More IRTS/Disney Notes

I've heard this before but Mark Jocson, Director, Online Content, Disney ABC Television Group said it again. Young people do NOT use e-mail. They text instead. A study that Disney did showed that young people said that e-mail was for old people, 30 and above. Yes, that hurt but it's basically true. Jennifer Sizemore of MSNBC/NBC made a similar point in her talk for Belmont's New Century Journalism Program.

Here's a continuation on an earlier point. The panelists were asked What's next in terms of marketing? What would you do with an unlimited budget? I shared Amanda Grant's response already. Here are several others.

Gloria Lee-Send the tailored, customized message to the appropriate person. She wouldn't want to bother the wrong person with the wrong message.

Jay Victor would love unlimited information on all of their viewers. He would customize the content and marketing messages. He would invest in understanding as much about households. (For the record selling marketing data is a notable revenue stream for many companies.) He would encourage people to tell as much as they were willing to share with respect for their privacy. He advocates non-intrusive ways.

Patrick Ellis, Director, Marketing ABC.com
He would pay for more precise measurement. Right now, there are different ways of measuring different things but there isn't any connection or synergy between the different audiences. For example, if you watch a show on the web, are you are member of the audience that watched on TV also? Nielsen is experimenting with different measurement collection methods, however, they may take until 2011 to have results. In this virtual age, that is unacceptable and unrealistic. The data will probably be outdated by then.

David Beebe talked about his role as an Internet video provider. The content has to be shorter for the web. A 30 second clip can hook someone and they may watch a one minute and thirty second piece. However, the longer the video is the more difficult it is to sustain an audience. My two cents is that the traditional length of a television news reporter's package is one minute and thirty seconds so now the audience has been trained to only tolerate video clips of that length.

Needless to say, my mind is in overdrive right now. We are eating lunch and then we'll see a video and work on a case study. I just hope my brain doesn't explode. Now I know how my students feel.