NPR forced to cancel youth targeted online program

NPR’s New York-based “Bryant Park Project” made its debut online October 1st . The live 2-hour program, targeting young audiences who had moved to online programs, varied from news to cultural topics presented in an informal, conversational manner. Unique features like “Make Me Care” attempted to connect to young audiences by showing the real-world relevance of important news stories. In addition to the program being available online, it also could be heard on 5 radio stations and on 19 high-definition digital channels. Additionally, its web presence was fairly substantial with the use of numerous new media tools like regularly updated blogs, twitter, podcasts, social networking and video.

NPR, taking a gamble on the experiment, recently stated that the “Project Bryant Project” was attracting the web audience they had anticipated. During April and May the program received 1 million unique listeners. Unfortunately, NPR officials have decided to cancel the morning program due to financial woes that have been plaguing the news media industry. Having budgeted $2 million this year for the program, this youth targeted experiment has been an expensive one. While the program quality and content was strong and the use of new media to capture young listeners was successful, a weak economy ultimately led NPR officials to make the tough decision to cancel the program. It’s a shame really. NPR seemed to be on to something and one might wonder how far the “Bryant Park Project” could have gone if next year’s budget would’ve have allowed it.


Reference:

Jensen, Elizabeth (2008, July 14). Public Radio to Cancel a Morning Experiment. New York Times. Retrieved on July 18, 2008 from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/arts/14npr.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss.

A blog is only as good as its buzz

6 weeks ago, I came up with a list of strategies and tactics to increase awareness and perhaps some buzz around this blog. Here’s what I came up with:

1. Increase blog visibility by creating a Search Engine Optimization Plan to ensure blog is accessible to search engines

• Add meta data title, description and keywords within the blog template’s HTML code in order to be found easier by search engines and rank high in the search listings.
• Update blog content frequently to create a substantial body of work, particularly attractive to those searching for New Media topics of interest
  
• Embed links, images, videos with alt tags to snag search engines

2. Increase traffic by linking blog on relevant sites and blogs

• Ask to be linked to on other IMC New Media blogs; in return link to others
• Add link to blog on personal sites: portfolio, LinkedIn, employment sites

3. Add bookmarking widget and feed to blog template in order to gain repeat visitors

• Register blog with Technorati
• Add Technorati widget, linking blog to visitor’s Technorati favorites
• Add subscription RSS feed to blog

4. Employ word of mouth strategy to pass the word in personal circles

• Find a way to incorporate blog and entry topics in every day conversation with friends and coworkers
• Notify family, friends and coworkers of blog’s existence, follow up with reminders

Now 6 weeks later, I wondered, “did any of these strategies work?” Let’s take a look at each one.

Search Engine Optimization Plan
When using the keywords “Elicia Roberts” to search for the blog on Google, this blog showed up as the 5th entry. Not too bad. But what’s even better is when I searched for “Elicia Roberts blog” this blog showed up as the 2nd entry (2nd to my Design Portfolio which links to the blog). However if I searched something generic like “new media blog,” my blog was nowhere to be found. At least in the first 22 pages. I lost hope after that. In short, the blog is definitely visible if the searcher is someone familiar with my name. Otherwise the blog gets lost in the crowd.

Linking to the blog
This effort was fairly successful. Personally, I liked to the blog in my online design portfolio as well as in my LinkedIn profile. In addition, the majority if not all of my fellow classmates linked to my blog, as I linked to theirs. According to Blogger’s “User Stats” at the time of this entry, the blog has been viewed 63 times. Unfortunately, Blogger counts the times you visit your own blog site, so it’s not entirely accurate. Aside from the times I visited the blog, I imagine the majority of people who viewed the site are my New Media colleges at WVU.

Bookmarking and RSS feeds
On the blog I added both a subscription link and a Technorati “favorites” widget. From what I can tell, 25% of my classmates subscribed to my blog. The Technorati “favorites” link may not have worked as well. No one marked my blog as a favorite and the blog is ranked 1,895,539 among another blogs. Obviously, there’s no buzz about my blog on Technorati.

Word of Mouth
For the most part, this strategy worked fairly well. A few times in the past 6 weeks a family member or friend would say, “Hey, I read your blog about _____ the other day.” A conversation about the entry topic would usually follow. Clearly, I had a few fans in the wings.

All in all, I seemed to get the best return from having my blog linked to in other sites as well as employing the word of mouth strategy. Ok, so my blog isn’t Huffington Post material, but give me another 6 weeks and who knows!

