Thinkbox is the marketing body for commercial TV in the UK. Apparently this ad has been around for about seven months, but I’ve only just seen it (on National Geographic). It’s rather good.
Mind you, consider this. I spotted it while whizzing through the ad break (via Sky+) at 30x speed – but only rewound to watch because I glimpsed the thinkbox logo, and am a media industry geek. It’s one of the least arresting ads at high speed I’ve ever seen.
Posted in Advertising, Nostalgia, TV
Christmas TV spells glitz and glamour. Or at least it did when I was growing up in the variety wonderland of the 70s.
These days I’m inclined to think the excitement and production values have gone out of Christmas telly. (Admittedly I haven’t actually watched any in the last decade, but go with me on this.)
So I thought I’d take the law into my own hands and inject a moment of class into your Yuletide experience, via a special piece of music.
Friends, I give you Laurie Johnson’s 1952 composition ‘Gala Performance’.
I invite you to click play, close your eyes and picture – as the title would suggest – immaculately-dressed ladies and gentlemen entering a glittering West End theatre, perhaps shaking hands with minor royalty on the way. Red velvet seats, marble busts and gilded balconies may come into your mind’s eye. A sea of bow ties, mink stoles and opera glasses.
Or, if you’re of a certain age, you might involuntarily imagine Eamonn Andrews “disguised” as a bus conductor, scrabbling up the stairs of a Routemaster to greet a surprised John Conteh.
Either way this is a stunning tune. Merry Christmas, one and all.
Looks like my recent post about TiVo’s second-by-second tracking of TV viewers’ activity was pretty timely. Google has just signed a deal with TiVo allowing them to tap into exactly this data, and track more accurately than ever the performance of their TV ad inventory.
Hang on a second. Google’s TV ad inventory? Google sells commercials on the box?
Yes – maybe I’m the last to realise, but it turns out that in the US, since 2007
Google TV Ads has served more than 100 billion TV ad impressions [...] Google has a deal with Dish Network to sell local ad inventory for 100 networks carried on the satellite service and also sells select national inventory for about a dozen networks, including CBS College Sports, Bloomberg TV, and NBC Universal’s CNBC, MSNBC and Syfy.
Google already has access to Dish Network‘s usage information on a per-household basis, and uses this to extrapolate how many people across the US have watched each ad they sell (which in turn helps set the ad’s price). Now, reports multichannel.com
…the TiVo data will be in the mix. Google provides targeting tools for planning and executing TV ad buys, and has overlaid demographic data from Equifax on the set-top database to find optimal show placements based on an advertiser’s criteria.
I’ve no doubt that Google will follow all relevant privacy and anonymisation practices as they pore over their newly-acquired data. But if you feel in any way shifty about all this, perhaps it’s time to log in to Google Dashboard and have a quick check on exactly what Google knows about you (so far, anyway):
Or, if you found that video in any way condescending, you might choose to opt out from Google’s data capture altogether (kudos here to the peerless Onion News Network):
Posted in Advertising, Interwebs, TV
I blogged a few days ago about TiVo’s sophisticated methods of tracking what viewers find interesting, second by second.
Well, forget that – because I’ve since discovered another company which makes this level of temporal granularity look like RAJAR diaries.
NeuroFocus is a Californian operation which tests the effectiveness of commercial messages (ads, brands, packaging etc) by measuring brain activity.
In practice this means sitting a subject down in front of the relevant stimulus, then plotting their thoughts and emotional responses millisecond by millisecond via a network of 64 sensors attached to their scalp.
Researchers have tested films and ads by biometric means (like heartbeat) before, of course. But Dr Robert T. Knight from NeuroFocus explains why this is way too slow:
The brain’s timeline – ‘See it, Extract it, Turn it into Emotion/Memory, Begin to Plan a Response’ – is all over in half a second [500 milliseconds]. Peripheral responses such as sweaty palms, pupil dilation, heart rate, are all indirect measures and very sluggish, 5-7 seconds. This is long after the real activity is done.
Instead, the company claims: “Neuroscience provides a deep, clear view into the real-world, real-time reactions of consumers at the most elemental level – their brainwaves”.
