VisitBritain has today appointed etv online to design and build a unique video eCRM application which will enable VisitBritain to showcase the variety of experiences and destinations available within the UK, to international audiences.
VisitBritain is using its wealth of video footage to capture the best of Britain’s tourist attractions, which etv will post-produce and package up into the bespoke online application. The video tool will launch in October and will sit on the VisitBritain homepage.
All the footage will form a library from which the application will create bespoke videos, reflecting the user’s unique preferences. The user can then post a branded link to the video on their social network sites to stimulate traffic and debate. The application will be a Flash Media Server-based solution; hosted by etv online and inserted into the main VisitBritain website.
The launch of this application follows the huge success of the Cruise Selector developed by etv for Thomas Cook, which was a very similar application in terms of user functionality.
To better service its expanding client-base, etv online has made several key appointments. Ex-Microsoft Project Manager Paul Douglas has taken on the role of Lead Project Manager. Jiri Mocicka has been appointed as Lead Designer and joins the etv creative team from Sony Design Centre Europe. Both Paul and Jiri will play an integral role in ensuring the success of VisitBritain’s new video application.
Andy Rogers, MD, etv online, said: “We’re delighted to be developing VisitBritain’s first adaptive video application. Online video is the perfect medium to showcase the best of Britain’s tourist attractions and this application will ensure that the viewer’s experience is targeted and relevant. Paul and Jiri bring a wealth of experience to our team as we continue to seize exciting new opportunities despite the challenging economic environment.”

Justin Reid, Head of Online Marketing, VisitBritain, added: “etv has always impressed us with their innovative ways of showcasing material through interactive video that allows the user to determine what they want to view and more importantly share with their friends in their favourite Social Media spaces. Their application compliments perfectly our online strategy of engaging users in their preferred online arenas.”

All of us who make travel television owe Teletext Travel a huge debt. In was in the late 90’s and early noughties that clunky old analogue Teletext Holidays had stolen something like 13% of the entire UK package travel market. It was that singular statistic that encouraged first TV Travelshop, then Thomas Cook, Sky and Thomson to enter the television travel market with their own dedicated travel channels.

It seems slightly sad that the internet and those glossy channels – the children of teletext – have killed off the original. Having said that, what Thomas Cook and most of the other payers have learnt is that video sells holidays. If Teletext really does plan to put all their weight behind their online service and take on the big boys like Thomas Cook and Thomson, they’ll really have to do better than they currently do on teletextholidays.co.uk where video is very much an afterthought on a completely separate site.

All of us who make travel television owe Teletext Travel a huge debt. In was in the late 90’s and early noughties that clunky old analogue Teletext Holidays had stolen something like 13% of the entire UK package travel market. It was that singular statistic that encouraged first TV Travelshop, then Thomas Cook, Sky and Thomson to enter the television travel market with their own dedicated travel channels.

It seems slightly sad that the internet and those glossy channels – the children of teletext – have killed off the original. Having said that, what Thomas Cook and most of the other payers have learnt is that video sells holidays. If Teletext really does plan to put all their weight behind their online service and take on the big boys like Thomas Cook and Thomson, they’ll really have to do better than they currently do on teletextholidays.co.uk where video is very much an afterthought on a completely separate site.

“The most exciting business models of the future will be hybrids that blend elements of the company and the community, of commerce and collaboration; open in some respects, closed in others; giving some content away and charging for some services; serving people as consumers and encouraging them, when it is relevant, to become participants” Charles Leadbeater: We-Think

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1198602/Fat-cats-Britains-porkiest-pets–fatter-owners.html

etv media group has appointed Andy Thompson to the newly created role of Head of Business Development. In this new position, Andy will be working with brands and agencies to provide them with engaging video and digital marketing solutions.

 
Andy will begin his new role on 20th July 2009 and report to Andy Rogers, managing director, etv online. He will lead the current sales team, focused on selling the etv branded content and etv online propositions. James Penfold, etv’s Business Development Director, and Lyndsay Duthie, etv’s Head of Development, will concentrate their activities working with broadcasters and media owners including advertiser funded programming.

Prior to joining etv, Andy played a leading role in establishing the UK’s broadcast sponsorship market. Andy most recently was involved as a digital commercial consultant to Brandirector, a newly launched online marketplace for branded entertainment opportunities including sponsorship, brand integration and product placement.

Between 2006 and 2008, Andy held the role of Business Director, Client Services, at Red Bee Media, where he was responsible for account direction for the BBC, Virgin Media TV and UKTV. He instigated a cultural change within Red Bee from a BBC-centric company to a commercialised, client-focused business.

