Contextual advertising

At my presentation for “Medievaner 07” and in Tønsberg the week before I talked a abit about in-game advertising. And the possibility that in the future we could see companies like Google and Facebook – who knows a lot about their customers – connect with the gaming industry. So when you play “Project Gotham Racing 4” on the Xbox360, you see ads along the road for products you actually like. Because the game pull fit them to your profile on Facebook or Google.

Putting ads in context is very important. TV tries this, by showing beer ads in football games. Or shampoo ads before “Desperate housewifes”. But they don’t know, do they?

They don’t know if you’re a man that doesn’t like beer. Or a woman that is allergic to shampoo and only use special brands.

But Facebook and Google know your interests. So if you connect your profile with the ads, you get ads for stuff that you both like and are interested in.

Spy for us

The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain’s intelligence listening post, understands the concept of contextual ads. So they are buying ads in “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent” (reported by Yahoo! and Engadget):

“We find increasingly we have to use less conventional means of attracting people … to go beyond glossy brochures and milk-round stalls,” a GCHQ spokeswoman told…

The advertisements will not be written into the games themselves, but will instead be fed into them while they were played on personal computers or Microsoft Xbox 360 consoles connected to the Internet.

Excellent thinking, even if they don’t know much about the people using the game, except that they are playing a spy game.

The future of shopping

I did a presentation in Tønsberg last week. I’m not going to put up the whole presentation here. But instead I would like to put up a few pictures and links I’ve found the last weeks. First up is Aftenposten (Norwegian) who wrote about a new book by Jesper Bo Jensen called “Future Consumer Tendencies and Shopping Behavior”. Jensen thinks that people in the near future not will use material goods to show their wealth.

Tid: Afkobling, have tiden til sin egen rådighed
Opmærksomhed: En luksus at være massemedie-fri – at kunne være fuldt sammen med et andet menneske
Rum og plads: Udfoldelse, der hvor ingen andre kommer, væk fra bilkøer, monkey-class, forsimple sin bolig
Fred og ro: Fravær af larm og støj
Natur og renhed: Ren luft, rent vand, mad uden gift
Sikkerhed: Fuldkommen tryghed er en ny luksus – næsten alle steder er risikobetonede

In English (my translation):

Time: Relaxing, to decide over your own time
Attention: A luxury to be free from massmedia, to be with another human being 100%
Room and space: To be where no one else comes, away from traffic, monkey-class, simplify your home
Peace and quiet: No noise
Nature: Clean air, fresh water, food without toxics
Safety: 100% safety is the new luxury, almost all places involves risk

Have a look at his presentations, where you’ll find lots of interesting statistics on the new luxury, like this graphic called “The new phases of life”:

The new phases of life

The new phases of life – Slide by Jesper Bo Jensen

Future homes

The National Association of Home Builders did a study to find out what our houses will be like in 2015. Washington Post reports:

“The formal living space isn’t as important,” said Andy Rosenthal, president of Rosenthal Homes in Potomac. “As a baby boomer, when we grew up, we all had living rooms, but we weren’t allowed in there. Now we don’t want living rooms because we weren’t allowed in there anyway.”

Local builders did agree with the survey’s findings that “green” methods will become more widespread. The builders association predicts that the home of the future will have water conservation devices and energy-efficient appliances, among other features. “The cost of energy is going to continue to rise,” Paul said. “It will encourage essentially green building and efficient building.”

Women rule

I showed this graphic at the presentation, with numbers from Tom Peters (click to enlarge):

Women rule

It shows that women make all the most important economic decisions in a family. And my point was: Pay attention to your female customers, or you will loose lots of money! I have studied couples shopping tvs and games, records and movies, toys, clothes and kitchen stuff at a local mall, and could easily see that both male and female sales people paid more attention to what the male said, than to the female. Even in Norway, where women are more liberated than any other country in the world. “Dine Penger”, a Norwegian monthly on personal economics, ran this in their September 2007 edition (click to enlarge):

Dine Penger

Women rule…

The shopping experience

I also made a point about shops have to understand that experience is becoming more and more important for shoppers. If your shop looks like thrash, well… My example was the highly successful Apple Retail Stores, and also Amoeba Music – which looks very basic, but has an amazing selection and staff that know just about anything about music.

A clips that shows this trend, from Aftenposten again, about BMW’s amazing new store in Germany – BMW Welt:

BMW Welt

Picking up your new BMW is almost as important as owning it. BMW makes it a big experience, and people love it.

Expect the unexpected

Finally a Ludwig Wittgenstein qoute, which I got in a paper from one of the fonds I invest in, Skagen Fondene.

Ludwig Wittenstein

Which proves a point in itself: I’m certain I would not have qouted a Skagene newspaper if all they did write about was funds and investments. But when they try to see out of their usual circle, it gets interesting.

Also on the subject of predicting the future: Read the excellent book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. A real eye opener if you think youcan predict everything.

And finally; this one from Wired Magazine, the September 2007 edition:

Today’s fiction

40 degrees and hungry

The people who saw my presentation were dead tired after six hours at the golf course. The dinner was waiting, and the room was 40+ degrees Celcius. Not the perfect conditions for a presentation. But I got some nice feedback afterwards, and some angry looks from record and movie executives. 😉

Motion 07 – my presentation

Motion 07 is finished, and what a great conference it was. Great content, great speakers, and lots of interesting people to talk to. Loved it. The conference has got lots of feedback too, and here’s their “sum-it-up” post (in Norwegian).

