Posted by: Rick Ducey
Chief Strategy Officer, BIA Financial Network

BIA ran a webinar last week on “An Insider’s View of NAB 2008” with the goals of (a) providing an overview and hopefully some coherence to this multi-faceted and fast evolving show; and (b) sharing insider’s perspectives on what to look for or take away from the show. Our guests for the webinar were Chris Brown, NAB’s EVP of Conventions and Business Operations; Peggy Miles, who is president of the consulting firm, Intervox, and also author of popular Internet and digital media books; and Gary Arlen, President of Arlen Communications and contributor to several trade press titles.

In the webinar, I challenged each of us to offer up our “top five” ideas for sharing our own insider’s perspective of how to get the most out of NAB 2008. Here’s my list of the Top Five Things to Get Out of NAB. The full webinar is available on demand at: http://www.bia.com/webinars

1. “New Devices, New Opportunities”

Super Session on Tuesday, April 15^th from 10:30 am – 12:00 pm (S222/223) Technical and strategic insight in redefining mobility, converging trends, enabling new user experiences and business models.

Rick Ducey, BIAfn, moderator
Brandon Burgess, ION Media Networks and Open Mobile Video Coalition
Gary Gannaway, WorldNow
Jason Hirschhorn, Sling Media
Tara Maitra, TiVO
David Wertheimer, Entertainment Tech at USC

2. Redefining Workflow

NAB is positioning its show as the place “where content comes to life.” The exhibit floor will be packed with workflow solutions that are both open systems and proprietary but all designed to enhance workflow economics, productivity, interoperability, creativity and efficiency.

3. Redefining “Audience”

Continuing the theme of dealing with a changing world and how to recognize leading indicators and what to do about it, let’s think about what “audience” means these days. Here, I’m going to define “audience” as the entity which is the end game destination of content distribution in the digital media ecosystem. As you go to the sessions, walk around the exhibit floor and spend time in endless business meetings, take some time at a cocktail reception or two and consider the nine audience dimensions I’m seeing as part of the digital media ecosystem today:

a. Passive Audience – the standard TV “lean back” mass audience experience driven by a simple remote control and electronic program guide interface with linear content. These audiences are typically identified by sample survey ratings services and categorized by geodemographic clusters.

b. Active Audience – creating the “lean forward” experience by putting a mouse and keyboard into the hands of an audience that now controls their experience with interactivity and on-demand content. We measure active audiences by user level metrics rather than sample surveys but tend to use the same geodemographic breakouts in audience analysis, reporting and ad sales.

c. Producing Audience – the fast growing User Generated Content (UGC) phenomenon extends the audience experience into a creating as well as a consuming audience. This changes both the digital work flow as well as the economics of the business. It’s a great thing when your customers produce the very thing you’re selling, content! Unless you’re one of the top UGC destinations like YouTube, ad networks are the most efficient means of targeting this audience.

d. Machine as Audience – if you consider the “audience” as the entity you’re hoping to attract to your content, machines running Search Engine Optimization (SEO) algorithms are becoming increasingly important audiences to the world’s 135 million web sites. Admit it, how many of you develop web content not just for human users but also employ specialized techniques to maximize SEO output so your sites show up high on Google, Yahoo and other search engines?

e. Audience as Message – Taking Marshall McLuhan’s old saw, “the medium is the message” and updating it to the age of social networking. Going beyond the notion of User Generated Content which is a linear experience and talking it to the next level of social networking where the interacting audience becomes the context of relevancy for the exchange of content. Again, destinations like MySpace, FaceBook and other big portals can sell ads directly. Otherwise, get thee to an ad network.

f. Location as Audience – GPS, RFID and other proximity and geotargeting technologies are deploying into the marketplace and driving shifts in content and advertising. Rather than picking “least objectionable” programs from a linear menu or searching/discovery on-demand content, Location Based Services on mobile phones, digital signage, personal devices and other services will put you in the audience simply because of where you are. Consider the example of Tom Cruise in the movie, The Minority Report where as he walks into a mall, digital signs come to life and address him by name with their commercial pitches. That’s where we’re headed. The art and emerging science of selling mobile ads is rather young but this will become a very significant force in media allocations and ad spend in the relatively near future.

g. Behavior as Audience – We can target audiences not only by their locations but also by their behaviors. Nothing impresses an advertiser like behavior. Media use, attitudes, demos, etc. are all interesting. But knowing that a particular individual has just spent 30 minutes on five web sites researching a new car purchase and getting to that individual person with your ad while they’re still in the search process…that’s power!

h. “Me” as Audience – and finally, the whole notion of audience will eventually get turned on its head as we start losing distinctions among various definitions of audience and even our definitions of “self.” My avatar can search for content and find just what I want. It can then make application calls to record or download the content and maybe even scan it to see if it matches predetermined criteria; if so, it will flag it and bring it to my attention. The extended notion of me can be not just my personal time, location, behavior and demographics but also how my avatar or virtual agents behave.

4. It’s the technology, stupid! Right?

The NAB show floor will be littered with technologies and the sessions certainly are driven by a tech-themed focus. Business executives will struggle both with their fundamental understandings of the underlying technologies but more importantly in seeing their implications for market, competitive and business opportunity outcomes. Much like when you go to one of Vegas’ magic acts, beware of the slight of hand. No, it’s not the technology, stupid! The key is to seeing and understanding what the underlying problems are to which the technology is applied and what the human outcomes are. Video phones have been a cool technology for decades but never took off in the market for very human reasons. However, as the interfaces, economics and social expectations have changed, all of a sudden video conferencing is a very hot “technology” . . . yet another overnight success decades in the making. As you look at the technologies on the floor, it is critical to see them not as marvel of engineering but rather as keys that may unlock important doors. You should try to understand which doors are being unlocked and how relevant where they lead to is to your business objectives.

5. What “new media” companies don’t want broadcasters to know.

Finally, my fifth take away for the NAB show is my sense of things new media companies would just as soon not have the “traditional media” like broadcasters know. This includes:

a. Broadcasters know how to program better.

b. Broadcasters know how to sell better.

c. Broadcasters are capitalized better (okay there are a few exceptions, but there is a ton of undercapitalized new media companies for each Google).

d. Broadcasters are better connected to their local communities in terms of sales force, management and content.

e. Fact: the media market is broadcasters’ to lose, they’ve got the incumbent’s advantage. If broadcasters do anything right, it will take new media a lot longer to be successful. If broadcasters do a lot right, they will become the new media themselves.

f. “Local” is the new media frontier. Who will win this?

Tags: BIA Financial Network, Brandon Burgess, Chris Brown, David Wertheimer, Entertainment Tech, Gary Arlen, Gary Gannaway, ION, Jason Hirschhorn, NAB, New Devices, new media, OMVC, Peggy Miles, Rick Ducey, Sling Media, Super Session, Tara Maitra, TiVO, WorldNow