Damien Saunders

Summary: We still have a long way to go to accept adverts on your mobile. While Europeans have said yes to Mobile TV and no to paid for advertising, the US is talking up one-second adverts called 'Blinks'.

Clear Communications is talking to media buyers and agenices about blinks - one-second adverts that allow just enought time to recognise the brand by its gingle. You can imagine that two syllable Danone  or perhaps the McDonalds 'I'm Loving it' … or maybe you'll hear someone shout out 'Drink Pepsi' in a sudden and startling manner.

"You can't use a one-second campaign for something that generally has not been advertised before." says Jim Gaither, director-broadcast at Richards Group. But if 3-4 second ads work on Radio - could a one second image/jingle work on your mobile?

European mobile customers are interested in mobile TV and video calling, but are not interested in receiving advertisements on their mobiles, says a study released by Portio Research.  Advertising was considered particularly unacceptable if it intruded on paid-for time while watching mobile TV. 

This has big implications for all the operators and broadcasters who want to get a slice of the annual global advertising spend. Right now including ads while someone is watching live streaming TV is both questionable and difficult to control - with operators sometimes stuck with a choice of blank screens or showing the ads to their customers. Impressions are high right now, and a customer will turn off TV if its showing nothing.

Some standard has to be set for signalling breaks in adverts to the streaming servers so that they can push a 4, 30, or 60 second advert during a channel break. Operators may need to offer two styles of advertising depending on the markets - uninteruppted shows with 5min ad breaks or 2mins of ads every 15 mins. 

So the BBC have released their Creative Futures report yesterday looking at the future of the Beeb. While it will take some time to digest and come to comprehend what this means to our viewing and reading habits, take a minute to think about how this impacts our industry??

1. All content made '''FREELY''' available on a website starting today going back to 1937

and other recommendations include:

• Relaunching the BBC's website to include more personalisation, richer audio-visual and user generated content

• Create a new teen brand delivered via existing broadband, TV and radio services, including a new long-running drama and comedy, factual and music content

• Create easy access points for audiences via broadband portals around key content areas like Sport, Music, Knowledge Building, Health and Science

• Start commissioning more 360 degree cross-platform content

• Shift energy and resource into '''continuous news on TV, radio, broadband and mobile''', making News 24 the centre of the TV offering, moving talent to it and breaking stories on it

• Improve the quality of Sports and Entertainment journalism and appoint a specialist Sports Editor

• Create one single, pan-platform BBC Music Strategy and develop big events like this Autumn's first BBC Electric Proms as well as more personalisation enabling people to create the equivalent of their own radio station

• Take entertainment seriously, learn from the world of video games and experiment with commissioning for new platforms

• In Drama – create fewer titles with longer runs, find creative space for outstanding writers and cherish the programmes audience love best like EastEnders, Casualty and Holby City

• In Comedy – improve the creative pipeline across all platforms, pilot more shows, find new talent and build the big hits for BBC ONE

• Give sharper age targets to the CBeebies and CBBC brands and integrate all children's content – including online and radio - under these brands

• Pilot a Knowledge Building online project called Eyewitness – History enabling people to record and share their memories and experiences of any day over the last 100 years

Press Release: http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2006/04_april/25/creative.shtml

It's like trying to sell ice creams to eskimos - do you go for depth and variety of your content catalogue or stick to the sickly seasonal or monthly favourites … you can be damned either way.

What I'm thinking is that most mobile content sales via WAP are dominated by the operator portals, but you invariably find that top downloads page will have the Star Wars March, Axel F and something from Guns n Roses (AC/DC). It's a nightmare … we focus on getting customers access to the best stuff, we focus on improving search and still all they want is Wham - Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart.

I think there is a way around this, the back catalogue is needed to give depth and presence (oh and to make us feel proud that we can select from a possible catalogue of 500,000+ FTMD or Realtones, Videotones, etc), but do we need the Top Download chart to be only 1 click away? Keep the top charts list (like all good record stores), keep the new entries list, but please kill the downloads chart.

But if you want to keep that top download page then you don’t need a deep catalogue, stop and focus on What’s Hot and What’s New. Let other content providers bring their catalogue to market (via your portal or offnet) … what’s it going to be ???

All Operators are looking at their off portal strategy - H3GUK tries to bring focus on one with their Mobile Sites and other operators are looking at how to enable micro payments (other than reverse / premium SMS).

Think about it … kill the download chart or keep the content?