Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/5315
the right strategy is for that platform and then incorporate that in." OPPORTUNITIES: "The biggest opportunities in advertising for digital are three-fold: It's fundamentally challenging what advertising is all about. Because of digital, the challenge in advertising is how to make it more human, instantaneous and accountable.The reason for making it more human is so many people are online right now using FaceBook, Twitter and other platforms to connect to one another ; they are having human relationships. Adver tising can't be seen as disruptive. It has to be seen as human and integrated and organic, so we have to rethink how to execute a communications message from a brand to a consumer in that space — and it can't feel like traditional advertising felt in the past. It needs to be instantaneous because we are living in a realtime world now, where communication is always happening. Brand lead- ers have to think about how their brand communications can live in an instantaneous manner. Finally, accountability is vital because you have to quickly see what's happening, be able to react and own up to it, and have the proper metrics in place." THREATS: "The biggest threat is that too many companies and agencies continue using the same business strategies they have em- ployed for the past 50 years. In the past five years, everyone has be- come more comfor table online, but not enough people are really fundamentally rethinking and asking, 'Does my business strategy change?' The threat comes if you maintain the same strategy that hasn't taken into account where digital has pushed things, and you try to retrofit it. And if it's an evolution and not a revolution, then a lot of companies are going to get stuck because they are keeping the same paradigm in place." OUTLOOK 2010: "We'll see a trend around consumer value and what's the real wor th of it and what should we be responding to as adver tisers and marketers. "There is going to be a lot of conversation around performance- based pricing for a brand and the quality of conversion. We'll have to look at whether people are clicking through — not just viewing — and paying only when it works in their favor and not just for volume. That's going to be a tense conversation, but I think we are moving in that direction. "Finally, there's realtime data analytics. Companies are sitting on a mountain of data and not a lot of people know how to use it — and it's happening in realtime.We cannot wait two to three weeks to go out there with a message.We have to be more nimble and agile on our feet and react quickly." KEITH QUINN Senior VP/Creative Development & Production Paramount Pictures — Digital Entertainment Hollywood (www.paramountpictures.com) Paramount's Digital Entertainment division is creating programming for the Web. Two examples of this content are Circle of Eight (www.my- space.com/circleof8) and The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers. STRENGTHS: "Adver tising dollars are migrating to new media. That is a big strength. Also, new media platforms encourage creativ- ity because you can tell stories in different ways as opposed to tradi- tional ways of telling stories in our culture. It's a growth market." WEAKNESSES: "Emerging markets have to teach consumers what to do. Making a market is more difficult than entering a market, but if you do it right people will flock to it: look at the App Store." OPPORTUNITIES: "Some social networks are building com- merce systems into their platforms.They are creating an economy on the social network where people can transact with each other or with businesses.They are evolving in a way that successful platforms like Ebay and Amazon evolved in the late '90s — both of them spurred cottage industries, because they had a commerce engine embedded into the property. Social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Ning are all try- ing to crack the commerce model. If and when they succeed, it will be very powerful. "There is an oppor tunity for distributors. You can compare it to the mature marketplace in television. When I was a kid, there were four channels, but when I was a 'tween there was an explosion of cable chan- nels. I would compare Yahoo, AOL, MSN and MySpace to broadcast networks in television or to the big cable companies like Time Warner or Comcast .Typically, all these networks are good at making informational and news content, but they don't excel at making enter- tainment and story-driven content.That is where con- tent creators have a real opportunity — to supply the need for pre- mium content." THREATS: "Entrenched businesses are always a threat because they defend their marketshare.There is always new innovation within competitive sets, so I think the biggest threats are coming from within the new media space. For example,The iPhone's arrival was a threat that came within the new media and technology space." OUTLOOK 2010: "I am optimistic. We have found that the adver- tisers and both transactional and ad supported distribution platforms are interested in premium content — our challenge is to have the best content, and to matchmake between adver tisers and distribu- tors.What makes content premium is a well-known brand or packag- ing element, strong production values or high concept. "Every person I know that has a kid or person in their life under 20 talks about how they consume content differently and on multiple screens, so consumer behavior is evolving. I'd compare new media to soccer. Forty years ago nobody played soccer in the US, and 30 years ago kids star ted playing it all over. Now soccer is one of our top youth sports here — as big as baseball, basketball or football. So new media is like soccer in that as people get older in our culture they are just going to be used to it being a major part of life." 32 Post • December 2009 www.postmagazine.com OUTLOOK N e w M e d i a Paramount Digital Entertainment is currently producing The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, original programming for the Web. "Advertis- ing dollars are migrat- ing to new media. That is a big strength." — Keith Quinn, Paramount