Friends Don’t let Friends Drink Friends

On September 7th, HBO will debut its newest Alan Ball drama titled, “True Blood.” The new series chronicles the unexpected emergence of vampires as they let their presence be known to the world. They are able to unabashedly mingle with humans in daylight because a new Japanese synthetic blood beverage, Tru Blood, allows them to get their fill of blood without having to ravage humans. An interesting premise.

To promote the new series, HBO has implemented a viral marketing campaign with the launch of a website for the faux blood beverage, Tru Blood. The site showcases different blood beverage types (Type O, Type A, etc), an interactive quiz that determines which “blood type” you prefer, downloadable extras, even an e-commerce page that allows user to buy Tru Blood products.

In addition, marketers created a site titled “Blood Copy,” which uses new media tools (blog, forum, and short films) to chronicle the daily struggles of vampires trying to integrate with humans.

HBO even took out a full-page ad for the “Tru Blood” beverage in the Daily Variety with the tagline, “Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink Friends.”


We won’t be sure of the effectiveness of the viral campaign till after the show airs in September, but considering a search for the keywords “True Blood HBO” on Technorati resulted in a list of 392 blog entries, HBO is definitely on to something here.

What do you think? Have you heard the “True Blood” buzz yet?


Reference:

Littleton, Cynthia (2008). "True Blood": First taste of HBO's vampire drama from Alan Ball. Cynthia Littleton On the Air. Retrieved on July 10, 2008 from http://weblogs.variety.com/on_the_air/2008/06/true-blood-firs.html.

Ads on YouTube?

Google is having difficulties trying to figure out how to make money off their YouTube acquisition. This year YouTube will make around $200 million of revenue, very short of Google’s expectations of $1.65 billion. But they may just have some hope yet.

The Silicon Alley Insider recently published a story announcing that Google is considering accepting “preroll” and “postroll” advertisements to run before and after some YouTube videos. Google’s plan will allow companies that post video clips the chance to sell ads to and share the profits with Google. The pros: advertisers consider theses ads highly effective. The cons: consumers hate them! So what’s Google’s stand on the issue?

Google's intense dislike of preroll is both aesthetic (they're a clumsy "old media" ad strategy, and Google doesn't like to think of itself that way) and practical (we're told that Google has found that 80% to 90% of video-watchers flee the instant they see one of the ads). So resorting to pre-rolls -- after Eric Schmidt had promised that YouTube had awesome new ad schemes in the works -- is an admission that the Mountain View brain trust is stumped.

I’m in agreement with Google on this one. As a consumer, I hate when I’m trying to watch a video clip and there’s a preroll ad that I can’t fast-forward through. I’ve even seen some that are 1 minute or 2 long and at that point, I’ll just move on to something else to avoid watching it.

The author suggests that Google could avoid pre/postrolls by selling advertising on the main page instead of within the videos, especially since currently the site is completely ad free. Unfortunately, that brings up another problem. YouTube is plagued with videos that violate on copyright laws. By selling advertising on YouTube, Google will be profiting from copyright infringement, that’s why the pre/postroll idea is limited to companies that post their own video clips that they created. But according to the article, these legitimate, custom made videos only account for 4% of the total videos on YouTube.

Evidently, Google has a problem that doesn’t have a clear solution. They could try to regulate the uploading process to eliminate videos that infringe on copyright laws. They already do that to an extent but users always find a way around that. They could try and get a legal ruling that would allow them to make money off its inventory, as the author mentions, or, they may have to lower expectations for YouTube and live with the results. A tough call for a company that has excelled in all aspects of business.

What do you think of the pre/postroll idea? Any other suggestions on how Google can make money off web video?


Reference:

Kafka, Peter (2008, July 9). Google: We Can't Figure Out How To Make Money On Web Video, Either. Silicon Alley Insider. Retrieved on July 10, 2008 from http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/7/google-we-can-t-figure-out-how-to-make-money-on-web-video-either

Usability is the key to good website design

In the “wild, wild, west” days of the Internet, a web designer could get away with just creating a “cool” aesthetically pleasing design. Today, a web designer must not only create an appealing interface, but he must also make the site usable and accessible for audiences with different needs.

Take senior citizens, for example. Seniors are one of the fastest growing segment of online population, yet many seniors have physical disabilities or are unfamiliar with technology, which makes browsing the internet more difficult than the average user.

