NBClympics

Posted on July 29, 2012 by bobquaglia

We watched the ceremonies last evening and while the Brits blew it out, I was more impressed with the way that everyone – especially Bob Costas – kept promoting all of the other feeds that NBC was filling for the games. From BRAVO to MSNBC to NBC Sports, they have the waterfront and the track covered!

If you did it right, you could program every sport you wanted to see and play them back for decades, or at least until the next summer Olympics came along or until you ran out of disk space.

I was also very impressed with the quality and smartness of most of the commercials and the way the majority of the advertisers was tied to promoting the games. It would really be great if they kept that intelligence level throughout the rest of the year.

I am looking forward to the remaining fifteen days.

On a more personal note, this past week, I was nominated and approved as First Vice President of the Dallas Chapter of the AAF (American Advertising Federation) for 2012-2013. I am anticipating a fun and productive year.

AD CHOPPERS

Posted on July 11, 2012 by bobquaglia

In case you missed it, a federal judge has moved the FOX, CBS and NBC lawsuit against DISH’s “AUTOHOP” to California from New York, as requested by the three networks. They assume the west coast legal system will be friendlier to them. A similar case involving DVR’s would give DISH legal precedent in New York.

As you know, “AUTOHOP” is the service on DISH that allows subscribers to automatically skip commercials in playback programs on their DVR’s. This looks like another new battle over who has the right to control technology and its devices.

Those of us, who can remember it, know that some of these same networks once tried to sue to stop the production and sale of videocassette recorders, claiming that recording programs was a violation of copyright laws. They lost that one and I believe that there is a chance they may lose this one as well.

The suit brought by the networks does not address the right of the subscriber/consumer to delete advertising, but rather that DISH “…has created and marketed a product with the clear goal of breaching its license…..”

The networks are claiming that this violates copyrights and destroys the fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television business.

And they may well be correct in this claim.

If DISH can get away with this, it surely will not be too long before another company will have an AUTOHOP clone on the market, opening a real Pandora’s Box for commercial TV, and drastically changing the way we media planners and buyers look at delayed viewing and pre-recorded audience numbers, when evaluating total delivery, for our clients.

On the other hand, it may be the beginning of the demise of DISH. They have already come into conflict with AMC and other content providers and have dropped AMC from their feed. If they win this suit, other commercial networks may also decide not to do business with DISH.

AMC has a group of very popular programs – Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and The Killing, to name a few. And Dish does have competition – DIRECTV……

This will be a very interesting case for all of us to follow.

PRIVACY, OPEN INTERNET, BIG BROTHER, FIRST DO NO HARM

Posted on July 5, 2012 by bobquaglia

None of us is unaware of the conflict going on around the issues of free speech, protecting privacy, protecting copyrights and a myriad of other legal and social issues, revolving around the internet.

There doesn’t seem to be any way to answer all of these knotty issues very satisfactorily. The internet is, for all intents and purposes, a totally new dimension of communication.

Since GonzoMedia is a Media Planning and Buying Company, and needs all the possible information we can garner about the consumer in order to “properly” target our clients’ commercials, we are, “greedy” for the demographics, psychographics and personal habits of the consumer.

And we are – through sites like Google, Facebook and a multitude of other sources, never before available – able to gather more and more of that valuable data. It seems that many people are perfectly willing to disclose information about their personal lives, their jobs and other information on the internet that they would never discuss or reveal to their family members or clergy.

On a personal level, however, I have concerns about how we protect the information which those consumers do not want revealed.

We have all seen reports of people losing jobs because they have posted their dislike for their bosses and/or companies they work for. And we marvel at why a person would reveal videos of themselves in embarrassing situations.

Obviously, there is no accounting for taste or for lack of foresight for many of our fellow citizens, so I say, “post away”, and, hopefully, these individuals will not do themselves too much harm.

As I said before, I do have concerns about those of us who do not desire to have personal and private information revealed without our permission. The fact that the simple act of going to the web to gain information on any given subject, product type or medical affliction, can generate an e-mail assuming that we are prone to buy a product or service, or a sufferer of that affliction, is a bit more than frightening.

We once feared that “Government” would create Big Brother, this is no longer true. We have created him out of whole cloth. As Walt Kelly’s POGO once observed, “…We have met the enemy and he is US…”

In my opinion, therefore, we should promote the concept of Opting IN rather than that of having to Opt Out in matters of privacy on the net and it should be as simple as a universal tag on one’s email address declining all intrusion.

If a particular site refuses to give information regarding what they regard as proprietary, unless one allows the gathering of personal data, so be it! Somewhere on the net, There will be another site willing to give one the requested information without requiring the divulging of that personal data. That’s how it works, “out there”!

FIRST DO NO HARM.