I recently attended Advertising Week in New York City and had a lot to hear from some very eloquent speakers. Here are the top 10 moments that I found to be inspiring, provocative or at least original.

(10) Changing Roles: It seemed to me that change was a prevalent theme at the conference and that all participants expressed a willingness to reconsider what roles their companies should be playing.

• Given the freedom of digital distribution, marketers are beginning to produce their own content.
• Given commercial skipping and other market pressures, media companies are beginning to integrate marketing messages into their programming.
• Given the economic demands and their talented personnel, agencies are beginning to develop their own products or services, similar to “private labels” at department stores.

Everywhere the status quo is being questioned and resources are being redirected. Still, the norm is established for a reason and as Rob Norman CEO of GroupM put it, agencies exist for the creation, distribution and measurement of brands and messages across various media, and it seems to me that this is value that marketers will need for some time to come.

(9) Ad Spending: Subsequently, despite the economic downturn and cuts in certain media overall ad spending can still be expected to grow roughly along with the GDP at 1 to 2% per year. Ad spending will fragment however among more media platforms and channels, and this increased competition will yield a greater “purchasing power” for advertisers; a “bigger bang for their buck” in other words.

(8) Compensation options: A related subject to ad spending was how new compensation options were being considered, including performance-based compensation options and even equity stakes by the agencies in the projects they were involved with. All of these options sounded like they were still works in progress.

(7) Attention Deficit: At the Betawave panel a dynamic video showed how much marketing messages have flooded people’s lives while they’ve become more busy resulting in an “attention crisis.” “Is an impression an impression when the viewer doesn’t see it?” And if traditional reach is no longer a valid currency to trade, “why can’t clients buy attention?” It was a provocative presentation but it seems to me that the industry has yet to supply a satisfactory answer.

(6) Measurement Issues: This problem with attention ties into the dissatisfaction with media measurement. More than once I heard the term “archaic” used in reference to the current standards for media measurement which don’t take into account new media viewing. Carol Kruse of Coca-Cola also said that traditional demos are “not so useful” for the targeting that marketers now practice. The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) opened up their conference with a presentation by NBC President of Research Alan Wurtzel of the Coalition for Innovation in Media Measurement (CIMM), whose name pretty much explains its objective. As Alan Wurtzel succintly said, “We cannot not do this.” While instigating progress, CIMM is aiming neither to challenge or supplants Nielsen’s services. For their part, Nielsen has stated that online viewing will be added to their television measurement within a year, with mobile viewing to follow by around 2011.

(5) Forget measurement, let’s predict!: Another presentation at the ARF by Damon Ragusa, CEO of ThinkVine seemed to pique a lot of interest even among other panelists. The company offers a marketing simulation model called “The Emerging Marketplaces” that predicts customer transactions as a result of a product’s media marketing mix. The presentation cited an 8-9% M.A.P.E. between its predictions and actual transactions. The model could also account for short-term or quarterly changes in strategy, as well as for word of mouth and social media marketing. Impressive stuff.

(4) How much is that little show in the window?: At a panel titled “To Pay or Not to Pay?” with participants from MLB, the YES Network and FiOS an opening argument was presented that 1) the music industry failed since it “did nothing” and decided not to offer consumers its content via online channels, that 2) the newspaper industry made the opposite mistake by offering its content for free, and that 3) the television industry needed to find a middle path with a viable monetization strategy. Certain criticisms were levied against Hulu models that could end up cannibalizing television viewership and transforming FiOS and cable MSO’s into an industry of “dumb pipes.” At the core of this debate is how much to charge for content online, whether it’s through advertising or a direct audience fee.

(3) “Big” Opportunities: Marc Cuban also created a slight ruckus at MediaPost’s “The Future of Media” panel when he commented about how he attended a football game at the new Dallas Cowboys $1.2 billion stadium and the only thing people kept commenting about was the seven story tall screen. Given this attention, the current capacity or captive audience of 80,000 and the probable drop in the screen’s $40 million price, Marc Cuban declared that this was a ginormous media opportunity that the industry should probably think big instead of focusing on small screens, meaning mobile and laptops.

(2) The Three i’s: At the same panel Marc Cuban mentioned how any industry was populated by the “three i’s: innovators, imitators and idiots” and how participants should be honest about which role they were following, in order to neither decieve their customers nor themselves. This type of honesty is about being “authentic” company or brand…

(1) Authenticity: This buzzword was probably the most important one I heard, driven by how much the ad industry landscape has change as a result of social media’s effects. Advertising is no longer just about the message or the medium, it is also about the actual product, and how it has to deliver on its proposal to the consumer. If it’s not authentic, it will create a consumer backlash that will echo in social media and be too strong to control via any traditional means or channels. Consequently a lot of panel speakers recommended that companies bring in their PR departments under marketing, and that they also consider how agencies should be involved in their product development to help connect the good to the message.

As disparate as this list may seem, this last point actually ties back to the initial one of  how roles are changing and demonstrates how all of the issues affecting the industry are related.