Andy worked at ITV for over twenty years rising to the role of Controller, Sponsorship and Branded Content. He shaped ITV’s sponsorship strategy and developed its first advertiser funded series. Having built ITV’s status as a market leader in sponsorship, Andy went on to create numerous online and interactive packages.

Some of Andy’s multi-million pound sponsorship deals include: Sainsbury’s sponsorship of ITV Drama Premieres, ITV movies packages for Motorola, Quality Street and Martini, the first and award-winning sponsorship of the ITV Christmas showcase as well as long-term sponsorship of The Bill with npower and The Co-operative.

Andy Rogers, managing director, etv online, said: “With an increasing number of agencies fighting over dwindling marketing budgets, it’s now more important than ever before to invest in the best people in the business to represent you. Andy’s unrivalled industry experience and extensive network of decision makers will bring etv’s range of services to an even wider market.”
Andy Thompson added: “This is a very exciting opportunity to grow the digital business for etv and to join a team for which I have a great deal of admiration and respect.”

Throughout July, Gala TV is filled with ex-Big Brother housemates and celeb gossip

To ramp up the heat this summer Gala TV welcomes ex Big Brother housemates to present the show every Sunday at 8pm. Craig Phillips will launch the month of ‘Housemate Bingo’ on 5th July – an exclusive new show on the popular live bingo channel, Gala TV – channel 861.

Craig Phillips who won the first series of Big Brother back in 2000 with his cheeky smile and friendly attitude has become a household favourite presenting the successful 60 minute makeover series on ITV. Craig will be the first guest to appear in July with other ex-members of the Big Brother House following during the month. Whoever your favourite former housemate is keep your eyes on Gala TV as they could be our next housemate Bingo guest.

Each week a different housemate will be on the Sunday evening show, which will be broadcast throughout July between 8-9pm on Sky and Free-sat channel 861 as well as web-streamed on www.galabingo.com.

Gala TV is also introducing ‘Showbiz Bingo’, keeping viewers in the loop with all the latest celeb gossip and showbiz stories. The ‘hot off the press’ news will be brought to the viewers by the best ‘professional gossipers’ in the business. These include Sam Mann of ‘This Morning’ fame, ITV at the Movies presenter and Reveal Magazine’s Giles Vickers, former 3am girl Jessica Callan, and Sunday Mirror’s Mr Showbiz, Dean Piper.

Sam said “I am looking forward to appearing on Gala TV – it will be nice to be a guest and have a good gossip with all the players! Everyone needs a bit of gossip in their life and I will be sharing all I know from the ‘celeb’ world.”

Showbiz Bingo will be on the Friday evening show, which will be broadcast throughout July between 8-9pm on Sky and Free-sat channel 861 as well as web-streamed on www.galabingo.com.

Paul Tremain, director of programmes for Gala TV, ETV media group said: “Each month at Gala TV we are adding new themed shows to keep our loyal viewers engaged and interacting with us and we feel this month is the perfect time to host some of Big Brother’s finest contestants and hot celeb gossip columnists.”

Sky Real Lives has extended etv productions’ latest commission, Fat Pets, Fat Owners, into a three part series with an additional hour long special. The programme will have its own web portal which will launch this week ahead of the first episode’s transmission date of 16th July 2009 at 8:30pm.

The 360 degree elements of the Fat Pets, Fat Owners brand will be designed and built by etv online. The cross-platform editorial, produced by etv productions, will include experts advice and bring the amazing journeys from the show to life.

The Fat Pets, Fat Owners website will feature all the essential clips, behind-the-scenes stories, journals from the contributors and video diaries of their experiences.

etv online will also develop a bespoke application that will allow users to discover how much food their pet should be eating. This application will be accompanied by social networking pages. Users will have the opportunity to sign up for weekly emails containing video clips and useful dieting information.

Adrian Swift, Chief Creative Officer, etv media group, said: “It is now more important than ever for all factual entertainment formats to have a life online and on mobile. Fat Pets, Fat Owners is another great example of how etv has brought its client, in this case Sky, fantastic value by extending this brand to all platforms, using all in-house resources. This digital activity takes the brand beyond the Sky Real Lives platform and broadens its appeal in order to stimulate debate and drive traffic back to the show.”

Barbara Gibbon, Head of Sky Real Lives, said: “Weight issues and pet stories are subjects that are extremely popular on Real Lives so this commission is of great importance to us. Offering our viewers the chance to interact with the series on a number of platforms and to have access to extra content highlights our commitment to providing our viewers with more than just a television programme.”