I did a presentation on “NRK in new media”, and here it is, hosted at slideshare. Watch out for pink underwear.

I have added links to all videos I showed in the presentation. Just click the link and you’ll get the video from youtube. Also, all pictures I have used under a CC-licence are linked to. Click the lower left corner. Pictures without a link are my own, like the tiger, the luggage tag and the ladybug. Feel free to ask questions in the comments field below, in English or Norwegian.

Some relevant links

Here are some relevant links to things covered during my presentation and in the conference.

Books mentioned:
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: “The Black Swan”
Kevin Keller: “Marketing Management”
Malcolm Gladwell: “The Tipping Point”

Seth Godin’s excellent blog on marketing: sethgodin.typepad.com/

Nine Inch Nails, who let their fans remix their albums instead of suing them.

The Motion conference website: motion.no

The Motion conference Facebook group. Join!

My pre-conference post: “Motion 07 – where arts meet business”

Q&A

Some the questions I got after the presentation and later in the conference.

Q: Do you think traditional TV is in trouble?
A:
I think people will use the net more and more and traditional tv will be less important in the future than it is now. Statistics show that young people spend less time watching tv than ever. And I think the numbers are lying too. Because if you watch them while they are watching tv, they aren’t really watching most of the time. The tv is just on as a companion. The TV is on, they chat, SMS, surf and listen to music. And the web is the number one source for information and entertainment, not the tv.

TV will not die. Just as radio didn’t die when tv came, and movies didn’t die when video recorders came.

Q: How are people going to make money, if people think content should be free?
A:
If you look at slide 63 & 64 on my presentation, you’ll see that NRK got more viewers on the last episode of “Kodenavn: Hunter” when we gave away the last episode in HD on the web. But NRK didn’t give away all episodes. I think a combination of free and paid is the right thing to do. The artist Prince “gave” away millions of copies of his latest album with an English newspaper some weeks ago. Well, he got paid quite a bit, but probably not as much a he would have earned if people had to buy the album. Maybe as much as 2.3 million copies were included with the paper, and the music shops in Great Britain did not like this at all:

“It is an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career. It is yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music.”

The newspaper responded this way:

“They are living in the old days and haven’t developed their businesses sufficiently. We can enhance their business. They are being incredibly insular and need to move their business on.”

Exactly. Find new models to gain buzz and PR. Prince gave away something for free, got lots of PR and sold out lots of concerts in Great Britain. The record shops need to adapt their business to the new world.

Q: We’re a small classic orchestra. How do we get our stuff on the web?
A:
Apart from a website (obviously), you should try broadcasting yourself using new tools for live video on the web. And put of clips on sites like YouTube and Brightcove for your fans. Taking care of your fans is always number one for musicians. Rock band Marillion put the names of 17 000 (!) fans on a CD, just to say “Thank you for your support!”.

Marbles was released in 2004 with a 2-CD version that is only available at Marillion’s website – kind of a ‘thank-you’ gesture to the 17,000+ fans who pre-ordered it, and as even a further thanks to the fans, their names were credited in the sleeve notes (this ‘thank you’ to the fans also occurred with the previous album, Anoraknophobia). The band released the singles You’re Gone and Don’t Hurt Yourself, both of which reached the UK Chart in the Top 10 and Top 20 respectively, thanks again to the fans. Following this, they released a download-only single, The Damage (live), recorded at the band’s sell-out gig at the London Astoria. It was the highest new entry in the new UK download chart at number 2.

Get yourself a website. Let people comment on things, and update it regularly. Get an account on YouTube and start posting some of your stuff there. MySpace has been huge for some bands, but it’s a very strange system. It’s hard to make things look the way you want.

Have a look at the “Eventcasting” article (in Norwegian) at NRKbeta. It shows some ways you can broadcast live from the web for free. Maybe you could have lots of fans, they just don’t live where you do! Some of the tools mentioned:

Kyte.tv
Veodia
blogTV

All these are free.

Q: What software do you use for your presentations?
A:
Apple’s Keynote ’08, which is part of the iWork ’08 software package. And a simple principle: KISS.

Q: Heard any great electronica lately?
A:
Yes, I have! I always find great stuff at Amie Street. In their “Buzz” section – Electronica you’ll find what’s hot at Amie Street right now. Amie Street has a cool way of shopping music. When tracks are put on the site, they are free. Yes, free. Then the price go up when people buy it. If it’s popular, that price gets all the way up to 98 cents. If not, well – then it stays free or cheap. So if you want to search the new tracks, you could find lots of great electronice – for free – in the Electronica – latest section where most songs are free or just a few cents.

If you download one of these – and like it – you can recommend it to others. When the price goes up, you get the difference. Example: You buy a song for 3 cents. You like it, and recommend it on Amie Street. It’s popular so it goes up to 78 cents. You earn 75 cents which can buy you more great tracks. Clever?

Also: Have a look at Garageband.com, where they put up the most popular electronica track downloaded every day. Some crap but also some really good ones!

Forgot anything?

I know there was some more questions after the presentation. I you can’t find yours here – or have another one – feel free to use the comments below! Or contact me in other ways. All mye details to the right here.