Jenn-Air cooks up webisode series to promote new kitchens

By Ken Liebeskind

What’s cooking online these days? How about 11 new webisodes promoting Jenn-Air kitchens starring a celebrity chef and contestants in a cooking competition.

In the Kitchen webisodes debuted March 26, were created and produced by RedLever and star Tori Ritchie, the celebrity chef, who has hosted Ultimate Kitchens on the Food Network and cooking segments on the CBS Early Show. Ritchie introduces the contestants and oversees their preparation of gourmet meals that are served to their special guests. Viewers vote on their favorite contestant, who will win a Jenn-Air kitchen prize. One of the viewers will win another Jenn-Air prize.

The webisodes run five to seven minutes each and all 11 play on the site simultaneously.

Richard Shore, RedLever’s chief operating officer, says the webisodes were shot at a Los Angeles studio and follow a standard episodic format structure: “Act one introduces the candidates, the second act is a set piece in the Jenn-Air kitchen and the third is in a dining room where the contestants throw the occasion on an intimate table setting.”

RedLever pitched the idea for the webisode series to Digitas, Jenn-Air’s agency, which is using them as an online element of a campaign that includes magazine ads and live events.

The webisodes offer brand integration, with the meals prepared in a Jenn-Air kitchen with Jenn-Air product mentions from Ms. Ritchie. The scripts were written by RedLever with guidance from Digitas.

Digitas was drawn to the webisodes by a 25 million per episode audience delivery guarantee by the Adconion Media Network, RedLever’s parent company, which runs an ad network with more than 2,000 sites. The webisodes run at the home site and in banners at sites in the Adconion network. Digitas selected sites that behaviorally and demographically fit the Jenn-Air target, according to Justin Newby, vice president group director at Digitas. “We’re not just throwing it into the air and hoping it works, there’s a guaranteed performance in place,” he says. “We hope as many people as possible watch the whole series, so it plays out like TV programming.”

The 25 million isn’t a viewer number, but an impression number, he notes.

“We have a proprietary ad server and in-house technology that provides us with the targeting capability to identify the right audience. We use third-party data and Comscore overlays to look for the appropriate sites within our network,” adds Nick Higgins, Adconian’s director of global video.

The webisodes are the key element of an online campaign that also includes Flash and rich media units at HouseBeautiful.com, BonAppetit.com, Epicurious.com, PointClickHome.com, Kitchens.com, FoodandWine.com and Yahoo. Magazine ads have appeared in national and regional publications, including House Beautiful, Food & Wine and Texas Monthly. Live events including the Architectural Digest Home Design Show and the Pebble Beach Food & Wine event have also been used. “We’re looking for ways to create the brand experience and engage the target who loves to cook and entertain,” Newby says. “It’s a 360-degree program and the webisodes are the most important component.”

Adconion declined to discuss the specific sites or the number of sites that will guarantee the 25 million impressions. The number of webisode impressions that have been served during the first weeks of the campaign are unreported. “We do not disclose campaign results, but the results are positive,” Newby said.

The webisodes will continue to play through 2010 with a contest winner announced in July.

New York Times Pay Wall Will Go Up, But Where?

By Matt Robinson

PHOENIX — The New York Times is building a metered pay wall debuting in 2011, but still figuring out where to put it.

The pay wall will allow readers free access to stories initially, but after a certain number of page views or another metric, readers will have to pay. The Times decided that another stream of revenue was needed as they continue to develop their digital advertising model.

Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the paper, speaking at the annual Society of American Business Editors and Writers conference, says the strategy was designed for the nytimes.com site, given its national and international reach. But he didn’t recommend it for other newspapers, including The Boston Globe, a sister publication, because of its local focus.

Figuring out how to quantify reader’s usage is difficult. Readers don’t see 10 clicks on a photo slideshow as similar to 10 different page views, Sulzberger said, and neither should the paper. He’s also uncertain on how the more than 60 blogs on the site will be monitored as well, including CUNY’s Local and NYU’s upcoming East Village site.

Sulzberger explained that the success of the new project is “inextricably connected to the promise of quality journalism.” The Times research and development department, which was started to explore digital initiatives, is spearheading the transition.

That translation decided against a possible “iTunes model,” where consumers buy songs for around a dollar. That model would do the same per story, but unlike music, readers are unlikely to enjoy a story over and over again, Sulzberger says.

He avoided forecasts on how successful the pay wall will be, focusing on the current environment. “It’s what the Times needs to do today,” he says, adding, “It will take time to get this right.”

The paper expects to lose some traffic from people who refuse to pay, but are confident loyalists will continue to support the paper. News on the iPhone app will continue to be free.

The Times has started an ad campaign for its New York coverage as the paper will be competing with the Wall Street Journal’s New York edition, which debuts next month.

