Clickable Print + Internet Video is 1 + 1 = 3

MediaPost Publications
Four Ways To Plan Around The 2009 Internet Video Backlash 07/22/2009:
by Ben Weinberger,
"By all measures, 2008 capped a banner period of growth for Internet video. In the span of a few short years, consumers have done what all the experts said was impossible: radically alter their video-watching behaviors, frequently trading in the 'couch potato' experience of watching TV on the sofa to view snippets on the mobile phone or catch a missed show on the computer after the initial broadcast.

As the economy rebounds, there are four ways everyone in the industry can help contribute to the ongoing economic growth of online video advertising:

My thoughts regarding Ben's suggestions follow:

1. Encourage new advertising models and expanded inventory for alternative platforms now, while consumers continue to modify their TV-watching behavior.

An under appreciated value of video commercials is that they are often the content that people want. An agency or a marketing officer could by step the cost of media placement completely. Once videos are posted at YouTube basic metrics are collected free of charge. I assume it would be possible to make a deal with Google to get drill downs to create a data stream that could be quite useful. The business model is to make money by eliminating the cost of media buys or to use the stick of a youtube only strategy to negotiate lower prices.

2. Take advance of the digital format by repurposing content across multiple platforms, enabling advertisers to follow suit in complementary ways.

Videos can be divided to take advantage of different lengths appropriate to different media. It might work out that a 15 second spot is correct for the smart phone, a 30 sec to 2 minute spot is best for YouTube, a 2 minute spot is correct for viewing on a living room internet connected flat screen. The creative and production costs could be amortized over the various products to go to different audiences.

3. Know your data -- and your target audience -- inside and out.

This is the must have. The new deliverable is actionable information to inform marketing decisions going forward. The issue is to know what works and what doesn't in real time so that adjustments can be made and new interventions made. The days of focus groups and blind studies are being replaced with try what you think will work, revise and do it again.

The issue going forward is to have teams of creatives that can respond fast enough to execute.

4. Encourage patience among peers, clients and business partner

Sorry, I think this one is a non starter out of the gate.

The new role for Print and Printernet Publishing.
The last ten years of advances in digital printing have resulted in a new ability based on massive parallel manufacturing. The most recent example is the work that National Geographic contracted to HP. National Geographic announced yesterday that they are doing a Special Edition where users can add their picture on the cover of a printed issue of the magazine.

While the results are not yet in, the point is that the actual production is being done on a "fleet of Indigo 7000's that are managed at the Consolidated Graphics multi locations. My understanding is that they have 70 locations around the States and some throughout the world.

Printernet publishing is meant to capture this new reality on the ground.

Clickable Print
Clickable print points to the new reality of printing information rich 2d codes on paper for mass distribution. The codes can be in many forms. What's new is there is at least one format that can be produced at scale. So far the only one that has gotten on my radar is CodeZ QR produced by CODI. The point is that the data stream that can be harvested is very rich. Connected to the appropriate analytic engines, new insights are possible about consumer's behavior.

In the form of a TinyUrl they are the human readable URL which should make it simple to type in the browser. A tiny Url while 25 characters in length have only six characters that change. Six characters can be easily remembered to type into a browser.

In the form of an information rich QR code, the user can "click" on the paper and with no further actions be taken to a video on their smart phone.