This is what came up. You can click on the image to make it bigger.

Notice that Revlon’s ad buy is not only positioned beautifully on this obviously out-of-context page, but YouTube’s new system of doing video snipes has taken over the bottom fourth of the viewing window and positioned the ad on top of some very different content.

This is why I have been fighting for a few months now about appropriate “context” filters for ads and ad-snipes. Generally, I don’t know a single brand that would be interested in positoning themselves on a snipe on this content, unless it had to do with security, or perhaps even a PSA. This is obviously a “run of site” placement — where the brand’s ads are placed in whatever page that YouTube’s serving engine deems appropriate in order to fulfill a specific numeric quota of impressions.

Don’t get me wrong — I am aware that several ad serving engines work to place ads in the context of the content that surrounds it. But those algorithms are inclusive, not exclusive. And, then when it comes to UGC (user generated content) that is uploaded on a daily basis which cannot be meta-tagged using text parsing engines, can you imagine the man-power that will be necessary to manually tag each and every one? Who will be the arbiter of that decision?

In my opinion, brands that decide to do run-of-site placements with UGC video sites have marketing departments that are smoking dope. In this case, someone at Revlon actually thought it would be a good idea to not just run ads on specific content, but allow YouTube’s community and the company to pick the context for their messaging.

We’ll have to see if Revlon’s agency will catch this, and if there will be a backlash from advertisers in general as more of these arbitrary content-ad pairings will obviously be made.

Finally, I reloaded the page a few times, and soon several other run-of-site ads starting popping into place. Here are a couple more. At least the Vegas one is somewhat in context :-).

Click to enlarge.Click to enlarge

So — what’s the solution to this? Well, let’s start with the obvious. Let’s start acknowledging that online advertising is not the “do anything” step-child of the media business. There would be lawsuits being filed right now, had a Revlon ad been placed within, for example, “Pimps and Hos” on the Spike network. Of course, the issue is, media planning would never let such a placement take place. The reality is, most agencies are good about media buying, but there needs to be a very steep and fast change in the way online media is allocated as we get into user generated content as being the primary mechanism by which people get their online entertainment. We need to assemble some sort of systemic body that creates a standard, and a meta-tagging infrastructure. We need for advertisers and their media agencies to adpot this standard.

Of course, some will argue that none of this matters, and that consumers understand how to view online ads differently from the context in which they are presented.

To those who make this argument, I’d just like to say: “you twits!”

“Happiness” (working title): One hour dramedy, a Willy Wonka meets Dallas in the tone of Thank You For Smoking. The unstoppable Bruce Eric Kaplan is writing, and Peter Horton is my fellow non-writing EP. Corporate drama/comedy that explores all we do to pursue happiness, and how that’s almost always at the cost of someone else’s misery.

“Hip Hop Nation” (working title): One hour cable-focused drama. Sopranos in the world of Hip-Hop. Tells the story of the birth of the art form through the stories of three fictional “families” from across the US. Set simultaneously in three time frames. Joy Kecken is writing.

“Generation Gap”: Reality competition series that expolores the lighter side of parent-child generational issues in a fun, and frothy ongoing competition. PB&J TV is producing. We’ve pitched NBC, CBS and CW in the past week.  Waiting to hear from all of them.

“What a Girl Wants”: My friend Sudhir gave me this idea all the way from India. It’s a branded-entertainment version of the movie “What Women Want”, except in a reality dating show format. (Don’t ask.) Still interviewing production houses to see where it best fits.

I’ll keep you posted on pitch developments.

Interestingly, all the same principles that we use to integrate brands into entertainment hold true, especially for properties that are based on specific conceptual ideas — thinking about the right brand fit becomes not just a competitive advantage, but a potential business driver.

I’ll keep you posted on these developments.

Here’s a snippet from the press release that’s particularly interesting:

For past four weeks, since American Idol has picked its final 12 contestants this season, TiVo has been using its second-by-second audience measurement to determine which performers had the highest and lowest viewership. It turns out, this information, especially among viewers who are watching on a timeshifted basis, is predictive of which contestant will be voted off. Viewers tend to rewind and watch their favorite performances multiple times, while fast-forwarding through the ones they don’t like.

Almost two years ago, I wrote an article on my Brutal Clarity blog, titled “TiVo and American Idol Predictions”. Here’s a snippet from my own ramble:

In the heat of the continuing American Idol juggernaut, I had another idea. I caught myself doing something interesting during the performance last night. I wanted to skip the commercials, so I watch the show an hour after it has aired. I noticed that I would skip the performances I didn’t like, and I would re-watch the ones I loved. Often, my distaste for a particular performance was so instant, I would start skipping within the first 10 seconds.

