QR Code Usage up 4,549% in 1st QTR 2011 – TLP integrates QR Codes in TransMedia Strategies
Mobile bar code scanning has increased by 4,549 percent in the first quarter of 2011 on a year-over-year basis, according to a Mobio Identity Systems study.
Report May 2011: “The Naked Facts: Whiplash Edition QR Barcode Scanning in Q1-2011“ READ FULL REPORT HERE.
With the increase in smartphone purchases for both iPhone and Android devices, which have a pre-installed QR reader, there is growing awareness among consumers of QR codes compared to a year ago.
QR barcodes go mainstream
Women also show a higher interest in using QR codes, accounting for 68 percent of users.
These numbers have big implications for advertisers.
“QR barcodes are no longer just a way to speak to early adopters, or the geek crowd,” Mr. Binns said. “QR codes have gone mainstream and are being used heavily by women who are head decision makers and purchasers in households.”
Mobio offers target rich environments where advertisers use multiple barcodes tied to different outcomes or campaigns to engage their consumers multiple times.
The vast majority of mobile bar code scans are centered on providing more information about a product or service, with 89 percent of scans falling into this category.
In terms of the type of media scanned, social media accounts for 70 percent of scans, TV 22 percent, the physical world four percent, online three percent and print one percent. The iPhone is the most popular scanning device, followed by the iPod Touch and then, Android. The report also shows that consumers are not just trying QR codes once and forgetting about them, but are becoming repeat users of the technology.
In fact, repeat scanners account for 62 percent of the market.
For marketers, this means QR codes can provide a way to have an ongoing conversation with consumers.
“QR isn’t a one-off medium anymore,” Mr. Binns said. “Marketers can change their QR codes in ads each day, week or month, and have an ongoing dialogue with their consumer.”
Anatomy of a Highly Successful TransMedia StoryWorld – “Conspiracy for Good”
What makes a successful cross-platform or transmedia project? Are there key ingredients? What’s the secret sauce?
THE AUTHORS REPORT: “With the Conspiracy For Good, our definition of a successful transmedia project is one that utilizes technology to deliver story content and engage an audience in original and novel ways. We intentionally created a story that lived all around consumers all the time, and incentivized the audience to move from one device to another in pursuit of the story, solutions to problems, and answers to mysteries.
A transmedia story is the opposite of traditional television, which lives in one place at one time, such as NBC on Monday nights at 8pm, and you sit on your couch and let the story come at you. After our writers created the Conspiracy For Good narrative, we then chopped it into 1,000 pieces and distributed those pieces across many platforms, such as characters’ Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, text messages, and updates on various websites, some of which were hard to find. The audience then went and found the pieces. So, when a cell phone buzzed in the pocket of one of our audience members in the middle of the day, they got to live in the story again for a few minutes and went to a particular website to learn something new about a character or a development, much like you do with your friends in your regular, everyday life. We even distributed songs that had hidden clues. When a participant found a clue on a character’s Facebook page, for example, they were often motivated to search deeper and crowdsource, with other participants, solutions to the character¹s journey.
The Conspiracy For Good actually had a character who traveled from Zambia all the way to London and she often ran into obstacles along the way. Her dream was to build a library for school kids in Zambia, and our audience actually helped the character fund and built a real library there. The audience communicated with her and used Nokia’s Ovi Maps to guide her through northern Africa and Europe. We actually had an actor (songwriter/poet Nadirah X) and a camera crew on the road for months of travel, being guided by fans.”
“So, to the many writers and producers involved in the Conspiracy For Good, the challenge was to create a puzzle with 1,000 pieces. Everyday the audience received one or two puzzle pieces from different sources (mobile device, song, etc). Over time, the fans begin to see the bigger story that emerged as they put the pieces together, and it soon became obvious that some very big actions were about to go down in London at a particular time and place. The Conspiracy For Good really pushed the limits of transmedia storytelling‹and also old-fashion street theater – and our audience loved it.
What are the most exciting emerging technologies that filmmakers should be aware of?
