CharlieMoger.com

Wider Web Watching

My 13 year-old son burst from boy’s sizes to men’s in one summer. In the blink of an eye he sprout like prize-winning produce at the county fair. Online video consumption experienced that kind of growth spurt in the last year. The kind of video being consumed is provides a clue on how you can tap the power in this trend.

Eighty-four percent of consumers surveyed recently by Advertising.com said their viewing of online video in the last year either increased or stayed the same. The survey reported the most viewed category was news clips (49%) followed by music videos (47%) and movie trailers (33%). TV programming and user-generated video accounted for 26% and 21% respectively.

Before you can influence consumers, you have to get their attention. Attracting that attention boils down to saying something interesting to THEM. News clips were the top viewed category because we feel connected to news. Meanwhile, network television programs ported to the web only edged out user-generated video by 5%.

Get the point?

Your customers want it real and it better really relate to them. Lucky for you, getting video online is easier than ever. With a meager investment, you can establish relationship with customers face-to-face.
Yes, production values are a factor–but not the most important factor.

Good now beats perfect later.

Foundational Truths

"But most important of all, the truth, that dangerous stuff,
became beautiful and more precious." —John Steinbeck

If you and I are going to build a relationship, you should know where I’m coming from. We all have guiding principals, foundational truths. These are mine:

Before you can influence, you have to attract. To attract you have to offer something of genuine value to the recipient. Continued attraction is a measure of value-transfer. Value-transfer happens when your message gives the recipient something relevant, prompting them to ask:

Can I use this?
Does this seem genuine? Real?
Can I do it? Have it? Be it?

Yesses make deposits in the first bank of TRUST. Trust diminishes resistance. Influencing behavior has less to do with persuasion than overcoming an innate resistance to taking action. Action leads to conversion.

These truths are the foundation of MogerMedia’s creative messaging philosophy. I don’t need to work hard looking for examples of these principals at work; they pop up unprompted often enough. I focus instead on understanding application of these principles and bridging the gap between you and the consumer.

The gray lady goes live

“I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either,” says New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, the paper’s owner, chairman and publisher.

Talk about a shock to the system. I remember seeing The Gray lady in person for the first time. The granite face of The New York Times stared down at me like a well-travelled sailor’s face, hardened by waves and storms, I was 13 at the time, visiting Manhattan with my dad. To any aspiring journalist, this was Mecca, the burning bush, the promised land all rolled into one. I was thrilled.

WSJ: As 30’s Fade, what’s next?

Advertising’s workhorse, the 30-second commercial, is fading as a means of hawking products and services. Ad executives will be busy in 2006 trying to figure out what to put in its place.

Good luck to them: Audiences are splintering off in dozens of directions, watching TV shows on iPods, watching movies on videogame players and listening to radio on the Internet. All these activities cut out the usual forms of sponsorship and take place when and where consumers — not media executives — choose.

Wider Web Watching

Foundational Truths

The gray lady goes live

WSJ: As 30’s Fade, what’s next?

Your intrepid correspondent

Grooveyard of posts past