ITV Digital Conference - Gerd Leonhard

Posted Wednesday, March 21, 2007 at 10:37am in Blogging, Business, Media, PR General  | 

Here at the ITV Digital Conference at the Hellenic Centre. There are over 200 marketing and communications ITV professionals in attendance. The conference was opened by director of marketing at ITV, David Pemsel, where he states that the new media landscape is changing and it’s up to ITV to embrace it.

Media and music futurist, Gert Leonhard begins the series of presentations with his opinions on the digital landscape and what it means for TV. “You have to get attention… but not in a top down sort of way. Attention is now the main measurement. Digital media is turning into a meritocracy. Anything that’s locked up and doesn’t have any merit doesn’t succeed. However, TV still gets attention but radio is looking a lot worse.”

“But where is the growth?”

“The Digital Natives are TV’s new audience; 11 - 17 year olds but this age gap is becoming wider. They’re surrounded by so much media their brain is different. They’re used to receiving information very fast; random access like hyperlinking, texting, YouTube etc. Media multitasking is the default for digital natives.”

Total web and TV convergence
“Television and the web are completely converging. Search (e.g. Google) is becoming the medium. Google is hoping to be the default advertiser for TV and radio. TV 2.0 = place shifting/time shifting/feeds/remixing/interactivity.”

“It’s not so much about the technology but the fundamental difference is the aggregation.”

Video On Demand
“It’s about niche markets. If you’re into fixing motorbikes you can find a clip on YouTube. Some people say personal media is taking over mass media. I don’t believe this to be true but I think it’s catching up.”

“Look at MTV. It’s flatlined in recent months. Why? Because it’s a top down model that tells us what is cool. TV is a dominant force and now web is a dominant force. They’re both the same; there is no substitution.”

“Blogging is now becoming video blogging. Everyone wants to put video on their blog and profiles. It’s gone from the ‘Network’ to the ‘Networked’. ITV is a super node in the network economy. But one of the major issues is control. You will not be in control.”

“Users become ‘Usators’ (users and creators) mingling with the professionals. This is not taking away the professional role as usators do actually realise how hard it is to do. You should engage with usators; give them stuff to mash up, remix and change.”

The Future of TV
“If you Google ‘The future of TV’ you get [shows YouTube logo]. In the mind of people on the web, YouTube is the future of TV. If you type in ‘Coronation Street’ in Google in they future you will get this… [shows mock up search results with links to download episodes].

“Google is becoming the operating system of advertising based on search. Google wants to make $150bn in advertising. Advertising is moving from interruption to engagement and from interruption to engagement. We used to think of TV as channels; now the consumers are the new channels. These channels can be shared, tagged, bookmarked.”

“Do we have to junk the very definition of TV?”

“Television in Greek means ‘Far Seeing’. I think we have to add ‘Narrow Seeing’ - one to one and one to many.”

“But it’s more than ever about story telling. That’s the essence of good TV and that will never change. It’s not defined by a particular device; not defined by a degree of professionalism. It’s defined by ’soft facts’ such as relationships and trust. P2P will play a major role in’TV2.0′.”

Giving rise to P2P marketing
* Seeding a network of users
* Peering
* Syndication: Making content available
* Viral: Word of mouth
* The ‘talk’ is the new language: IM, chat, Skype, video, sms, social networks

“Get out in front of the changing marketplace NOW.”

Gerd Leonhard: “Thank you very much”

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