The Association for Downloadable Media, an organization whose purpose is to help provide advertising and audience measurement standards for episodic and downloadable media, announced today a proposal for advertising standards at Ad:Tech San Francisco.

A cross section of podcasters, agencies, device manufacturers and others interested in monetizing downloadable media have developed the proposed standards.

Why do we need standards for downloadable media?

• Lots of podcasts, lots of sponsors, lots of options and confusion
• Like IAB display ad unit guidelines for podcasts
• Allow sponsors to create 1 advertisement for multiple podcasts

The panel believed that the standards should be

• Simple
• Inclusive
• Acceptable

The group is proposing three types of ad standards: Insertions, Content Participation, and Collaterals

Insertions (as provided by advertisers)

• Definition: pre-recorded file provided by sponsor
• Time up to :10, ;15, :30, or :60 seconds
• Location: Pre-roll, post roll mid roll
• Frequency: Variable or time period
• Audio: 128k stereo/64k mono mp3, Sample Rate: 44.1 khz
• Video: H.264 MP$, Aspect 4×3 or 16×9 SD and HD

Content participation

• Definition: When an advertiser’s message is included as part of the audio or video podcast content.
• Time: Variable from :1 second to full episode
• Location: Pre-roll; mid-roll; post-roll; or integrated within one or a series of episodes
• Frequency: Variable by number of episodes per month; variable by number of insertions per user per month; or fixed per channel/feed per month.

Collaterals
All the other real estate that a podcaster has that may be included as part of an advertising or sponsorship package, or as separate items a lá carte.
Examples

• Show notes on podcast website
• ID3 tags in podcast episode file
• Album Art Cards
• Link and banner in enhanced audio podcasts
• Overlays, underlays in video podcasts
• Web banners, buttons, text links, hyperlinks (using IAB standards)
• Email sponsorships
• Press Releases
• Product sales (CDs, DVDs, merchandise)
• Signage/Outdoor (for retail)
• Brochures, flyers

The second area that the ADM focused on is developing a set of proposed measurement guidelines for audience traffic.

The Association of Downloadable Media is recommending compliance with one of two proposed methods to determine true download measurement. These two methods are Native Server Measurement or Third Party Measurement.

In order to comply with these guidelines, publishers would clearly state their download measurement methodologies to interested buyers. Buyers seeking to work with ADM-compliant publishers would be entitled to request and receive these download methodologies. The goal is to achieve high levels of confidence around the metrics for both parties.

Third Party Measurement (TPM)
A Third Party server is the intermediary between the Native Server and another Third Party Server. Third Party Measurement refers to the files measuring the initial download requests as received by a third party server to be delivered to the requester. Because the Third Party server is a constant, it may uniformly measure download statistics across multiple hosting services.

Data logged by third party servers include request information about the media being downloaded. Each request contains the following data that may be utilized for analysis.

• IP Address - Unique Internet address of the user consuming the media file.
• Time Stamp - Time at which the request was made for the media file.
• Request - The request specifies the media file requested and provides the method at which the request should be handled.
• HTTP Status Code - A technical code defined by the HTTP protocol that determines the status of the request.
• Referrer - Location where the request came from.
• User Agent - A unique value that identifies the service or application making the request. e.g. web browser such as Internet Explorer, podcatching agent such as iTunes, a web bot such as Google.
• Byte Range - This is the range of start and end bytes requested by the media consumer.

Native Server Measurement (NSM)
The Native Server is the actual end point where the media is hosted. Native Server
Measurement refers to the log files derived from the Native Server. It may include
the amount of data that was transferred in each log entry, and therefore may provide information to derive more than simple download statistics.

Data logged by native servers include request information about the media being downloaded as well as the amount of bytes transferred during the download transaction. All the data listed above (available to third party servers) applies to Native Servers. In addition, the following data may be utilized for analysis.

• Bytes Served - This is the amount of bytes that have been transferred to the media consumer in a given request. Depending on the type of request made, the bytes served may be less than or equal to the size of media file.

The data contained in either native or third party server log files does not necessarily mean that the data is analyzed. The method of analysis used varies.

Analysis Techniques and Factors

Both types of measurement include analysis techniques, in order to calculate download measurement. These analytic techniques are used to determine the validity of actual downloads (versus duplicated or aborted download attempts)

There are a number of factors used in any given technique to analyze log files.

• IP Address - The IP address may be used to determine if the request is unique or a duplicate. It may also be used to determine geographical information of the media consumer.
• Time Stamp - The date and time may be used to determine if the request should be counted.
• HTTP Status Code - The appropriate HTTP status code is examined to determine if the request should be counted.
• Bytes Served - The value may be used to determine if the media was completely downloaded. (Note: This information is only available from native server log files.)
• Referrer - The origin of the download may be used to determine if the request should be counted. e.g. media that is auto played upon loading a web page may be removed or reported.
• User Agent - The identifier of the application or service consuming the media may be analyzed to determine if the request is unique.
• Byte Range - The range of bytes requested in a given request may be used to determine what portion of the media is requested. When analyzed across multiple requests, the information may provide an accurate assessment to determine if the media was completely downloaded.