Last week Nielsen released the most recent version of its Three Screen Report, which measures consumption of television, internet and mobile media. As in releases since 2007 the study demonstrates television’s dominance in terms of time spent with the medium. On average a consumer will watch 278 minutes (4.6 hours) of “traditional” (non time-shifted) television per day.

New screen options may have a higher penetration rater but yield a fraction of television time. On average internet is used less than an hour a day. This time is also shared with television as the report highlights report that “the average consumer’s online experience at home is in front of the television almost a third of the time.” Other screen options like time-shifted television, internet video, and mobile video are each used less than 15 minutes per day.

Studying the latest report by age demographic it is obvious that television’s strength lies with the older groups. People over 65 watched traditional television almost twice as much as group aged under 18. The heaviest user group of both time-shifted video and internet usage was the 25-34 demo. The heaviest mobile video user group was the 12-17 demo.

Looking at the results by share of consumption give a slightly different perspective. Although younger age groups do not consume as much television as older groups, the relative share they spend with that medium as as high. This would be an important consideration for marketers trying to reach these groups. For all groups traditional TV reached above a 75% share of consumption time.

How long will users watch so much television and will there eventually be an equal footing in the market between these screens? It is difficult to say since there are many unknowns regarding consumer behavior, market participants and technology.

• Will today’s teenagers shift away from mobile as they grow older and buy their own HD-TVs?
• What is the behavioral ceiling for watching time-shifted TV?
• How will new products like smartphones and Net TVs affect the marketplace?
• How will content producers delineate the “windows” of movies and shows among the various screens and their distributors?

Again, it is difficult to predict the answer. I still expect the market to declare outcomes every quarter.

Last week Nielsen announced the number of Hispanic TV households had increased by 2.3% to a current total of 12.95 million. Among the top 10 Designated Market Areas (DMAs) the average growth was 1.7%. The big standout was the Dallas-Fort Worth market (#5 Hispanic  and overall DMA) which grew an incredible 3.7% to 506,020 households.

The Hispanic segment is the fastest growing segment in the Nielsen report, growing 2.3% over last year and an average of 3.8% per year since 2007. In comparison total U.S. homes grew only 0.3% last year and 1.0% per year since 2007. These latest figures give Hispanic households an 11.3% share of the national total.

As a result of this growth, Hispanic media outlets may be able to attract a greater portion of local and national advertising (Hispanic shares of media budgets normally trail the segment’s share of the market). Paradoxically it might also create an incentive for advertisers to maintain existing media budgets since their GRP objectives would be more easily attainable.

Perhaps owing to similar reasons that have led to a strong summer for cable network ratings, according to both Nielsen Online and comScore new highs have recently been set in the online video market. According to Nielsen, a record audience of almost 136 million viewers watched video online during the month of July, up 14.2% year-over-year. ComScore measured a larger audience of 158.4 million viewers for the month of July, an increase of 11.8 % over comScore’s measurement in May 2008.

At the beginning of this summer there was a debate concerning online video measurement and Hulu’s traffic; I compared the numbers for Hulu in a July posting. Based on the latest numbers, Nielsen and comScore differ about 16% in regards to the U.S. online video audience (total unique users). This is probably attributable to some difference in their research methodology, which is unclear since they both seem to use panel based projections combined with server data for validation purposes. Nielsen promotes that they were the first to market and that their panel as being “truly random,” being assembled from two separate samples of 200,000 members, 20,000 of which are selected for a “more scientific” panel through their “street addresses and phone numbers.” Nielsen also stresses that their panel “includes both heavy and light users” and that “other measurement companies create their panels from people who answer online solicitation and who tend to be heavy users.” For their part, comScore highlights that their panel is composed of 1 million users for the U.S. market, and that it has been “validated by several leading industry bodies and the use of independent third-party data sources.”

In any case looking at the measurements available for the past two years for the U.S. online video audience it seems that the firms are arriving at more common assessment.

However in terms of total video streams, there seems to be a larger and widening gap.

This larger difference, relating to the amount of video watched rather than audience size, indicates that the panels probably weigh differently in terms of heavy video users. This doesn’t solve the problem however since it is impossible for me to say which panel is too heavy, or too light. Nielsen and comScore are probably comparing these figures to the server data and arriving at different perspectives of what the correct market weight is.

Since comScore breaks out minutes of video consumption per user for Hulu, YouTube and MySpace tomorrow I will be looking at those figures and posting up a comparison.

About two months ago there was a little brouhaha concerning Hulu’s traffic, since the unique visitors reported by comScore were triple Nielsen’s figures. This incident is well analyzed in this posting by Greg Sterling at SearchEngineLand which concludes that “one has to look broadly at all the numbers and use the consensus and directional trends.”

Neither comScore nor Nielsen have issued press releases with new traffic information for Hulu so I’ve compiled charts based on previous releases. Comparing the measurements for visitors over this longer term reveals that the two firms have differed for some time. Nielsen reported 6.32 million unique viewers for Hulu in September 2008, and 10.11 million in May; an increase of 60%. For its part, comScore rerported 25 million viewers in December and 40 million in April; a parallel growth of 60%. Since both firms report very different absolute figures but closely similar growth rates it is more rational to follow Greg Sterling’s afforementioned advice and pay more attention to the similarities and trends between the Nielsen and comScore.