Here are some ways to eliminate confusion and reduce user error within a website designed for an elderly audience:

1. Content font size should be at least 12pt and scalable, giving the user the option to increase or decrease font size if they desire.
2. Use large buttons so that the clickable area is large enough.
3. Avoid clickable areas that are placed too close together.
4. Don’t clutter page with content, animation, images, links
5. Make sure content elements (headers, links, bullets, etc) are all clearly identifiable and consistent through the site
6. Links should be easily distinguished from other text
7. Include site maps, breadcrumbs, and search features to facilitate navigation
8. Content should be written in Plain English
9. Images should have captions and “alt text”

Visit AARP’s new website to see how these practices are implemented into a website design.


References:

Chisnell, D. & Redish, J. (2005). Designing Web Sites for Older Adults: Expert Review of Usability for Older Adults at 50 Web Sites. AARP. Retrieved on July 3, 2008 from http://www.aarp.org/olderwiserwired/oww-resources/designing_web_sites_for_older_adults_expert_review.html.

Usability for Senior Citizens (n.d.). About.com. Retrieved on July 3, 2008 from http://usability.about.com/od/seniorcitizens/qt/useniors.htm.

Language Translation in New Media

According to recent studies, the non-European population in the U.S. will increase from 24% in 1990 to 37% in 2020! For marketers, this means we are challenged to show ethnic consumers that we understand their culture and lifestyle by creating targeted messages that are culturally appropriate. In fact, many large companies like Coca-Cola understand how important their ethnic consumers are and have created multicultural marketing departments focused on extending their presence within specific ethnic communities.

Yet none of these efforts are worth much if the language translation is not appropriate for the target audience. Years ago when KFC started to expand their product to China, marketers translated the slogan “Finger lickin’ good” into Chinese. Unfortunately, in Chinese the literal translation read, “eat your fingers off.” Clearly, this was not the message KFC brand managers wanted to send to the Chinese.

As a former Account Manager for a language translation firm, TransPerfect Translations, I’m well aware of the importance of delivering translations that are of the highest quality. Our business procedures were specifically designed to avoid cultural mishaps that plagued KFC. First, we only employed native speakers of each language dialect so that the translation would appropriately reflect the culture, particularly idiomatic expressions. This practice ensured that the translation gets the meaning of the message across rather then just having a literal rendering of it. In addition, another native speaker checked each translation again for quality control purposes.

With the booming ethnic population in the U.S. and more and more people reaching toward the Internet to interact with brands, we must be mindful of our use of translated communications to connect to ethnic consumers. A wrong translation can completely change the meaning of the message and can result in a loss of credibility in the eyes of a minority audience, not to mention a potential loss of sales.


References:

Advertising (n.d.). FoodReference.com. Retrieved on July 3, 2008 from http://www.foodreference.com/html/fadvertising.html.

Coca-Cola North America names head of Hispanic marketing (2008, May). Atlanta Business Chronicle. Retrieved on July 3, 2008 from http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2008/05/26/daily22.html?ana=from_rss.

Branded Entertainment

Short films have always been had their place in the entertainment industry but only recently have short films been used to subtly sell a product. With the invention of TIVO and DVRs, television viewers can fast-forward through commercials and advertisements whenever they please. Brand messages are reaching fewer and fewer people and therefore marketers are looking for other more engaging methods of delivering messages. Short films are becoming the new media choice of many large companies, such as BMW, Volvo, and Ritz Carlton. These films allow marketers to incorporate messaging, brand associations, and product images within an entertaining storyline.

Take for example, Volvo. In 2004, the car company utilized the short film method to try and change the perception of Volvo as an “old man” car company. Trying to appeal to young, affluent Europeans, Volvo created a mock documentary about 32 people from the Swedish town Dalarö who all bought Volvo S40s on the same day. As a result of the film, Volvo actually sold out of S40 cars for a period of time, proof that this method of message distribution can be quite effective.



On the other hand, marketers must be aware of the ethical quandary of short films as well. The film must be transparent enough for the user to realize that the film is indeed an advertisement. In the case of Volvo, the car company caught some flack for another issue: they initially sold the mock documentary as an authentic one (before outing themselves with an additional fake documentary that exposed the first as a fake). Volvo took a huge risk that the audience may view the company as untrustworthy and deceptive. Fortunately, the target audience thought the campaign clever and compelling, looking at Volvo with new eyes. Yet, this is a lesson to all marketers to think first about the ethical nature of your message because sometimes the risk isn’t worth losing your customers’ trust.


Reference:

McIntyre, Paul (2004, June). Volvo sells out with a film that lifts the lid on its old man image. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved on June 21, 2008 from http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/23/1087845006403.html?from=storylhs