The ADM does not require a specific combination of factors or techniques, instead requires that you use analysis that’s appropriate to the business at hand in a way that provides high confidence data and you can explain the process used to create the data. It is left to any company following these guidelines to create techniques that fit their situation. However, it is strongly recommended to include the IP Address in analysis.

These types of measurements can be provided by services like Wizzard Media or PodTrac. UPDATE: ADM members RawVoice and Volomedia are also providing this kind of measurement service.

The proposed standards are open for public review and comment through May 16, 2008. Send to comments and feed back to info@downloadablemedia.org.

Once ratified will be reviewed bi-annually by ADM.

Technorati Tags: downloadable media, ADM, Association for Downloadable Media, Advertising, Standards

In Digital Podcast 46, we interview Rohit Bhargava, Senior Vice President, Digital Strategy & Marketing for Oglivy’s 360 Digital Influence group, about his new book, Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back.

The book is about why brands need to have a personality, how to avoid being faceless and finding a way to add more authenticity into marketing.

Rohit describes to us how he came to write the book and what he wanted to accomplish. He describes what he means by personality and provides some concrete, actionable suggestions for how to use his ideas in your marketing work.

 

 Digital Podcast 46 [35:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1419)

He argues that personality must be unique, authentic and talkable. We explore what he means by talkable and in the process he reveals a secret about the book that readers will want to know. To hear the secret you will have to listen to the podcast. Pay attention around the half-way point to hear the details.

Rohit also goes into detail about how he is using the ideas in his book to market the book. The ideas he shares are valuable for everyone with something to market. If you’re a CEO who wants to make your marketing more effective, a marketing manager who wants to make a difference, a blogger/podcaster who wants to grow your audience then the ideas and suggestions Rohit makes are worth paying attention too.

Remember be unique, be authentic, be talkable.

You can find out more about Rohit at Influential Marketing Blog and at the book’s web site at PersonalityNotIncluded.com.

You can buy the book at Amazon (affiliate link).

Technorati Tags: Rohit Bhargava, Personality Not Included

Kobe Bryant recently released a video of himself jumping over a speeding car, or at least appearing to jump over a speeding car. While the video is likely some special effect, the stunt is incredibly stupid and irresponsible. He starts the video by showing off his new Nike’s which makes me believe that this is part of some kind of ad campaign.

The video has been shown on numerous news shows this morning and will undoubtedly get sent around until everyone has seen it.

The problem will come when the first stupid person decides to try it themselves to show off. The first broken neck, paralyzed or dead kid will make Kobe and Nike look incredibly irresponsible. I would not be surprised if they get sued and it becomes a big mess.

While I don’t want to sound like the grumpy parent that I am, I can’t help but point out that this is stupid and irresponsible behavior and the perhaps the dark side of social media marketing. Kobe has a huge following despite his problems off the court. Kobe’s jersey is the number one most popular jersey in the US and even in China. Kids who don’t know any better and adults who are stupid enough to try to emulate their heroes are going to see if they can do this too.

While a pair of Nike’s costs $130 bucks, a kid’s life priceless. Nike and Kobe should start thinking now about how they get themselves out of that mess. It’s coming soon.

Technorati Tags: Kobe Bryant, Nike, social responsibility, social media marketing

I came up with a short starter list of why Chief Marketing Officers and Chief Communications Officers should make social media a priority.

You need to know what people are saying about you. There is a customer to customer and press to customer conversation going on throughout the internet. Any company that fails to understand and act on this puts themselves at risk for getting blindsided by the conversation. At a minimum, they should be tracking the conversation. The best practice is to go beyond monitoring to building a social media strategy to influence the conversation.

You need to know what your people are saying. If your customers are using social media, it’s also quite likely that your employees are using social media. They will be doing it no only for themselves, but also to fill gaps in the company’s social media strategy. Left un-managed, this presents numerous risks to the company’s reputation and customer/competitive relations. Inappropriate information may get disclosed and comments about policies by employees may confuse customers. Further, it is not uncommon for information published by employees with good intentions to be poorly maintained and out of date. Every company should have a Social Media Policy and a plan for cleaning up/maintaining information published about them across the internet.

You need to make your marketing/communications more efficient. Customer and stakeholder attention is now in shorter supply than ever. Traditional marketing and communications approaches are becoming increasingly less effective and consequently it’s becoming more expensive to realize communication goals. Social media and community are two mechanisms to radically improve efficiency. It will take an investment, but this investment has much greater leverage than investments in traditional media. Traditional media content scales up linearly with cost and have diminishing returns. Social media content scales up with the size of the community and can have compounding returns. Any cost conscious CMO or CCO should be figuring out how to use these tools to make their companies more cost effective.