Here are the company’s methodology and deliverables for Advertising Effectiveness:
Consumers are recruited, pretested, and familiarized with our session setup analytical equipment and techniques Consumers are pre-screened for demographic, attitudinal, behavioral, and psychographic segmentation Consumers are presented with a series of chosen ads deliberately interspersed with normal viewing features in a setting that measures attention, emotional engagement and memory/retention across the ad set Data is acquired and processed by our neurophysiology and psychometrics teams Quantitative indicators of attention, emotional engagement, and memory/retention are calculated from high density electrode arrays Componentize the target ad into key constituent elements (images, faces, actions, spoken words, written words, sounds, and other client indicated discriminants) Utilize paradigms to elicit neuro physiological reaction measurements to determine which aspects of the ad contribute most and least to the overall effects identified in analysis Provide design feedback to ad designers on each of the chosen components based on analysis Identification of strengths and weaknesses of the target ad Recommendations for improving, refining, and reusing segments of the ad
Bloody hell.
Pseudo-science or the bleeding edge of media research? I’ll leave you to decide.
Posted in Advertising, Branding, Packaging, TV
One of the greatest things about new media is its merciless measurability. There’s little room for bull when confronted by the stats for your latest web project: it’s all there in black and white.
But what happens when you map this degree of tracking onto traditional broadcast output?
TiVo is probably the world’s most famous hard-disk TV recorder: the company pioneered the sector in America 10 years ago. For a while now they’ve been running a service called Stop||Watch – I’ve only just learned about it, but it fascinates me.
Stop||Watch plots US TV viewing patterns by microscopically monitoring hundreds of thousands of TiVo boxes – delivering information like:
after two weeks on the air an average of 46% of NBC’s The Jay Leno Show television audience opted to record the program and watch it later, as viewed by TiVo® service subscribers.
Nothing dramatically different here from what BARB in the UK produces (or, indeed, Nielsen for the US TV market).
In fact, to defend the old guard for a second, BARB has two fundamental advantages over TiVo’s entry-level panel of viewers. For one, BARB’s panel across the UK is statistically representative. And secondly, its figures take account of how many household members were present in the room when a given programme was showing (rather than TiVo’s cruder metric: “it was on the household’s telly”).
But BARB’s means of recording who was sat in front of the box is pretty rudimentary:
All panel household residents and their guests register their presence when in a room with a television set on. Each individual does this by pressing a button allocated to them on the peoplemeter handset.
And things get really interesting with TiVo’s figures when you start poring over data that conventional linear TV could, by definition, never provide.
For instance: which tiny elements of your output did viewers find so interesting they had to rewind and watch again?
And which moments – programming or ads – were so boring that timeshifters couldn’t get to the fast forward button quick enough?
TiVo’s ability to pull out these stats first came to public prominence after the infamous 2004 Super Bowl – during which Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” became “the most rewatched ever during a broadcast in three years of measuring audience reactions”.
Five years on, an increased sample of 350,000 boxes provides second-by-second data on TiVo viewing patterns. Below – a graph of this year’s Super Bowl. Click on the image to view it full size.
It’s like an electrocardiogram of interestingness.
And if you’re wondering what was so great about the Doritos ‘Crystal Ball’ ad (the most watched moment in the whole of the first half), I’m sure they’d appreciate your eyeballs below.
$3m splurged on airtime isn’t going to recoup itself.
Posted in Advertising, Interwebs, TV
Hot on the heels of Philip Hayton’s first day on the One o’clock News, and Sue Lawley’s studio invasion, here’s another TV nightmare.
This time we head back to the Eurovision Song Contest, 1977.
In the hot seat: Stewart Morris, a respected light entertainment director for the BBC throughout the 70s and 80s. This is a highly pressurised production with millions watching worldwide – and not everything is going according to plan, especially at 2:21 when the caption roller is accidentally triggered ahead of time.
Here’s the live programme’s talkback. This clip contains, as they say, “strong language from the start”.
And here’s how the final few minutes of the programme looked on screen – this time, expletive-free…
…to enter into a contractual agreement.
Seen on St Pancras station last night as I “entered and remained on the premises” – i.e. caught my train.
This is like those software EULAs you used to find inside CD-ROM boxes. “By opening this product, you agree to the following terms”… hey, hang on!
Posted in TV
I hardly watch any “live” TV these days – apart from in hotels, where there’s no other option. Pretty much everything else is timeshifted, thanks to Sky+, so schedules don’t mean much anymore.