Fat Pets, Fat Owners will broadcast from 16th July 2009 on Sky Real Lives, channel 243. The show website can be found at http://style.sky.com/Sky_Real_Lives/

http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/News/915557/Campaign-video—Digital-Essays-2009—Andy-Rogers-etv-online/?DCMP=ILC-SEARCH

We are in changing times; marketing and advertising agencies are scrambling to become more digital while digital agencies are trying to elbow their way into the strategic and creative roles played by more traditional agencies. In the end it seems the whole top end of the creative and strategic industry is becoming homogenised; with all big independent agencies, and certainly agency groups, offering a bit of everything. All things to all men, or a jack of all trades?

But before examining how we got here and what the future holds, we should be clear about one thing: the survivors in this market will be those who actually make something and the losers will continue to tout strategic hot air until they simply run out of puff, something quite easy to do in this low oxygen, crisis economy.

Over the last 5 years, the digital agency, that started out as the poor relation, is now (in many client meetings) sitting near the head of the table. This has not escaped the notice of the smart men and women who lead the major agencies across the UK and they have spent the last three or four years peddling hard to catch up with the group of trail blazers emerging from the dot-com era who were cool, creative, innovative and successful.

If the established marketing and advertising agencies lacked direct digital knowledge, they had buying power, scale and major blue-chip clients. They have used this to tempt thought-leaders, creative geniuses and technical gurus away from pure digital shops to offer a serious, credible digital offering. They’ve absorbed the knowledge behind building websites, communities, digital applications, campaigns and other digital media and added their traditional marketing, advertising, strategic or brand knowledge to the mix. This movement is putting serious pressure on the digital agencies . But it is also creating a raft of mega agencies that all offer a very similar range of skills but with no real USP. All very good at what they do, but all the same.

We believe there is one discipline that can allow a savvy agency to avoid falling prey to this conformity and that’s developing the ability to create content and specifically broadcast and video content. Very few agencies (digital, traditional or otherwise) want to go to the expense of investing in the infrastructure of studios or production companies with all the film-making hardware and software that comes with it. This is despite the sea-change in the way we are consuming video-based content online. It makes this a unique arena: critical (like digital), but expensive to do (unlike digital). Branded Content is on everyone’s lips. If the industry (brands, agencies, broadcasters and media owners) can make it work, there is no denying that TV-type budgets currently allocated to the 30 second spot are going to be moved into this space.

Why isn’t it happening right now? Audience fragmentation means the industry has yet to find a comfortable model which delivers enough money to fund production and agency fees, to allow the creation of credible, engaging content, but that also offers real value and ROI for the client. Once we crack this (and we will) it will be a huge growth area for those businesses who are creative and financially stable enough to take advantage.

Part of solving the problem is working out how we make this type of content creation more measurable for clients and brands. If we can do that, then more of the money goes into the bit that the audience really engages with (the content itself and associated calls to action), and less in the process of getting it there. Given the unique position of companies in the content creation business, one simple answer is to give the other parts of the mix away for free: specifically the digital element.

Free, surely that is madness? In the current economic climate there are many stories of digital agencies offering up their time for free, just to be associated with a brand. This is a false economy. Not only does this devalue the product in the client and agency’s minds, it causes a nightmare in cash-flow for smaller businesses. However, giving this development away for free when you have already made a healthy margin from content creation offers fantastic value for the client and a sustainable model for the prodco/agency. With a one-stop shop, there are fewer agencies for the client to brief on the project and it’s easier to provide a stronger tie in across different parts of the client business. In addition, now that these companies can attract the best ex digital agency employees, there is no loss in quality, creativity or technical expertise.

The smarter agencies out there are looking into how revenue sharing models can be brought into the mix. For example, with over 15,000 iPhone applications already on the market, and android, blackberry and other OEMs following suit, these little devices present great opportunities for agencies to create something genuinely useful and innovative. They not only pay for their own development but also generate their own revenue streams.

One day in the not-so-distant future, these revenue sharing opportunities will push the digital agencies who have spent many years charging by the hour, or by the day, or in some cases by the ’studio day’, to giving time and effort away for free. The digital agencies that face a very bleak future are those who remain focussed on ringing every last hour of chargeable time from a client.

This method of billing is less true in content creation. Yes it has a line item cost, but these are usually based on an agreed fixed percentage. In addition, the budgets for producing TV quality content which actually delivers (we are not talking about wedding videos on a handy-cam), is much higher than your average digital build. This means that as a percentage of the project value, the digital part is relatively small. The same is true of big media spend or indeed large hosting contracts. Any company which has a high-value, content creation function with measurable and defined percentage profits could take this approach and potentially increase their market share and client portfolio even during these tough economic times.

This thinking would not be good news for pure digital agencies, however we are all used to the ‘freemium’ model online, where base features are free but we are happy to pay for the higher functions; so why not with agency services?