Category: Research

E3 Recap: 5 Key Takeaways From This Year’s Show

Posted on by Lab Team

The most significant development in gaming over the last few years has been the rise of the casual gamer. As eMarketer indicates, it is a category largely defined by the some 147 million US mobile gamers who look to Candy Crush and Fruit Ninja to pass the time. E3 is not about them.

Reserved for the core gamer, E3, or the Electronic Entertainment Expo is an event where gaming providers both large and small come to Los Angeles to showcase new technologies and products for computers, video game consoles, handheld systems, mobile and social. While the conference is chock full of announcements of new titles from gaming developers, this post will focus on the platforms and behaviors which are changing the way we experience media and gaming. Here are five developments that marketers and media companies should be aware of.

Xbox Snap Encourages Multitasking 

Much has been made of second screen experiences which have largely been marketing’s failed attempt to engage the some 60% of people who look at a secondary device during ad breaks according to our Second Screen POV. What we’re seeing currently is a trend towards multitasking on the first screen.  YouTube’s mobile UI and more recently Xbox’s continued support of Snap mode are great examples.

Xbox’s Snap function lets users run multiple applications simultaneously, like snapping the Parties app to chat with friends while you’re still playing a game. Voice controls are at the center of this functionality as users can request another application with their voice while still using the controller for gameplay. At this year’s E3, Microsoft announced Snap mode for Achievements which tracks in-game accomplishments while you play. Think of it like a real-time scoreboard with the ability to track and share progress without leaving the game. More interesting is the help function which will scan the web for articles and videos that will offer tips to reach your goals. This is the beginning of media and gaming intersecting as we marry traditional web content and gameplay within a single view.

Amiibo Breathes Life Into NFC?

NFC has tremendous potential to seamlessly connect physical and digital worlds with a simple tap. But with hardware compatibility issues and a lack of consumer adoption, will it go the way of the QR Code? Nintendo thinks not as it is rolling out NFC functionality that connects plastic figures with gameplay to change the way you interact with Nintendo characters and games. Dubbed Amiibo, the platform will debut on select games on the Wii U as players can tap the figures to the Wii U gamepad to bring them to life in the game. In the Super Smash Bros example, you can tap any figure to watch it battle within the game, alongside you or with you simply watching from the sidelines. The characters are all unique and customizable and their gaming history is collected and stored.

Playstation TV Creates A Mobile Living Room

Just when you thought you had a handle on all the over-the-top platforms, Playstation announces the North America release of Playstation TV. The $99 device will stream PS Vita and select PS 3 games to your TV in addition to supporting media services like Hulu and Netflix. More importantly, it enables remote play for current PS4 owners who can stream games to additional TVs without the need to move their main console. This is a serious improvement in mobility and with YouTube coming to the Playstation platform this fall, expect continued growth for Sony’s video game consoles.

Eye Tracking For Gaming Is Just The Start

SteelSeries is showing off its new Sentry Eye Tracker, a device designed to track where a gamer looks while playing. This primary function can offer insights when training for gaming tournaments, but it is promising in a much wider range of fields.  Tobii, a Swedish company that supplies the tracking technology for the Sentry, sees its technology being used to assist people with disabilities, conduct academic research, and track attention for market research.  It is likely we will soon see PCs coming to market with this sort of technology baked in, so it stands to reason that we will be seeing more and more applications of eye tracking in the next few years.

Twitch And The Rise Of Spectator Gaming

Did you know that video network Twitch has 45 million monthly active users who tune in to watch live streams of people gaming? In fact, there are currently 85,000 tuning into League of Legends right now. Most of these streams are as much about the gameplay as they are about the gamer who simultaneously broadcasts a view of themselves via their webcam. This phenomenon is so prevalent that Google is rumored to be in talks to acquire them for $1 billion.

What Twitch teaches us is the importance of live experiences. In today’s on demand world there is still a desire, likely more than ever to be “in the moment.” There needs to be that sense that if you blink, you’ll miss out which is exactly what Twitch provides to the gaming audience. And Twitch isn’t the exception. In fact, major events are also experiencing growth like the Oscars which has achieved the highest household ratings in nine years. Expect gaming to continue this trend and support more social functionality.

 

IPG Lab Internet of Things Week

Posted on by Lab Team

This past week, we covered the Internet of Things, a term used to “describe a growing phenomenon in which every physical object can have some form of connection to the Internet.” And it’s coming to an object near you. According to Gigaom’s Jon Collins, a family of four will move from having 10 connected devices in 2012 to 25 in 2022 to keep us always on without even realizing it.  Below, you’ll find a list of our posts detailing this growing trend and the data implications for marketers.

