much of regulation is not a good thing; if the government were to insist that just 10 per cent of local content be carried on animation channels then the industry would receive a boost,” Sangari said.

    Another problem he noted was that of low skill set. There are not more than 3000 skilled animators in the country while we need 15,000 of them. Philippines on the other hand has 40,000 skilled animators. What is happening as a result is that salaries in India go up by 40 per cent a year, which is unhealthy for a nascent industry. He warned that there were no shortcuts to being a complete animator. India has 15-20 animation studios compared to 200 in South Korea.

    On the positive side we get good 3D animation projects. India is in the process of applying its creativity on the right tools in this area. He noted that Indian companies do actual production work for animation projects in the US, Japan and Germany. These are the countries that outsource the most.

    As per Nasscom estimates the work that Indian animation companies do is worth $550 million. It is growing at 30 per cent a year. “While there is debate on these figures even if it is accurate we still do not account for one per cent of the global animation work.”

    Meanwhile Seagate Technology’s Sharad Srivastava delivered the keynote address on the storage solutions for the television and film industries. “In 2001 it took a year to fill up one terabyte of data. Today it takes a couple of hours. The global television industry produces 40,000 terabytes of data a year. Radio stations produce 14,000 terabytes. Multiple
    streaming of data is possible with digital archives. In this scenario hard disc drives for storing data have assumed a greater degree of importance.”

    He added that the products were getting more rugged and also allowed for multiple streaming of data. This is important for time shift capabilities and non linear editing. In time shift one data stream gets recorded while the other is viewed. He noted that these days many companies use a San Storage Area Network. Here a central pool of hard disk drives works
    with different servers.

    This allows the broadcaster to allocate space as and when required. This setup is important if there is a situation of data doubling every six months. Also Raid systems are expensive to upgrade. Then there are portable hard disk drives. These can store a maximum of 400 gigabytes, which is the equivalent of 400 hours of television or 2500 songs.

    Digiworkz’ Loh Siu Yin spoke on streamlining television broadcasting by using open source software. According to him the most important part in a broadcast network is the playback system which relays the information from Star, Zee, Sony to the MSO. The problem is that there are databases everywhere which are not defined. Also some traffic systems do not handle secondary material like sound quality. Broadcasting is too important for it to be done manually beyond a certain point.

    Information is embedded in a media database system. The source codes for the database and traffic system are kept a secret.

    One alternative is using an open source code. One can look at extending public interfaces like the playlist files. Then one builds an application using visual basic. One can check the playlist against the database and then uplink to the traffic system.

    He also suggested the use of database dumps. Software that he uses includes python, which understands binary files. Then there is sambam which is a Windows NT Server clone and Cron allows for the copying of files.

  • Effective communication to kids stressed at Pester Power Seminar

    MUMBAI: “Kids today are no different from what we were. The differences are only minute and so the manner of communication is important.” This was one of the main points that came out strongly at Friday’s Pester Power Seminar organised by Mind Space.

    Lowe Lintas India National Creative Director R Balakrishnan said, “I do not believe kids can be pestered continuously in an effective manner over a long period of time. The trick is to communicate at their level. It is important not to talk down to them. Also remember that to have any chance of attracting the kid you must pay attention to the mother. This especially becomes crucial in places like dental hygiene which the mother believes is her core area.”

    He also explained that for creating the Pepsodent commercial, the Lintas’ creative team realised that it was important to keep the message light. ” We made a conscious attempt to avoid preaching to the mother. The message to the mother should be ‘Maybe I should not be too harsh. Also the ad was effective as it matched the kids real life scenario. When a kid watches the TVC he sees the ad confronting the same problem that he has to deal with everyday. However we are not saying that a kid can fill his stomach with ice creams everyday. The idea being conveyed is that the odd ice cream will not harm his health.”

    He also pointed out that any kind of stereotypical behaviour would be a blind spot. You cannot literally show the mother encouraging her kid to have ice creams. For another TVC for Pepsodent, the company decided to stick to the basic fact that the kid uses the toothpaste as it has two colours. A simple kid or even an adult for that matter is not going to think in terms of the German check formula. The savvy creative team decided to make fun of the formula through a voice over which deliberately sounds annoying. He left the audience with these words of caution, “Never overestimate or underestimate your product. If this happens the consumer will laugh at you not the other way around. Also despite the proliferation of media kids will always be kids. It is just that the ways of exposure have changed. So the idli has been replaced with the McDonalds burger.”

    Are you being tangoed was the theme that Turner International’s Anshuman Misra took. He said, ” When you tango with kids you have to entertain them. You must involve them by giving them reasons to try your product. You need to surround them through 360 degree communication. Think of it as being more than just advertising.

    I manage Cartoon Network which gives us an opportunity to interact with kids 24/7. We constantly do research with our Asian partners to understand them better. You always learn something with conducting new activities.” He also took a different track from Balakrishnan saying that kids had changed a great deal over the past 10-15 years. There are more products and choices before them.

    ” Therefore when we advertise there are essentials to keep in mind.1) Where do we want to go? 2) The product must be different. It must have special attributes that separate it from the competition. 3) Preference. When a category is mentioned your product should be top of the mind recall for the kid. 4) Action – Kids should go out and buy your product. Also word of the product should spread through word of mouth.

    Pester Power is growing. Steadily. My five- year old kid hums the Coca Cola tune though he does not know who Aamir Khan is. In terms of Pester power weight for the candies, toffies category pester power weight is 84 per cent. MFD’s skewer slightly towards the parents. Pester power weight is 39 per cent. In the purchase of durables kids influenced 40 per cent of television sets bought. This is because kids feel that thereHe went on talk about the results of the promotional licensing campaign the channel has been doing for Bournvita from March 2001 to February 2003. Cadbury’s found that in the Summer consumption of Bournvita went down as kids associated it as being a hot drink for a cold climate. The company was able to promote shakers. Cadbury experienced a 20 per cent increase in share. 1,500,000 shakers were sold.is an active use of the product for them.”