It’s incredible how new technologies have democratized filmmaking. You can make a great piece of art with a cell phone camera. I know because some of our fans did just that. We used a lot of mobile technology and mobile applications because we were aligned with Nokia on the CFG pilot. The future is clearly in social media and crowdsourced experiences, and also GPS technologies. The funnest part of our 4 month long event was the scavenger hunt in the streets of London that used image recognition software and location-based gaming to uncover mysteries, move through the streets guided by your cell phones, and find underground concerts.
What can filmmakers do to encourage real engagement and participation from “the people formerly known as the audience”?
When people come across an experience that they love, they want to share it with their friends. Art is powerful when it expresses an emotion, it taps into something that bypasses our intellect and makes us feel rather than think. That is moving. And when we experience that, we want to share it with others. This is true when you hear a great song or see a video or read a poem or play a game. Transmedia is best when you tap into this.”
“A story is more powerful if the storytellers create a story architecture that invites and even necessitates that you invite your friends to participate with you. If the story involves doing real good in the real world, then it is even more exciting to invite your friends to join your cause. The Conspiracy For Good wants to inspire you to invite your friends to experience new art and music and story, and by doing so also support a real world cause. So, I would have to say that transmedia storytelling is most effective when you interact with others and actually share and create art with them. The best example of this that I’ve seen recently is this pretty incredible Johnny Cash video that needs actual fans to sketch every single frame in the video.”
In 2011 Samsung says SmartTVs have the potential to replace conventional cable TV services
Major Industry Players are Poised to Replace Cable TV’s Entire Business Model.
On April 28, 2011, Samsung announced it hopes that its range of Smart TVs will replace pay TV and laptops in the lounge room within six months, by supplying video content and web browsing though your connected television, an industry conference in Hobart heard today.
SmartTV’s With these Samsung and LG Functions Will Disrupt Broadcast and Cable TV Business Models that Do Not Integrate TransMedia Strategies Which Use Them.
Smart TV is a new category of television that uses an internet connection to provide additional content such as web browsing, social networking, apps, live channels such as Bigpond TV and video-on-demand.
Evan Manolis, AV group manager at Samsung Electronics Australia, told the Korea-Australia-New Zealand (KANZ) Broadband Conference that applications such as Bigpond TV will help popularise smart TV.
“It expands the story of smart TV and gets people understanding how the TV works and how it all brings convergence together, and there’s no more need for content on set-top boxes or laptops. It’ll all be one within the next six months,” Manolis said.
Manolis said that Samsung has conducted extensive research on what people want out of a smart TV.
“They want to ensure that the user interface is easy, they want to make sure that the experience they get on a laptop — the way they search the internet, the same way that they social network — that the experience is at the same level or better, and that’s what we’ve delivered,” Manolis said.
Both Samsung and LG have launched their 2011 ranges of smart TVs in the past month.
TransMedia in Hispanic Television – Univision and Buick
It’s an Ad Within an Ad Within a TV Show for Univision Novela
AdAge Reports: “In Bid to Sell Buicks With Intrigue and Plot, Network and GM Roll Out Character-Driven Spot.”
The article reports: “As head of Hispanic ad agency Publicidad Arismendi, Eva Rodriguez won General Motors’ Buick account and created the car brand’s first Spanish-language commercial, which ran on Univision last week. But Eva isn’t real. She’s the heroine of Univision’s 8 p.m. telenovela “Eva Luna,” and part of her role is to take the product integration common in novelas to a new level.
In typical novela fashion, Eva starts out as a humble but beautiful apple-picker in Southern California and finds success and riches after falling in love with a man — Arismendi’s creative director, Daniel Villanueva — and being mentored by the agency’s founder, Julio Arismendi as she nurses him through a long illness. Eva rises to the top of the agency through a combination of hard work, her love of advertising, and the tutelage of Julio, who also leaves her a majority stake in the Los Angeles-based Hispanic ad agency after he fakes his own death when his evil wife Marcela poisons him.
Not only is the novela set in an ad agency, the plot includes the fictional Publicidad Arismendi’s quest for the Buick account, Eva’s successful pitch for the business, and the shooting of the real commercial, essentially relaunching Buick in the U.S. Hispanic market with the brand’s first Spanish-language spot.