POV: How The Internet Of Things Is Creating New Ecosystems

R/GA, Techstars and the Rise of Connected Devices

Why Today’s Smart Fridge Is Pretty Dumb

SmartThings And The Connected Home

The Trigger: Fitness Wearables

 

 

 

140 Proof and IPG Lab Present A Network For Every Interest

Posted on by Lab Team

How People Actively Manage their Social Profiles Across Multiple Platforms

To better understand why people choose to maintain profiles on multiple networks and the implications of this behavior for marketers, we executed a combination of quantitative and qualitative research. With our research partners, we fielded surveys, collected personal diaries, and conducted one-on-one interviews. Where possible, findings were cross-checked against relevant data from Pew Research Center and comScore.

Download the 140 Proof & IPG White Paper

The Trigger+ Why Messaging Apps Are the New Face of Social

Posted on by Lab Team

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The new crop of mobile chat apps rose to popularity as low- or no-cost alternatives to texting, but over time many evolved into full-blown media portals, recognizing that media and content are fundamental to how we now share and communicate in conversation.

As streaming speed and bandwidth improved on the mobile web, chat apps kept pace. The messaging ecosystem now boasts over twenty apps with different social and sharing features that act as, essentially, “SMS+”, with group chats, video conferencing, voice calling, stickers, content sharing, and more.

Now, following Facebook’s acquisition of Whatsapp, it has become clear that these applications are more than a fad, and have immense promise as a new medium for brands to reach their audiences.

Check out our white paper to learn more.

MAGNA GLOBAL Flash POV: Aereo Case Goes to the Supreme Court

Posted on by Lab Team

The Aereo case squarely positions the rights of content owners against clever technologists, who believe that the way they transmit content may redefine the limits of owners’ rights in the content.  After different courts looking at Aereo and a similar model reached different conclusions on the legality of Aereo’s position, the Supreme Court has agreed to review one of the decisions ruling in favor of Aereo. 

Having the Supreme Court rule on who is right in this battle should create more clarity in the market for content distribution.  That will help drive long-term investment decisions for technology innovators, and for media providers including television and cable networks.  If the Supreme Court rules against Aereo, and effectively shuts it down, we can expect largely the status quo to remain, with companies coming up with new methods of content distribution required to pay retransmission fees to content owners.  It may also force owners of cloud-based technologies to obtain licenses to send copyrighted material via the Internet.  A decision in favor of Aereo, however, will create major market disruption.  Among other things:

+       Many companies can be expected to copy Aereo’s model to avoid retransmission fees, including major cable networks.

+       Television networks cannot be expected to continue investing in content at current levels if retransmission fees are eliminated.  Absent a technological solution to block retransmission, this may threaten the entire public broadcast system concept.

+       Third parties currently generating billions of dollars in revenues from TV networks—like sports leagues—may shift to paid cable or other private network broadcast.  This is already happening to some degree as more major sporting events have shifted to cable networks like ESPN, where rights fees can be recouped by increasing subscriber charges.

While these are some possible impacts of any Supreme Court decision in Aereo, the impact of the ruling will depend on how narrow or broad a decision is issued by the Court.  For example, if the focus of a Supreme Court ruling is Aereo’s antennae system, that is not particularly new or innovative technology.  The Court could say, for example, that this particular system constitutes a public performance and violates copyright, but leave the door open for new broadcast models or technologies to skirt the current copyright rules.  Alternatively, Aereo’s use of cloud technology and the fact that individual consumers are the ones pulling content from the Aereo system could be the focus.  If the Court were to find that cloud-based systems are a way for companies to make content available without such companies being classified as engaging in a public performance of content, that kind of ruling could have more far-reaching implications.  And, of course, Congress could seek to enact legislation in response to any Supreme Court decision, that might further shift the landscape in the media and technology industries.

Bottom Line: From an agency/advertiser point of view, spending will ultimately move to whatever channels can deliver a client’s desired audience.  If content and audience shift from publicly-available television to premium cable channels, for example, we can expect media dollars to follow.  For now, there are a lot of unknowns, and any major industry shifts would take time and buy-in from a lot of different parties before it could be realized.

MAGNA GLOBAL Flash POV: TiVo Study Ignores Realities of TV Buying

Posted on by Lab Team

A study released by TiVo/TRA yesterday and picked up by MediaPost and Adweek attempts to quantify the money lost by the major networks because we use only three days of playback in the ratings currency instead of seven.  They did so by examining the ten primetime series with the most “season pass” requests among their subscribers, and calculating the increase in viewing between days four and seven.  Then, they applied average unit costs from SQAD and multiplied it out to calculate the amount of lost income over the course of a season (in this case, the 2012-13 season).

While it certainly makes for some eye-catching headlines, there are a number of issues with their approach:

1.       The TiVo sample is not representative of the U.S.

2.      TiVo owners are more aggressive time-shifters than the average DVR user.

3.      Activating a season pass implies that the show will be viewed exclusively in playback—ignoring a sizeable portion of the audience that actually views live.