Looking at my TiVo privacy policy, I saw that they allow for the aggregation of anonymous content to help enhance the service. If that’s so, why couldn’t they track the skipping and rewatching habits of 5,000 users who watch American Idol post airing, and use the aggregate data around each contestant to predict their potential position in the voting lineup?

Well, at the very least, I’m glad to know that my late night rambling a couple of years ago ended up being statistically accurate. I have no idea if anyone at TiVo actually read the blog article and then decided to run the test, but if they did, (and you’re reading this,) drop me an email, wouldja?

I promise I won’t tell. 

• Ivanka and Kim both started off modeling on runways.
• They both are the daughters of extremely well-established real estate moguls.
• They are both highly visible socialites in their respective towns.

Fascinating, n’est-ce pas?

Starting tomorrow, I will begin a series of articles on the concept of Branded Entertainment^TM, and why I believe it must now become part of every serious brand’s strategic budget planning. For those interested, I will provide a series of guidelines that will help brands plan, budget, strategize and execute appropriate Branded Entertainment^TM initiatives. I will also describe evaluation criteria and methodologies for multi-channel activation using those initiatives. 

The discussion lasted a whole day in a single room, moderated by Donny Deutsch, and proved to be an exhilarating (and sometimes heated) exchange of ideas and concepts.

The artists were represented by the likes of John Cusack, Matthew McConaughey, Michael Mann, John Singleton, LL Cool J, Matt Stone, Anthony Zuiker, and Scarlett Johannson. Media reps included Kevin Reilly, Dawn Ostroff, Doug Herzog, Dana Walden, Jeff Berman, Brad Grey, and Matt Cohler. Technology progenitors included folks like Mark Kvamme, Marc Andreessen, David Sze, and Mike Volpi.

One of the biggest questions at the gathering was, “Are we all in this together?” Having had some time now to reflect on this, I think that question needs to be qualified to some extent.

The CPM model (cost per thousand) works for aggregators of content because the sheer volume of individual items they have.

Let’s look at an example, for the more creatively inclined: Let’s say one of the content aggregrator sites, let’s call it MyTube, has 20 million visitors a month. Lets say that on average, each viewer looks at 10 individual pages within MyTube during the course of that month. Now, let’s say that each “page” has 3 ads on it.

That means, in any given month, MyTube has (20MM X 10 X 3) ads that it will serve up in total. Which is an amazing 600 million ads. At the standard of $20 per 1000 ad views, our aggregrator MyTube stands to generate $12 million per month in ad sales.

That same logic doesn’t apply to individual content creators because the transactional value of sharing in the ad revenue for their specific, individual pieces is only a very, very small portion of that $12MM per month. Even if a content creator, over time, were to generate over a 100 pieces that sat on this aggregrator, the sheer volume of other things people can look at on the site doesn’t guarantee a very large amount of traffic to the content creator’s stuff.

THOUGHT: The ONLY way (outside of a systemwide subscription model), in my humble opinion, for a content creator (in this case, I’m referring to the type of content creators that came to Bridge — those who are used to getting paid millions for their work) to generate true transactional value from a content aggregator site is to form some sort of a “digital content coalition”. In this case, the content creators would own a piece of this coalition, and in exchange for this equity, would create content for the coalition to distribute digitally.

Let’s say this new consortium is called “Content Creators Coalition” — the CCC. In this case, anyone who joined the CCC (other than the founding members, who would have founder’s equity) would own a piece of the company. The company, in turn, would raise production funds from a VC firm or private equity firm in exchange for stock. Then, the content creators make proposals for specific content to the CCC, asking for budgets that would allow them to create their pieces. The CCC, in turn, would then digitally distribute the created content to various aggregrators, and given the volume of talent and content coming from the CCC, they would be able to get far more favorable deals with companies like “MyTube” than the content creators would be able to by themselves.

Over time, as the library of content owned by the CCC grows, and as more talent joins the coalition, the “asset value” of the CCC grows, as does the transactional base of revenue coming from the various forms of distributed content. The key is for the coalition to agree that the money that comes into the CCC from transactional revenues must be used in almost a ‘socialist” mechanism — for the overall good of the coalition, shared by all, and not split unevenly within the CCC.

Anyway, just an initial thought.  

The ratings have been strong for the demo, and contextually, it proves that my theory of television show concept development can work — weaving a format from an existing cultural phenomenon, and building watchable characters around it.