“We knew Buick didn’t have any commercial creative so integrating the car into the storyline wasn’t going to be enough,” said Lia Silkworth, senior VP-media director at Tapestry, part of Starcom MediaVest Group.
General Motors’ media deal with Univision built in the cost of producing the commercial, and the filming of the spot was done at the same time as the scene of Eva directing the commercial. During the two-day shoot at an upscale Miami shopping mall, the “Eva Luna” cast and crew spent about an hour filming Eva, dressed in a white trenchcoat and very high heels, hopping behind cameras, scrutinizing storyboards and giving directions.”
Why SmartPhone Integrations are Included in TLP TransMedia Strategies – 2011
May 5, 2011 Report: The worldwide smartphone market grew 80% in the first quarter compared to a year ago as manufacturers rolled out much-anticipated new devices and prices on older models dropped, according to new data from technology research firm IDC. The number of smartphones shipped in the quarter nearly doubled to 99.6 million units from 55.4 million a year ago.
2011 Recent Study: Greg Sterling, principal of Internet and mobile research firm Sterling Market Intelligence, says mobile cameras will likely overtake consumer-level standalone digital cameras, in terms of technological capability, within three years. Sterling also added that 50 percent of cell-phone users in the United States will likely have smartphones by 2012. 71% of smartphone users search because of an ad they’ve seen either online or offline; 82% of smartphone users notice mobile ads, 74% of smartphone shoppers make a purchase as a result of using their smartphones to help with shopping, and 88% of those who look for local information on their smartphones take action within a day.
The findings of this recent 2011 study have strong implications for businesses and mobile advertisers. TLP integrates SmartPhone interactivity access and entry points into TransMedia Strategies because consumers regularly use their phones to find and act on information. Incorporating location based products and services are recommended because it makes it easy for mobile customers to reach Brands. A recent finding is local information seeking is common among smartphone users. Developing a comprehensive cross-channel strategy makes great sense because mobile shoppers use their phones in-store, online and via mobile website and apps to research and make purchase decisions. Finally, TLP recommends implementing a TransMedia strategy with brand integrated mobile advertising that takes advantage of the knowledge that people are using their smartphones while consuming other media and are influenced by it.
- 81% browse the Internet, 77% search, 68% use an app, and 48% watch videos on their smartphone
- 72% use their smartphones while consuming other media, with a third while watching TV
- 93% of smartphone owners use their smartphones while at home
- Search engine websites are the most visited websites with 77% of smartphone users citing this, followed by social networking, retail and video sharing websites
- Nine out of ten smartphone searches results in an action (purchasing, visiting a business, etc.)
- 24% recommended a brand or product to others as a result of a smartphone search
- 95% of smartphone users have looked for local information
- 88% of these users take action within a day, indicating these are immediate information needs
- 77% have contacted a business, with 61% calling and 59% visiting the local business
- 79% of smartphone consumers use their phones to help with shopping, from comparing prices, finding more product info to locating a retailer
- 74% of smartphone shoppers make a purchase, whether online, in-store, or on their phones
- 70% use their smartphones while in the store, reflecting varied purchase paths that often begin online or on their phones and brings consumers to the store
- 71% search on their phones because of an ad exposure, whether from traditional media (68%) to online ads (18%) to mobile ads (27%)
- 82% notice mobile ads, especially mobile display ads and a third notice mobile search ads
- Half of those who see a mobile ad take action, with 35% visiting a website and 49% making a purchase
Connected TVs: New consumer research from Leichtman Research Group, Inc. (LRG) finds that 30% of all households have at least one television set connected to the Internet via a video game system, a Blu-ray player, and/or the TV set itself — up from 24% a year ago. Overall, 10% of all adults watch video from the Internet via one of these devices at least weekly, compared to 5% last year. This increased usage is heavily driven by Netflix subscribers, with 30% of Netflix subscribers watching video from the Internet via one of these connected devices weekly, compared to 3% weekly use among all non-Netflix subscribers. Connectivity continues its inexorable march into home entertainment. A wide range of home media equipment is now network- or Internet-enabled, with the number of connected devices shipped into consumer markets expected to increase steadily at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21% through 2016. ABI Research’s forecasts for connected devices for the period show that between 2010 and 2016, a cumulative total of more than three billion devices will have shipped worldwide.