4.      In most cases, a season pass means that only first-run episodes will be viewed, which does not reflect the reality of how TV buys are structured.

5.      TiVo ratings are not the currency.

The chart below illustrates the difference between the C3 (average commercial minute ratings with three days of playback) and C7 (seven days of playback) published by TiVo, and compares it to current season numbers from Nielsen for the same series.  Even excluding repeats, the Nielsen increases are significantly lower.

Bottom Line: The networks will very likely cite this study as justification for a move to C7 during the upfront, but it ignores both the actual trading currency and the work done at the negotiating table.  In the end, it’s little more than interesting headlines.

C4-C7 Percent Increases

Network Program TiVo % Increase    Nielsen % Increase, No Repeats Nielsen % Increase, All Airings
CBS BIG BANG THEORY, THE 8.1% 2.7% 2.0%
ABC MODERN FAMILY 10.9% 4.7% 3.5%
ABC GREY’S ANATOMY 8.0% 3.1% 3.1%
CBS NCIS 8.8% 2.6% 1.9%
CBS MENTALIST, THE 9.6% 3.2% 3.5%
ABC CASTLE 10.0% 4.2% 3.0%
CBS ELEMENTARY 8.8% 3.0% 3.3%
FOX AMERICAN IDOL 4.1% 1.6% 1.6%
CBS PERSON OF INTEREST 7.1% 4.9% 4.1%
CBS GOOD WIFE, THE 6.2% 1.6% 3.3%
AVERAGE 8.2% 3.2% 2.9%

Sources: TiVo published figures, 2012-13 season, Nielsen 9/23/13-4/06/14

Messaging Apps: The New Face of Social Media and What It Means For Brands

Posted on by Lab Team

Download The White Paper

Facebook’s $19 billion purchase of WhatsApp solidified 2014 as a breakthrough year for messaging apps, but what role can brands and media owners play in the conversation?  The answer lies in understanding a fragmented industry landscape dominated by a few key players with strikingly different philosophies, product offerings, and geographic and demographic strongholds. If you think apps are just a cheaper way to text, you’re missing their potential: they’re content portals enabling 1:1 interaction with friends and fans.

After extensive research and first-hand experience launching a One Direction campaign on Kik, we have produced a comprehensive white paper to help marketers navigate the evolving messaging space. In this report, we’ll explore how the battle for messaging app dominance is likely to unfold, and take a closer look at the ecosystem, case studies, and best practices to understand what brands and media owners need to know to succeed in this new frontier of social media.

 

MAGNA GLOBAL Flash POV: Stephen Colbert Will Take Over The Late Show in 2015

Posted on by Lab Team

One week ago, David Letterman announced he would be retiring as host of CBS’s Late Show.  Yesterday CBS put the speculation on his replacement to rest with the news that Stephen Colbert (current host of The Colbert Report on Comedy Central) will be the new host of the Late Show when Letterman departs in 2015.  While the exact departure date for Letterman has not been set, Comedy Central has already decided The Colbert Report will end its run at the end of 2014.  The burning question everyone has been asking since the news broke has been answered by CBS: Colbert will drop his “conservative” character when he moves to the Late Show.

This move reflects an overall shift in the late night daypart, which seems to be both a cyclical changing of the guard and an effort to keep younger viewers tuned in.  Just one month after taking over The Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon has lowered the show’s median age by six years (52 versus 58).Prior to Fallon taking over, Jimmy Kimmel had been the youngest of the 11:30pm Broadcast programs with a median age of 54.  The shift to a personality like Stephen Colbert should help keep CBS competitive with the younger set.

In the age of digital extensions and the importance of social media, CBS needs someone like Stephen Colbert who can be directly competitive with both Fallon and Kimmel.  In terms of full episodes, Colbert Report generates more total streams and time spent than Fallon and Kimmel combined.  However, the broadcast hosts have the advantage when it comes to short clips, with The Tonight Show’s YouTube channel generating about three million subscribers and Kimmel’s just over four million.  Comedy Central’s entire channel has just under three million in total.

There has no announcement yet on whether Craig Ferguson will continue as host of the Late Late Show following Colbert, or what will replace The Colbert Report on Comedy Central.  Former Daily Show correspondent John Oliver had been considered the heir apparent in C0medy Central late night, but he has since moved over to HBO.  As the press noted during the week of speculation leading up to CBS’s announcement, two late night staples—Conan O’Brien and Chelsea Handler—will become available in the near future, as their contracts expire in 2014 and 2015, respectively.  For now, we can expect more rumors to fly.

Impact on TV Viewing

We expect this transition to be very similar to the shift that just occurred at NBC.  While the first week will show growth due to increased interest, once the initial sampling stops the show will settle back to its normal levels.  We expect to see a slight shift in the median age, again similar to what occurred at NBC.