The difference between Nielsen and comScore measurements was much less, looking at the total video streams served per month. Both companies indicate that Hulu has had a steady growth in video streams since its launch in March 2008.

Both Nielsen and comSocre are indicating a strong growth for Hulu in 2009, which can be mostly attributed to the ad campaign launched by the Superbowl spot with Alec Baldwin (inexplicably currently unavailable at Hulu). Given this greater brand awareness it will be very interesting to see how Hulu continues to perform during this summer, especially since it should be a golden opportunity to attract more viewers as the summer TV season has been somewhat slow.

Last week Nielsen released its Television Audience Report which includes projections through 2050 for TV households (HH) and the 18-49 demographic. The projections for the Hispanic TV households have it more than doubling in size between 2010 and 2050; growing from 13.1 million to 38.9 million households.

In terms to the 18-49 segment, which is very important to advertisers, Hispanics are projected to grow from 23.2 million to 56.8 million, more than triple the current size today.

These figures would give the Hispanic segment a 33.3% share of the total TV household market in 2050, and a 22.7% share of the 18-49 demographic. Both share figures would be approximately double 2009. The “third” portion roughly in line to with the 30.2% share the U.S. Census is projecting for the Hispanic population in 2050. I have a post analyzing the U.S. Census projections for the Hispanic segment here.

Much of this growth for the Hispanic segment is coming from the young composition. In the teen segment, between the ages of 12 and 17, Hispanics already have an 18.2% share with 4.5 million teens, which is projected to grow to 11.4 million by 2050.

Given Nielsen’s projections, particularly in the 18-49 demo, it will be interesting to see how new media options proliferate in order to fulfill the demands of this rapidly growing segment.

Last week Morgan Stanley (MS) published a paper written by a 15 year old intern in their UK office exploring teen media consumption. Morgan Stanley concedes that to not be “claiming representation or statistical accuracy” given the casual nature of the report. It is interesting to compare this paper’s beliefs to “How Teens Use Media,” a recent teen study conducted by Nielsen on a global basis. The two studies have substantial differences in certain areas, three of which I highlighted three in the following chart.

These discrepancies probably stem from the fact that the Morgan Stanley paper is basically inferred from a single perspective while the Nielsen study is worldwide survey. Furthermore it is probable that the UK cultural nuances differentiate the Morgan Stanley paper; it is also possible that it is skewed towards the younger end of teens since the writer is 15.

Still the personal nature of the Morgan Stanley paper gives it a certain appeal; it is filled with anecdotal nuggets, granting personable insight into how and why teens use media.

• “Teenagers visit the cinema more often they are in the lower end of teendom… this is due to pricing; at 15 they have to pay the full adult price, which is often double the child price.”
• “Many teenager use YouTube to watch videos (usually anime which cannot be watched anywhere else)…”

What is truly needed is a more thorough study of media consumption, directly comparing all age demographics from Preteens (10-12) to adults. The Nielsen Three Screen Study comes close to this, but the youngest demographic included is 18-24. It would also be greatly useful to categorize the media consumption not by age, but by birthdate, and to also conduct the study annually in order to judge how generational media consumption evolves.

Last week the Council for Research Excellence (CRE) released the results of a new $3.5 million study sponsored by Nielsen titled “Media Behavior in America” focused on media usage and behavior, or more basically the amount of “consumer exposure” to “any of four categories of screens.”

1. Traditional television (including live TV, DVR playback, DVD/VCR).
2. Computer (including Web use, e-mail, video, etc.).
3. Mobile devices (including Web use, text messaging and video).
4. “All other screens” (including display screens, in-cinema movies and GPS navigation units).

Given the multiplatform focus of this blog, I wanted to quickly cover the results of this study.

Jack Wakshlag, chief research officer at Turner Broadcasting and member of the CRE, remarked that the results are “amazingly consistent across all the ages.” Overall over 67% of media time is spent with a television, close to six hours a day on average with just over five hours dedicated to live TV viewing. At 16 minutes of commercial time per hour this means that an average viewers sees over 80 minutes of commercials and promos each day, demonstrating the medium’s importance to advertising.

Computer and mobile usage was much less frequent, occupying less than a third of the total media activity. According to this study on average viewers saw only 1.2 hours of video online per month. Another recent study, by comScore, gauged that viewers saw five hours of video online per month. I am not sure how to explain this difference between the two studies. The CRE study was sponsored by Nielsen and was overseen by an independent board of advertisers, television executives and other industry experts. Regardless, both studies demonstrate that monthly online video viewing is a fraction of daily television viewing, indicating that television will probably remain the dominant advertising medium for quite some time.

Perhaps most importantly, this study demonstrates that the public is consuming media at a greater rate, perhaps since there are so many more options for them to choose from. From an advertising point of view this is both an opportunity and a challenge; an opportunity since their targets are more accessible than ever; a challenge because campagins will require coordination across different screens along with precise segment targeting.