MIPTV 2011 – Major Broadcast TV Cases Studies of TransMedia Strategies = $$$$$$
Discover the latest developments in recent TransMedia strategies and applications deployed by major producers and distributions of content. Learn how to make sense of multitude of development platforms and emerging distribution channels: TV program content delivered on rich media tablets and the latest smart phones via Apps Internet/TV apps and widgets, running on the new internet enabled tv sets.
Speakers with demos include: David Jullien, Director, Business Development, Digital Gaming, Endemol Worldwide Brands, Jeroen Elfferich, CEO, Ex Machina, Tom McDonnell, Commercial Director, Monterosa, Daniel Saunders, Head of Content Services, Samsung Electronics Europe, and Patrice Slupowski, VP, Digital Innovation and Communities, Orange . Social TV Apps, which enable consumption of TV programs on social media platforms, and build communities around TV programs through tablets or internet TV sets. This session explored both the creative and business opportunities and challenges around creating and marketing TV Apps. What is the potential of social TV? What is the future beyond TV Apps?
IT’S ALL ABOUT TRANSMEDIA …
Moderator
Richard Kastelein, CEO, Agora Media Innovation and Publisher, Appmarket.tv
Speakers
David Jullien, Director, Business Development, Digital Gaming, Endemol Worldwide Brands
Jeroen Elfferich, CEO, Ex Machina
Tom McDonnell, Commercial Director, Monterosa
Daniel Saunders, Head of Content Services, Samsung Electronics Europe
Patrice Slupowski, VP, Digital Innovation and Communities, Orange
TLP Following 2011 Video Trends for TransMedia Packaging
Online Viewing Stats:
comScore Video Metrix data shows that 174 million US internet users watched online video content in March 2011 for an average of 14.8 hours (888 minutes) per viewer. The total US internet audience engaged in more than 5.7 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month. Unique viewers were up 2.5% from 169.65 million in February 2011 and down about 3% from 180.2 million in March 2010. Viewing sessions were up 15% from about 5 billion the prior month, and average time per user was up about 9% from 816.4 minutes.
Mobile Video Popularity Jumps 41%
In Q4 2010, 301 million Americans used a mobile phone; of those mobile subscribers, 24.7 million watched video on a mobile phone. This marks a 41% increase from roughly 17.5 million mobile video viewers in Q4 2009.
Nielsen analysis indicates the growing popularity of mobile video is due, in part, to the rapid adoption of media-friendly mobile devices, including smartphones, which make up 30% of the marketplace.
Demographic Stats:
Almost eight in 10 (77.9%) US online video viewers are white, according to [pdf] data collected in November 2010 by The Nielsen Company. Hispanics represent the second-largest ethnic market for online video consumption, representing 12.1% of online video viewers.
Teens Consume Most Mobile Video
Younger consumers ages 12-17 are the heaviest mobile video viewers, watching an average of seven hours and 13 minutes of mobile video a month during Q4 2010. Mobile subscribers on average watched four hours and 20 minutes of mobile video a month in Q4 2010.
Middle class households with children younger than 18 earning $50,000 to $74,999 annually also use the internet at a disproportionately high rate. These households constitute 11% of the internet universe, a 37.5% larger figure than the 8% of the total US population they represent. Interestingly, lower class households with children younger than 18 earning less than $50,000 annually use the internet at a 33% higher rate than their share of US population (16% compared to 12%), meaning they are more likely to be online than middle class households.
Other Findings
- Almost three-fourths of Americans older than age 18 were married in 1960, but only 52% are today.
- Hispanics represent the fastest-growing segment of the multi-cultural nation, growing 40% in the past 10 years and numbering 50 million people.