Tell us why you think CMOs and CCOs should make social media like blogging, podcasting and networking a priority.

PS - Click here to learn more about how the University of Southern California’s CCO is using social media by listening to this Digital Podcast.

Technorati Tags: social media marketing, marketing priorities

Social media can be a very effective mechanism for marketing as shown in this video case study produced by Shel Israel as part of FastCompany.tv. The campaign was put together by SeaWorld San Antonio and focused on a pre-launch campaign for a new ride at the park called Journey to Atlantis.

They put up a WordPress blog and uploaded raw content to Flickr and YouTube. They then worked the online communities focused on roller coasters to get the word out.

This is an excellent example of a simple, highly focused campaign and a well orchestrated effort to measure the results.

This type of campaign shows that social media can be woven into your marketing efforts with practical and relatively straightforward methods. I’ve captured some screen shots below and a sample of a YouTube video to help provide some perspective on the project.

Here’s what the blog looked like:

And a video from YouTube.

And some of pictures from Flickr.

Technorati Tags: social media, social media marketing, FastCompany.tv, SeaWorld, Journey to Atlantis, Shel Israel

Conquering the Social Media Blues: Five Steps to Social Media Performance Management is a mini-ebook that focuses on how to use social media performance management and measurement to successfully manage growth.

It’s a management approach that applies a metrics philosophy to product development, product marketing, and business planning, so that resources can be focused and success can be repeated. The metrics philosophy that’s employed typically needs to be consistent with the performance criteria of broadcast media, but incorporates the interactive dynamics of social media.

The approach aligns management around success strategies and shared goals to provide your staff with the guide posts for making decisions consistent with the interest of the business. Done well, it will create or reinforce a culture of continuous improvement in new content, function, and initiative development.

If you would like to receive “Conquering the Social Media Blues: Five Steps to Social Media Performance Management” please sign up to receive our white papers.

There is no cost or obligation. Just fill out and submit the form. To make sure you want this white paper, you will receive a confirmation email from us confirming you are making this request. We respect your privacy and will not share any information beyond our organization.

Subscribing is free and you can opt out of receiving further information at any time by going to the link at the bottom of our emails to you.

Technorati Tags: social media, social media performance management, ebook, whitepaper, report

Tony Ponturo, President and CEO of Busch Media Group, spoke at the Future of Television conference. Tony observed the increasing complexity of marketing as the number of channels has exploded from the basic three back in 1972 to hundreds of thousands today with the web.

At the same time, the consumers are getting more sophisticated, diverse and elusive. Tony describes how the demographics of college markets are changing rapidly, in particular the increasing share of women in the college ranks and how that will change their marketing in the future.

He goes on to describe the rise of UGC and changing consumer media habits. Today, adults 21-34 consume over 58 hours of media each week (28+ hours on TV) . The internet has risen to 6.4 hours per week on average, and it consumes an average of 8.5 hours per week for those that have Internet access.

In the 80’s and 90’s, “consumers had to come to us”. In the latter 90’s through today, you need to go to the consumers. You need to find the consumer. While 90% of media spend is still on traditional sources, almost every deal needs to integrate into the digital space in some way.

Tony described the example of Swear Jar, which was originally done for the Super Bowl, but was considered too racy for TV given the bleeped out language. They bought 6.2 million views on Yahoo and Break. It then got 2.7 million more views on YouTube.

Tony showed the original internet spots for the Dude campaign which allowed the creative team to develop something unique, which then led to TV commercials with the same theme.

TV strategies are focused on Tivo proof TV such as big events and sports which have managed to retain their audiences. He sees an increasing shift to cable spend. Cable is up form 19% in 1998 to 30% in 2008.

Another major theme has been an increase in product placement in TV and movies.

The integration of TV and online is important. He describes how they get 32 million views online after the Super Bowl.

TV is as strong as ever, but there is now more need for added value and consumer engagement.

In addition to TV, Tony sees product placement and the convergence of broadcast marketing with online publishing as important brand marketing priorities going forward.

Technorati Tags: Future of Television, brand marketing, Busch Media Group

This panel at the Future of Television focused on user generated content, it’s role and the ways in which it can add value..

Panelists
Ken Todd, VP, Content, Showtime Networks
Richard Titus, Head of User Experience, BBC Future Media & Technology
Ivana Ma, Partner & President, New Media, Generate
Moderator: Rohit Bhargava, Author, Personality Not Included / SVP, Digital Strategy & Marketing, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide

What’s the role of UGC?

