Banner Ads - The Invisible Impression

To all my friends on the internets at events...I have a question...

How many digital banners have you ever clicked? The only ones I have clicked are by accident. I keep wracking my brain on ways to redefine the banner ad...what if it was a player that played content...what if it was an ad that I put my email into and got free content....

The unfortunate impotence of the banner ad these days when the consumer is bombarded by them grows and grows...just talk to the magazine industry, which has now evolved into a party promoting industry....

Magazines, like all media outlets survive on great content...yet somehow that content is expected to be funded through banner ads and subscriptions...

To all the digital marketers in the house...it's time to reinvent the banner ad. To all the print advertisers in the house my favorite new invention is the ability to snap a photo of a QRC code to enter a new realm of experience, or Augmented Reality - which had better be totally cool if you're going to compel me to download a new app to experience it.

As a New York Times, Netflix, Wired, Fast Company subscriber, I'll happily pay to consume their content because its incredible, but the ads are something I whiz by in a blur, unless I get something free or access to something I wouldn't necessarily get to experience from engaging with them - think Mortal Kombat's Easter Eggs...

I heard that the local editorial division of the Onion was shut down in Austin, but they kept the ad sales division open to sell more adverts that are untrackable in print after being purchased by the Chicago Tribune. Has the Tribune been living in a vacuum?

In the sales driven world of recession marketing, ROI is king, and being able to quantify the value of a marketing dollar is paramount...that's why the world of events are struggling along side the world of print and banner advertising to get the formerly high price point they used to fetch as potential advertisers get more and more scrutinous how their budgets are being spent.

Then on to the world of Event Marketing. If I could replace every banner with a well designed kiosk that allowed me to play a game, download free content, post a cool photo of your truly, or interact in some way, I may be up to engage...but banners hanging in the halls just make my eyes blur and my brain shut down.

As social media marketing budgets continue to take up more and more of a marketers budgets, the reasons are obvious.

Events riding on the 'influencer' element can only be tracked by an email RSVP with some sophisticiated back end that gives demographic information by piping in via Facebook, but no one can tell if that influencer actually showed...

Social media allows marketers and audiences alike to track the level of engagement that a marketing message has in real time - ie tweets, likes, votes, and shares are the contemporary currency of the day.

I get that banner ads let us know when a product is in the marketplace, so they do pass on a key piece of sales info...but banners to drive general awareness? Can you call that strategy?

Quantifiable results are the obvious way forward, so why do I keep seeing banner ads at the parties I go to, the sites I visit, and the billboards I drive by?

Oh, another robot is coming soon to a theater near me...guess I'll netflix queue after I read the editorial coverage and six of my peers tell me its awesome, unless rewatching Breaking Bad gets to me first.

Lala Goes Bye Bye May 31st

One of my favorite places to spend my time is going bye bye thanks to Apple's purchase of LALA. The word on the street is Apple snapped them up because of their engineering staff's amazing accomplishment: creating a shared music experience that leverages the cloud so deftly.

Now those engineers are finding ways to improve Itunes i hope, perhaps they will just gut LALA's features and put them in to Itunes...which could be cool, or could be another disappointment like the Iphone's relationship with the worst cell carrier AT&T.

I made you all a playlist, and will continue to put them out, in the hopes that LaLa's site traffic increases more as they get closer to shut down.

My Bye Bye Lala Playlist 1 - All Bill Baird, All The Time.

But I guess look on the bright side...never mind, I don't think there is a bright one. LALA R.I.P.

Check out a recent interview with the ideahed featured by the McCombs Business School at the University of Texas.

Thanks to Kris Maxwell & McCombs Business School at the University of Texas for their in depth exploration of the Film Business, its nuance, its challenges, and its future! Thrilled to participate! Some amazing interviews from Tim League of the Alamo Drafthouse, Gary Hoover, the entrepreneur behind Bookstop, and Hoovers.com, and VP of Distribution Channel Strategy for Disney, Jason Brenek.

Humble Pie

Sometimes you eat it...it tastes like robitussin.

Live Music Capital of the World?

After Echotone dropped this Video B side from the film, it has been off to the races as far as getting the conversation on the topic of what qualifies the title - Live Music Capital of the World. A colleague of mine from Seattle and I had a discussion about this after a panel at Sundance, and he asserted that it was the degree of support from the community because he asserted that a community has voting power, which can influence who is making policy decisions that protect the cultural asset of Live Music.

I share the belief that its a strong community that contributes to what qualifies the title in question, but beyond policy, there is the idea of an engaged support base that promotes locally produced work through social media and word of mouth channels, and a community that believes in buying local: local foods, music, entertainment, and other goods.

Local bars, restaurants, clubs and theaters are the heart of local entertainment and music cultures as they provide a proximate platform and space for the community to gather. When I think of cities with strong buy local cultures, there is usually a strong live music culture, cities like New Orleans, Brooklyn, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Austin immediately, leap to my mind, but I am sure there are many others (another place for your two cents to be shared).

Excited to hear your thoughts on this conversation as well, and definitely curious to see a few top 10 or top 5 live music scenes in the US lists. Be sure to post a comment on EchotoneFilm.com or on our You Tube.