- Households with children younger than age 18 will be predominantly multi-cultural by 2020 (Hispanic, African-American and Asian-American); 40% already are multi-cultural today due in large part to immigration.
- High income families view less TV but spend more time viewing with kids, using time-shifted media four times more often than low income households.
Like this:
New Marketing Option Can Combine iTV and Mobile – TLP Incorporates “IntoNow” in TransMedia Packaging Services
THE NATIONAL BRANDS ARE WEIGHING IN …
Large advertisers have indicated a strong desire for strategies to capitalize on both interactive TV and mobile platforms. An opportunity to combine the two is now available and it is being incorporated by savvy TransMedia companies.
Pepsi thinks so. So do a number of other NATIONAL BRANDS.
One driver (observable by all) is the consistent trend of young consumers – and older ones, too – who are unable to put down a handheld device while watching TV. It’s digital multi-tasking and it’s prevalent worldwide.
Consider this … Within this interactive TV arena (computer screens, mobile screens, Connected TVs), a “request for information” or RFI ad enters the marketplace as a TransMedia campaign option to producers and sponsors and advertisers. How does it work?
In the Broadcast world … It is simple. Watch an ad, use the remote control to click on an embedded banner, and have a coupon or product sample sent to the home.
In the Connected TV and Mobile Device World … Enter technology from IntoNow, which since January has focused mostly on facilitating social-media interaction, while watching a program. So, using Apple devices – iPhone, iTouch, iPad – a viewer can use an app. By pointing iPhone, iTouch, iPad at the TV screen, details about what’s being watched are zipped onto a Facebook page or Twitter feed.
It’s granular and highly interactive with a social media tie-in. So one can alert humankind that he or she is not just watching “Dexter,” but they are watching “Dexter” season two, episode six. This IntoNow system can identify episodes from five years’ worth of programming on 130 networks.
Clearly, the functionality leaves ample opportunities for broadcasters, TransMedia companies, sponsors and advertisers, which works virtually the same as the RFI options with iTV. There is a major difference, however, with no pricey snail mail required.
Pepsi is the initial advertiser to take advantage of the IntoNow system. Think of these ramifications. In its campaign, a person can point at a Major League Baseball-themed spot and have a digital coupon — in the form of a bar code — beamed to their Apple device. The viewer can then show the code at a store, where a scan brings a free bottle of Pepsi Max. Pepsi is offering the opportunity to 50,000 people, with redemption opportunities at Target and CVS at first. It is partly being promoted with cards handed out at baseball games.
The IntoNow opportunity offers advertisers valuable performance metrics. If only 25,000 go for the free Pepsi, there’s critical insight to be gleaned, stretching from how well a gambit was promoted to whether consumers prefer to watch TV via DVRs. Or will even seek out a commercial on YouTube.
Besides a bar-code coupon, the system opens up the chance for a marketer to send users more information about a product, or a link to a video about a spiffy car – both aspects of the RFI, iTV movement. Eureka! … than a company that allows songs to be identified with a mobile device, offers a similar advertising opportunity that could function as an iTV-replacement option and run a campaign with Old Navy.
IntoNow can recognize a show even if it’s airing live for the first time. We also have an index that covers more than 140 million minutes of previously aired shows. That’s the equivalent of 266 years of video! Our catalog represents more than 2.6 million airings, indexed during the past five years, and it’s growing by the second.
It’s Robust and Scalable (From the IntoNow Website)
SoundPrint is what’s known as a “fingerprinting” technology. We’ve developed a series of algorithms that can quickly identify a show based on the audio from that program. And because we can do it so quickly—even for shows that are airing for the first time ever—the end result is something like magic.
TLP is integrating the IntoNow mobile platform into its TransMedia Packaging services menu.
The Right Message … At the Right Time … To the Right Audience.
TransMedia + Social Media + An Entertainment Property = Audience Engagement
In the new film Source Code, there’s an interactive digital StoryWorld developed in the film’s marketing campaign. It’s a successful technique which TV serials, webisodes, mobisodes and bonus content promotions could easily integrate.