The Future of Wi-Fi

By Sheila Shayon

David Staas is a 13-year veteran of marketing and product management experience in the mobile and advertising industries. Prior to his tenure as senior vice president of marketing at JiWire, Staas was at Ad Infuse, a pioneer in mobile advertising, where he was vice president of marketing and helped build a premium network and platform business with leading mobile operators.

JiWire is the leading mobile audience media company serving 20 million unique users per month at more than 30,000 high-traffic, premium Wi-Fi hotspots.

Staas will be speaking at the Digital Media Measurement & Pricing Summit, held in New York April 7-8.

DMB’s Sheila Shayon spoke with Staas about JiWire, consumer mobility and understanding the effectiveness of reaching an on-the-go audience.

Any significance to the name, JiWire?
Yes - when the company began in 2003 and it was all about using Wi-Fi for connectivity, the name was created to mean “Joining Invisible Wires.”

How did you build one of the largest location-based interactive learning channels?
We were in the wireless Internet access business and built a directory of public Wi-Fi locations. We developed deep relationships with advertisers around the directory and this evolved into a new business model for early usage - instead of subscription driven with daily/weekly/monthly fees, we moved it to an ad-based model.

How big is that directory today?
291,493 free and pay Wi-Fi locations in 145 countries.

JiWire leverages the context of a user’s location. How?
WiFi is a media channel. It allows us to track location and context. Venue is as important as place. In other words, are you in a Starbucks in San Francisco, or an executive lounge at JFK? Then we can supply advertisers with user location, network provider, and even the venue brand: 123456 café, in Barnes and Noble, at such and such street corner, using a MAC. So the inventory plan and model back into the venue type.

Which venues are seeing the most user growth?
Obviously airports have exceptionally high traffic, and hotels, but as brands like McDonald’s integrate free Wi-Fi, and market themselves as café environments, adding free connectivity results in consumer affinity and the café footprint is growing quickly. US McDonald’s locations that have become free in 2010 are 11,400.

So does being able to reach audiences in the context of their daily lives drive deeper engagement than traditional media?
Absolutely. The mind-set of the consumer is critical to the advertiser. Our channel allows for dynamically delivered, location-specific campaigns. We know the DNA of our audience across our footprint - are they a college student, a tech enthusiast, or a business user. You need scale for the economics to work.

Can you give me an example?
We worked with Microsoft in customizing messages about their Student Edition and Home Edition. In Denver, the ad might read, “A PC without Office is like Denver without the Rockies,” or in New York, “A PC without Office is like NY without the Statue of Liberty.”

Who do you make your business deals with?
The wireless carriers — AT&T or Boingo — and they negotiate the deal with Starbucks or McDonald’s. Foremost on our mind is always — how do we connect with an on-the-go audience.

What verticals will see Wi-Fi next?
Transportation - trains and subways. Also in-flight and college campuses.

How does the U.S. mobile audience compare to the rest of the world?
U.S. leads in public Wi-Fi locations with about 70,000. China is next with 36,000. Then England with 29,000 and France is fourth with 26,000.

How about U.S. cities?
New York is number one with 887, then San Francisco with 869, and Chicago with 794.

As legacy media distribution channels become less relevant to marketers than audience segmentation, how is JiWire leveraging this?
The shift is more to digital and interactive - and as widely distributed as possible. Consumers on average spend 44 percent of their time today on the go - not in front of their PC. The industry needs channels that reflect that behavior. It used to be separate agency teams addressing the issue, digital, OOH, emerging media and mobile. Now those teams are working together and pulling budget from each towards the unified goal of audience as focus - not individual channels.

So in 2010 mobile ad buys will start to look more like online buys?
Yes. The history of online is that people bought channels. Today the buy is to identify the audience and not the device - this is the heart of the mobile ecosystem.

Let’s talk about cost per engagement as an increasingly important metric.
Digital campaigns are all about engagement - it’s the new paradigm. Social media is about spending time with a brand, being a part of the conversation. Banner ads are no longer sufficient. Our Ads for Access model is a value exchange for the consumer and the advertiser: come spend time with my brand and you get free access. It’s an opt-in value-add proposition.

When Bing first arrived on the scene, we did a promotion with Microsoft offering visitors to airports and hotels across the country access to free WiFi in exchange for performing one search.  The results were significant. The average online click through rate of .01% was transformed into a 29% rate when the user was engaged by the value-add offer.

Has the mobile consumer himself become a DOOH destination?
In a sense - yes. It’s all about “the channel finding me.” The key problem with DOOH is the lack of measurement and interactivity. How many people saw an ad - and were they the right audience and was it personally relevant?