- from San Francisco, the ideahed

Echotone's First B side release: An Experiment in Getting the Conversation Started

As we gear up for a sneak preview at our favorite indie rock festival, which I can not mention the name of in conjunction with the film’s title, we are figuring out ways to market the screening without the film’s primary asset, its title.

Echotone by design is geared to open up a dialogue, not make a punctuated statement of ideological perspective that skews the viewers understanding of the story to that of the filmmakers.  An exercise in restraint, the film is intended to be debated as long as its part of the cultural zeitgeist, and if we have achieved our goals with the project, beyond.

The asset we do have however is Nathan Christ, Echotone’s tireless director, who blogs, tweets, cuts, shoots, and leads an impassioned Q&A.  We are finding creative ways to position the screening around Nathan, and working with Nathan to reach indie rock’s super fans.

As access is the editorial world’s primary currency, we are going to be leaking a clip of the film to these super fans. This clip, and its accompanying content giveaway of some soul stirring live performances, is our Valentines Gift to the world.  With that gift a request will be made to these super fans, one that asks them to share their public opinion on an issue explored in Echotone through their chosen portal, blog, column, facebook, twitter, or all, that also happens to be the linguistic positioning of the film’s secret screening at a never to be named festival.  The goal is to have this conversation around Nathan’s film to cross beyond the super fans.

The New York Times is already covering the issue giving it a national stage, but engaging the Echotone audience and those interested in the subject material of the article below in this dialogue is part of the challenge we must overcome. You can read the NY Times article on the Cactus Cafe closing down here.

Keep your eyes and ears posted as the leak is about to break like a damn, and only the super fans who protect the culture of indie rock will be able to get their hands on it, and the whereabouts of this secret screening of Nathan Christ’s directorial debut.

We just released a few Echotone B sides from the project's vault - get them here!

"50 thousand fans in the world at the same time"

 

50K feat Bavu Blakes - Hydropo...

"50,000, keep your record deal CHUMP, 50,000 in the world at the same time."  - 50K - Bavu Blakes (ATX my dude.) 

Imagine being a filmmaker with 50,000 fans that always bought your film, tickets, dvd's, soundtrack vinyl, hosted your widget, etc.  It's all about the personal connection.  Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to be good at what you do, Bavu Blakes asserts it takes 50,000 fans to be sustainable. The same concept can apply to independent filmmakers. How many people does your message need to reach so that you could potentially convert 50,000 of them to actual fans and buyers of your films? How many fans do you need for your film to make a profit?

Lets look at the mathematics...

So Selling to 50,000 Fans... Only a portion of people who see your message will investigate further, largely based on the effectiveness of your marketing promotions and the marketing channels, and only a portion of those people will actually buy your product. Let‘s use the 5% impressions conversion percentage, and a 5% sales conversion percentage (both very conservative percentages). In marketing lingo the total number of people who will see your message, your ‘Total Impressions,’ is the Total Addressable Market (TAM). 

Your impressions conversion is defined by the number of people who see your marketing message that choose to interact with it, ie. clicking your banner ad and going to your destination site, reading a print ad and visiting your site, receiving an RSS update about your film and reading the coverage, then going to your site. These impression conversions are your Sample Addressable Market (SAM), or potential direct customers. The sales conversion governs all those that did interact with your message who decide to purchase your product.

In layman's terms, for every 1000 people that see your ad, blog, tweet, or Wall posting about your new film, 50 people will go to your site under a 5% impressions conversion percentage.  Scrutinize that further, and project, of that 5% of those that hear your message and visit your point of sales vehicle, 5% of those people will pay for your product thus moving 2.5 product units.    

So under the 5% impression and sale conversion assumption, to build relationships with 50,000 fans that purchase your product every time its released, you need to reach 20,000,000 people (roughly 1/13 of the US population), your TAM , and 1,000,000 of those people need to visit your point of sale ie destination site, amazon link, Itunes store, etc., your SAM.

Obviously the quality of your creative content, the authenticity of message to the target audience, and the understanding of the product's target audience influences both of those conversion percentages dramatically.  So as a marketing producer your goal is to nail the conversion of people reached to people converted.  

So let‘s look at the revenues now.  You built your list to 50,000 with your first film. Now your film is available in the theater, on DVD, and direct download via Itunes through an aggregator, or a ‘broker’ that gets your product up on iTunes, who both take 30%, (ie, of the 14.99 Itunes is charging, they take a 30% cut and your aggregator will take an approximate 30% cut of the remaining balance...ie you are seeing $7.34), and 5% of your audience will purchase your product.  Itunes streams your film for between 2.99 and 3.99, and sells the download for 14.99.  They are going to get their cut of 30% regardless, so hopefully your aggregator's terms are favorable.    

Assume those 50K buy the digital download version of the film, you are looking at approximately $367,000 in revenue at per unit return of $7.34.  I hope your film costs less than $367,000 to make and market, and if you can do it for that, then I am all about 50,000 fans in the world at the same time.  

Shout out to Marcy Garriott for turning me on to this song, and to all you producers and directors with 50,000 fans, hopefully you are providing enough value to them that your conversion percentage is better than 5%. 

Respect your peeps, respect your fans.  They make or break you.  

One Love.