It”s a first for Summit Entertainment. That’s the studio producing the thriller, Source Code (Jake Gyllenhaal) which has a social media game called Source Code Mission that can be activated by Microsoft Tag technology within the movie poster. That bit of code, which any smartphone can read, will lead to a game that takes 10 to 20 minutes and is based on the movie’s plot. It features Gyllenhaal returning to the scene of a bombing of a Chicago commuter train and trying to change the outcome.
The use of social media games to spur interest in entertainment properties is growing rapidly. In January, Starz launched the series Spartacus: Gods of the Arena with a Facebook game and an iPad app. In that same month, the CW also publicized the new season of Gossip Girl with a Facebook game. More recently, Paramount Pictures promoted the animated Johnny Depp movie Rango with a tie-in with Zynga’s FrontierVille game.
TransMedia companies worldwide are jumping into this highly creative and profitable arena integrating TV series, webisodes, mobisodes with social media and digital interactivity. It is a Wild West environment when brands request it. And they are …
Brand integrations into these TransMedia projects with 360 degree multiplatform distribution and syndication are the new media and the medium.
About the Legacy – Monetizing Every View
Overview of TLP TransMedia Brand Integration, Video Syndication, & Consulting Services (For Short PDF, Click Box Above. For Detailed PDF Click Box Below)
OUR LOGLINE: A Great Story means something worth telling that the world wants to hear. Finding this, creating this, defining this … is a lonely task at times. It begins with talent. TLP recognizes we are born with the creative power to put things together in a way no one has ever dreamed. It’s what we do. Then we bring to the work a vision that’s driven by fresh insights into human nature and society. We couple it with an in-depth knowledge of characters, locations, plots and sub-plots within a new StoryWorld … which asks the audience to immerse themselves into the story … live the story, dream, the story … and… We integrate digital technologies and interactivity within that StoryWorld and create results which all Brands desire.
The Legacy Productions is in a Collaborative Team relationship with CampaignTouch, TVNOW.me, VFXDirect, Let’s Go Hollywood, Inc., M2 Productions, Alphabird, Kontera and others. TLP with its Strategic Affiliates offers:
Projects In TransMedia Development or Packaging:
* PoliticalQRCodes(tm)
* ConnectedTV Politics(tm)
* Walker (TransMedia Cross-Platform)
* JobzTV.com (reality TV, digital signage)
* TheLoveKitchenTV (reality TV, digital signage)
* MissionCoffeeCan.com (reality TV, digital signage)
* Health Industry Media (Narrowcast TV, digital signage)
-Packaging of 4 Screen TransMedia deployment of TV Content with cross-promotions, IAB standard video ad units (pre-roll, post-roll, SMS text, interactive, metrics, geo-targeting) – “monetizing every view”
-Offering PaaS with TVU Networks and Media Signage systems to provide clients with latest in cross-platform delivery of content in TransMedia integrations;
-Packaging of TransMedia entertainment products (reality TV series, series, films, interstitials, brand integrated webisodes, mobisodes) with Sponsors, structure, strategic affiliation partners, brand integration and product placement strategies, on-line and narrow cast distribution, on-line distribution and monetization strategies, guaranteed syndication and audiences;
-HD Video production from creative through post for broadcast commercials, web-videos, trade show videos, profiles, real property profiles and presentations
-3D Animation and visualizations for Architectural Renderings, Architectural and Real Estate Fly-throughs, Product and Video Gaming;
-Motion tracking and green screen and white cyc – 3 wall studio facilities 60 minutes from Boston;
-Inbound Marketing and Viral Marketing Services;
-Integrated Social Media Campaign Creations;
-Creation – Film and TV Productions;
-Creator, Director, Preditor, Writer Reality TV;
-High-Concept Ad Creation.
We deliver on-line and off-line cutting edge, media-rich video content to the corporate, creative and broadcast markets worldwide. Our services cover all aspects of high definition video, content, TV, broadcast, animation, motion graphics, streaming and delivery.
The Legacy Productions’ mantra is: Believe in your dreams … reach for the stars … go beyond the ordinary …