Where do you see the mobile industry heading in the near future?
The overall evolution of the mobile ecosystem is amazing considering the time frame is roughly one decade. Mobile devices changed consumer behavior — ahead of the advertising industry. Consumer’s lifestyles are not slowing down. 900 million new, wirelessly-enabled devices will ship this year. The advertising industry has to keep up with the convergence of technology and legacy channels.

Measuring Digital Media Ad Spend

By Ron Callari

Now in its 3rd year, the Digital Media Measurement & Pricing Summit will be held in New York City, April 7-8, at the Doubletree Metropolitan Hotel. The conference focuses on how best to invest a consumer product’s advertising dollars for maximum ROI.

To understand the pricing attributes, develop accurate metrics and other quantifiable means to enhance a brand’s campaign performance, industry leaders in social media and consumer products will direct discussions and workshops.

At the conference, Tomas Emmers, Unilever’s North America media insights director, will lead a seminar entitled, “Digital Media Optimization + Metrics Case Studies,” where he will talk about the testing and optimization of digital media to deliver brand objectives.

Emmers recently spoke with DMB’s Ron Callari in advance of the event.

In your role as North America Media Insights Director, how much of your job focuses on social media?
My responsibility as the North America Media Insights Director includes focusing on traditional, digital, social, mobile and emerging media channels. The focus of Unilever’s Media Insights team is to understand how the changing media landscape, including emerging channels like social media, impact consumers behaviors with our brand messages.

How does Unilever measure social media’s ROI? What tools? What techniques?
Social media is an emerging space. The tools and techniques used to measure social media continue to evolve and extend beyond ROI. You need to leverage the power of social media as a tool to passively listen to conversations to gain insights, understand the share of voice on a subject, map conversations and more. Unilever has been actively leveraging an array of social media analytical and marketing tools and techniques across our brands.

Can you provide us with a snapshot of a recent successful campaign on Twitter or Facebook that provided Unilever with a significant return?
The Suave brand held a Twitter party that yielded incredibly robust conversations with consumers about the brand. The Suave portfolio of products will benefit from the insights garnered from the conversations. Hellmann’s leveraged Facebook as part of a multi-platform program and developed a successful application that drove engagement and facilitated sharing during a recent campaign.

Consumer reviews are significantly more trusted than those from manufacturers, according to a survey of ‘U.S. Mom Internet Users.’ What is Unilever doing to create influential word of mouth campaigns in the digital and social media space?
Brands across the portfolio have been increasingly engaging in the social media space in a variety of ways - so mush so that I can’t think of a single Unilever brand that isn’t involved in social media. Organizationally, Unilever has driven social media best practices into the business and has developed programs that leverage the power of social media. Unilever has been harnessing the speed and shear volume of social media conversations.

How do you see the ARF Measurement Workshop held last December differing from the upcoming Digital Media Measurement & Pricing Summit in April?
Each media measurement conference should continue to evolve the industries’ learning of digital media measurement. The digital and mobile media landscape is changing at such a rapid pace that every media measurement conference, like the Digital Media Measurement and Pricing Summit, is an opportunity to showcase the rapid evolution of new digital and emerging media measurement techniques. The research industry needs to keep pace with the consumer. Every conference is an opportunity to show that our media measurement techniques and knowledge are evolving at the pace of our consumers and the media landscape.

What are some of the topics you will want to emphasis at the Digital Media Measurement & Pricing Summit that pertains to ‘Digital Media Optimization + Metrics’?
As the Internet has evolved, it has become a very cluttered space. Consumers are ignoring digital ads, making it more and more difficult to capture their attention with brand communication. At the same time, the dynamic nature of the internet provides a perfect testing ground to optimize creative, real-time to generate the strongest consumer response to our brand ads. My presentation at the conference will explore the power of optimization tools to generate the strongest consumer engagement with digital brand communication.

Hulu Hops Onto Caption Search Technology

By Dave Fidlin

With the Internet maturing and online video become the norm - not a novelty item - enhancements are being created for streaming content. Caption searching, one of those enhancements, was added recently to the popular site Hulu. But a smattering of smaller companies had already been offering a similar service before Hulu added the feature to its site in late December.

Hulu Labs, the online video portal’s development arm, is running the feature in beta while engineers continue to work on perfecting the technology.

In a statement, Eugene Wei, Hulu’s vice president of product, says the feature will enable users to search for captions of thousands of videos across hundreds of shows. For now, Wei says users can access the feature through Hulu Labs’ website. Eventually, a feature tab will be included on all Hulu shows that have captions.

Wei points out how captions search might be beneficial to a viewer of an online video. Wei says he was watching an episode of “House” recently, and a joke between main character Dr. Foreman and Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin took place. Wei says he was in a quandary when he wanted to watch the episode a second time.

“I couldn’t remember which episode it was in, let alone which moment within the episode,” Wei says in the statement. “With the new caption search, I just type in ‘Mike Tomlin,’ and voila.”