Much of UGC is seem as being funny and somewhat irrelevant. However,the BBC gets lots of content from citizen journalists who send in content and blogs are some of the most heavily trafficked sites on the network.

UGC also has a major role in contests. Ivana described how when a music contest incorporated UGC and was framed as competing communities (eg, Colleges), really made the contest a much bigger success.

UGC also plays a role as brand evangelists. Ken spoke about how they used a site to have people write fan lit and have people vote on the content. He also spoke about a UGC contest using the them song from Weeds - Little Boxes. The prize was playing five of the songs on TV, with a grand prize of $10,000. He says it has proven very successful for Showtime.

What role do bloggers play?

Ken speaks about how they can play the role of uber fans (Super Fans). They can have a huge impact. Ken says they have started treating these uber bloggers as they would reporters, sending them press kits and advance on shows.

Richard speaks about how bloggers have now added a new voice to the conversation. He says blogging has made the BBC wake up and work harder.

Ivana points out that brands have taken an interest and started courting bloggers. Richard asks that since bloggers are more likely to be easier to buy off than the traditional media, does that make them more interesting to brand advertisers. ( What BS - like the auto mags don’t demand advertising for reviews.)

Is it money or is it attention and micro-fame?

Some do it to communicate, others want that small moment of fame. If they are doing it for money, its not there yet. You just have to look at the content and you will usually see what the motivation is. Richard points to the opportunity for blogs to generate huge momentary fame based on controversial content.

What about the cost of supporting UGC?

The cost of supporting UGC should also be recognized. Supporting this content is not free. It takes substantial moderation and infrastructure costs. Richard says that the conversation is going on and if the BBC wants to be part of it they will have to bear the cost.

Technorati Tags: Future of Television, user generated content

A traditional media guy by day and a new media student by night, Carson Daly spoke at Future of Television.

He describes how due to budget constraints he has had to figure out how to make his show work at 5 times the productivity of other shows. The tools and skills of the online content creators have proven that it can be done. Quality TV can be made for much less.

As for TV, it’s not dead. That’s crap.

Every one of those kids dancing in front of their webcams wants to be on TV.

Carson describes the early days of cable when shows and channels were very fragmented and later were consolidated to make it easier to buy and sell advertising. He thinks that in a similar way we are in the early fragmented days of the Internet.

Carson describes how CarsonDaly.TV has become a new channel for him with 2 million views. This dot TV site has created a new way for fans, bands and others to reach him and his audience. He says he used to get crappy tape versions of talent sent to him. Now he gets high quality multimedia packages from talent that wants to get his attention.

The biggest difference now is distribution. TV’s job now, is to find the audience. If you want to find a 30 year old male they can be found, you just have to know where to look.

Carson goes out of his way to complement Hulu as an elegant design and an amazing new way to distribute his show.

Technorati Tags: Future of Television, Carson Daly

This panel at the Future of Television conference focused on producing content specifically for the web. Do we need it? How should we approach it?

Panelists
Alex Barkaloff, Executive Producer, Digital Media, Lionsgate
David Leibowitz, EVP, Business & Legal Affairs, Gotuit
Mara Winokur VP, Digital Media & Business Development, Starz Media LLC
John Edwards, CEO & President, Move Networks
Keith Richman, CEO, Break.com
Moderator: Lindsay Campbell, Host, MobLogic (a CBS company)

Do we need content created specifically for the web?

Alex says absolutely. Re-purposed content from one platform to another is just not the same. It’s not optimized to that platform. He points to Weedisodes that will be created specifically for the web as an example of something that’s appropriate for the web.We need this because its where people are going.

Mara says there is no formula. Different things work for different brands. Mara says that clips didn’t work originally for their Monga(sp?) site, but when packaged into channels they became much more successful.

The content needs to be true to the brand. If it’s Weed’s related content it needs to be zany, but for others it may be a different type of content that works.

What about downloadable media?

The challenge is tracking the data for downloadable media. Without the data, a view doesn’t count as much. John discounts downloadable because people want it now, but he admits that we don’t know what people want or where they want it. He points to the difference between email and texting based communication segments. Different segments want different things. He says that the key is to experiment and measure to find what works.

Are people looking online because the content on TV is not good enough?

John points out that to a large extent what they want online is what the want on TV. The challenge for users is that when and where it’s shown on TV may not be convenient for users. The net provides a way to place and time shift content viewing. John goes on to say that distribution should not get in the way of viewers. Distribution needs to be transparent to the viewers to eliminate speed bumps.

How to build an audience and get sponsors?

Keith Richman says that the people who focus on specific target group or interest group will build an audience. Focus really helps in building that audience. He goes on to say that with good packaging and programming advertisers can get comfortable with lots of different content. Providing some confidence and consistency in the programming, even if it’s silly/strange content, is very helpful to getting the advertising dollars.

Technorati Tags: Future of Television, internet content