But remember when the schedule was everything?
Remember when an announcer (in “moderately-excited expectation” mode) would voice a menu at the start of each evening’s viewing?
Actually, for all I know, it may still happen. But I bet it isn’t done quite like this.
BBC1, 1984
What a line-up! I can’t wait to finally set my VCR clock so I can tape Electronic Office. (Not We Got It Made, though, that looks like dreck.)
Look Around You, 2005
Only one programme could satirise something so trivial, yet so deep-seated in the cultural memory of a generation. Hats off to Look Around You‘s Peter Serafinowicz and Robert Popper.
BBC VT Christmas Tape, 1979
The Christmas Tape is a fine broadcasting tradition, and the BBC’s in 1979 (aka Good King Memorex) is legendary.
For reasons of language and mild nudity, this is Not Safe For Work. Unless you work in VT, of course – in which case, fill your boots.
Yesterday I blogged about public information films, little knowing they were about to enter the news.
Olly Benson sent me this fascinating link from today’s Guardian. It details how “a four-minute film made by Gwent police has become an internet phenomenon, which has now been seen by millions of people and featured on TV news channels in the US”.
The four-minute clip is part of a half-hour drama, made for just £10,000, depicting the dangers of texting while driving.
It’s strong stuff, containing graphic images. It’s also extremely good.
I gather Northern Ireland has a tradition of uncompromising public information films, particularly where road safety’s concerned. I found this out when I was in Belfast last year, and stumbled across this on primetime TV.
But then, tough messages call for tough storylines and strong imagery. As proof, a remarkable TV ad from Northern Ireland, first shown in 1992. And when I say remarkable, I mean it.
Blimey, my most depressing blogpost to date by a factor of ten million. Normal flippant service will be resumed in due course.
Posted in TV
As many who know me will confirm, I’m obsessed by Public Information Films – those short adverts that TV channels used to show during their quieter moments in the 70s and 80s.
They featured Government messages telling us not to drive while tired. Not to put a rug on a polished floor. Not to overtake near junctions.
And, perhaps most crashingly redundant of all, not to run. (Yes, that’s right – Her Majesty’s Government spent money instructing us not to run.)
Back in the mid-90s some enterprising individuals put out Charley Says and Charley Live – two video compilations of the greatest Public Information Films (or PIFs) ever made. They are fantastic viewing: tiny bitesize bits of social history, ranging from the absurd to the frankly chilling.
My favourite ad from the two volumes was Dangerous Diamonds, made in 1979. It delivers a simple, yet trenchant message: if a sodding great truck brimming with chemicals is on fire 10 feet away from you, it’s probably best to move away, rather than directly towards it. And that’s advice we can all benefit from.
The thing I loved about this particular PIF was its music – which managed to be simultaneously funky, threatening, triumphant and swingy. All while soundtracking a load of symbols saying OXIDISING AGENT and FLAMMABLE SOLID.
You can relive its majesty here.
Imagine my geeky excitement, then, when I discovered the full version of this advert’s tremendous soundtrack… on a compilation of French library music, released earlier this year.
Library music, if you’re not familiar with the term, is composed and produced to provide off-the-shelf options for people making TV shows and films. It is intended to soundtrack a generic mood – like horror, happiness, or “the future”.
This particular compilation is called Serie Noire (Thriller). It’s full of weird orchestral figures and discordant electric guitars, every element adding to an atmosphere of brooding tension.
The cut which ended up soundtracking Dangerous Diamonds is called New York City Police. It’s a tough listen (which was heavily, and cannily, edited for the sake of the ad), but I love it.
The fact that it’s French just makes me love it even more. Check out the ubercool sleeve design.
Unfortunately my geeky story does not have a happy ending.
Searching on YouTube, I discovered that the Central Office of Information (who commission and produce these films to the present day) revisited Dangerous Diamonds in the 1980s.
They left the video as it was. But they completely redid the audio.
Gone are the sexy, Gallic cop-show stylings of the original music. Gone is the earnest voiceover provided by (unless my ears deceive me) Ray “Mr Benn” Brooks.
In its place, a bombastic read from Patrick Allen, and music which can only be described as Miami Vice lite.
Very, very lite.