Jason Blackwell, practice director with ABI Research, says features like Hulu’s caption search will be an asset to users with online content growing exponentially each year.

“It’s going to be important for all service providers,” Blackwell says. “I think (Hulu’s caption search) is an important step in what will become the future.”

Blackwell says ABI will soon begin to study features like caption search and examine specifically how it can be beneficial not only to online video, but other specialized services, such as pay TV and other cable and satellite services with a user interface.

While Hulu’s caption search is breaking new ground for the company, it is not a pioneer in the technology. Numerous smaller companies have offered similar services, some as long as five years.

One of those companies, Realtime Transcription Inc., offers a service called Transendia. Tanya Ward English, technology director for Realtime Transcription, says Transendia offers a video search based on the full text of a transcript, in addition to glossary tags for non-spoken information within a video.

Ward English says Transendia caters to a higher-end market. Many of the company’s clients do not want videos hosted on such public sites as YouTube. Instead, she says, those clients opt to use a customized player with full search and playing options from Transendia.

“One of the most useful and unique things about our technology, I think, is something upon which we have a patent pending,” Ward English says. “That’s the ability go pin-point search video or audio files directly from a text search engine like Google or Bing.”

Ward English, a self-described advocate for people with hearing loss, says caption search technology is especially beneficial for online users who have such a condition.

Blinkx, another smaller, specialized company, was launched in 2005 and went public two years later. Suranga Chandratillake, CEO and founder of Blinkx, says his company offers an advanced video search engine feature that gives online video users an opportunity to not only search for captions within a program, but to look for titles and episode names of particular programs.

“We can extract a lot of information from what’s going on inside a video,” Chandratillake says. “Our video search engine doesn’t just work on our own site. It can also get results from other sites like YouTube, or any other site with video out there.”

Chandratillake says Blinkx has been a popular service with advertisers, and revenue has doubled in the past three years.

More companies are sure to join Hulu, Realtime Transcription, Blinkx and others as the quest continues to make caption search technology an integral part of online video.

Desktop in Your Pocket: Citrix’s Nirvana Phone

By Sheila Shayon

Nirvana has arrived on your smart phone. Citrix Systems, Inc., a leading provider of virtualization, networking and software-as-a-service (SaaS) technologies, recently unveiled its nirvana phone. You can leave your laptop at home or at the office, and use your smartphone for full access to your main system - just plug in full-size peripherals and have access - not to pared-down mobilized apps, but the full nirvana.

A mobile worker simply docks his or her smart phone and enjoys the full functionality of a desktop PC. “The paradigm shift is adding video out functionality, and a large screen and keyboard. Previous attempts to make smaller PCs or handsets failed, as they were too big, too heavy and too expensive,” says Chris Fleck, VP of community and solutions development. Nirvana enables computing locally, with a small form factor and compatibility envelope.”

Citrix’s nirvana phone is a critical advance in the convergence of mobile devices and cloud computing. Its reference architecture comes from a partnership with OK Labs and several ecosystem partners including semiconductor suppliers, handset OEMs, enterprise IT suppliers and mobile network operators (MNOs).

OK Labs, the global leader in virtualization software for mobile devices, consumer electronics and embedded systems, is backed by the largest independent team of microkernel developers, and OKL4 is deployed on more than 500 million mobile phones worldwide.

The architecture leverages Mobile-to-Enterprise (M2E) virtualization, cloud computing and wireless connectivity (3G, WiFi, Bluetooth). It includes emerging functionality in mobile chipsets and handsets such as full video resolution and HD output.

According to Citrix, first adopters include:

• Power Users: people who work from several locations, using fewer devices
• Road Warriors: travel without your laptop and deliver presentations easily
• ER Heroes: quickly plug into a display anywhere in the hospital
• Selective Shoppers: BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)
• Roaming Consultants: select a cubicle, dock and work.

Although first adopters are primarily IT and mobile workers, the nirvana phone applies equally to consumers. “Instead of connecting through a company cloud, you can be at work and connect remotely to your PC at home. You can use it with your HDTV living room display; it works with digital picture frames. Most hotels have in-room flat panel displays, and guest business offices - all are compatible with the nirvana phone,” Fleck says. “Movies may be one of the first built-in capabilities for the consumer.”

According to Citrix research, 70 percent of people would prefer to leave their laptops at home when traveling. Nirvana phones, dubbed a “virtual desktop in your pocket,” use mobile virtualization to deliver the “full productivity experience” from any location with wireless coverage.

Citrix is in talks with all the major carriers, Fleck says. “We don’t take sides. We are device agnostic and connection enablers.” Asked about the name, Fleck says, “We looked at the current limitations of smartphones, and looked at what the ideal phone could be - taking it beyond what is, to nirvana - right in your pocket or your purse.”

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