Microsoft ReMixSEA07 (part 4)

I switched over to the business track.

Check this out: mono-1. In the age-old world of advertisement, a revolution has just started: The consumer is now in control. Yes, content is king, but the form of the which consumers consume content has been changing radically.

StarHub has piloted the set-top box SmartTV for a year now and it has radically changed the way we watch TV, much like TiVo did in the US. The main feature is allowing us to do time shifting. Interestingly, there was an original feature in TiVo called Skip the ad, which really put the time back in your hands. Now, they have to rename the feature as “30 seconds fast forward”.

Here’s a customized radio station: Pandora. Today, blogs are where we read all the gossips – just ask any journalist! In fact, Asia Pacific region has the biggest number of online users in the world. By 2012, a predicted 2/3 of the online users will be in Asia alone. Based on some studies, people typically spend a average of 2.7 Hrs on the Internet (39% of all media) – percentage for TV is equivalent, but it’s predicted to decline as the younger generation comes. When asked where people go to find information first, it was the Internet (55%). However, today in Singapore, only 1.6% of all advertising revenue is through online channels, which is 4% behind the global average (6%). At the same time, the radio is also declining. Radio programs today are being pod-casted, allowing us to time-shift yet again, as programs are being stored in players like iPod.

Vision of digital convergence is to bring all the digital data into the devices that we hold today. There will no longer be a boundary between the devices and the media.

Bring the Love Back!

[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/D3qltEtl7H8″ height=”350″ width=”425″ /]

Remember watching Steve Ballmer’s developers developers developers? How about him shouting advertisers advertisers advertisers? The total ad market: $520B, makes the IT market puny, which is only $131B. There will be a convergence between IT and Advertising, and that’s in the realm of Online Advertisements, which today is only $17B, a huge potential to grow. The prediction is that in 2008, $35B will be spent on online ads ~ 7% of the whole ad market.

With this, MSN has been rebranded as Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions (DAS). And thus the Live Search, Live Messenger, etc. branding. Apparently, 1.2B people can be reached by MS products alone, giving them a good fighting chance when entering the market.

Imaginary shoe: Hygea. Can’t find the video online … but it is really cheesy – hopefully someone can hijack it and put it online soon 🙂 It’s basically all about how to market this hypothetical intelligent shoe, showing future advertising companies ability to split engagement levels in real-time and make decisions on how much to spend, and what kind of value it can bring.

There are various way to engage the users. One such way is to play Game (only on PC or XBox, says MS). MS acquired a company 1.5 years ago called Massive that streams ads into the game in real time – therefore enabling targeted ads in games. Me say is Cool Thing. When we ask gamers, “do you want ads in the games”? They say, “it’s the other way round – without ads in the games it doesn’t look real”. An example of when there will be conversion will be when one is waiting in counterstrike (for team to show up), one can see the ads and click through, but definitely not during a racing game 🙂

People remember experiences. e.g. watching MSN in concerts, watching Live Earth (in S’pore, sponsored by IDA). If you’re bored, you can talk to Encarta chat bot. Lots of other features in Live Messenger – add me!

Play Saving Momo – Johnson & Johnson is very happy about the publicity. Nike did avatars of their shoes. And finally, check out Nike Kimewaza, where Nike attempt to re-reach out to the 12-24 year olds in Japan, explaining what their “Just Do It” mean.

User generated ads. Perfect.