Television, the king of "now"

TV – the shrine of modern times is not going anywhere, not for a long time. People preaching the end of television seem to be blind to the fact that the current transformation in content consumption is not about the distribution models, it´s about time. Of course some of us want to binge-watch our favorite show from Netflix whenever we want, but there is a lot of people still who gather around the modern camp fire at a certain time every week to share a story. And let´s face it, Superbowl is better live than watched as clips from YouTube the next day.

TV, in all it´s glory, is a linear content distribution channel and linear TV is best for events and developing stories. Everything that happens in the "now". Linear TV dominates our hunger for fresh content and looking at the figures, sports is the king of live content on the planet. The devotion of sports fans will keep linear TV relevant for a long time to come. TV is also the most effective way to reach millions, even billions of people simultaneously. You don´t see millions of people gathering to internet at the same time to witness an event (Ok, the Stratos jump and the wedding of William and Kate excluded, but those events also gathered ten times more audiences in TV). We, as content producers depend on television to make phenomenons out of our creations.

Looking at any transmedial storytelling campaing, TV is the best way to steer traffic to other touchpoints. And that goes for marketing automation as well. The results we have got from our campaigns for Fonecta, a finnish internet marketing tools provider for SME's, clearly show that without the support of television, the numbers drop through out the sales funnel. Even with a massive online campaign combined with quality content and effective automation. Although online is gathering viewers, TV is still the most powerful tool to tell compelling stories and drive traffic to other channels.

Forget the product, it´s all about the brand

For majority of companies, a brand is just a tool to sell products. A necessity to increase the value of a product line or a factory. Their eyes are on the product, which for any company is short sighted.

If companies would shift their focus from products to brand, they could discover new opportunities that a strong brand can create. Take Angry Birds. A Finnish game company that set out to create positive brand experiences for their fans now has wide set of products ranging from toys to soft drinks (a cola that in some markets outsells Pepsi and Coca-Cola on a weekly level). The mobile game they started with, only brings about 30% of their revenue (depending on the media that reports). Their ToonTV now distributes content from Disney and Sony as well as stuff from Stan Lee turning them into a media house. Red Bull has also made content a thriving business, by shifting the focus from an energy drink to "the world of Red Bull". Jamie Oliver is a household name in food industry, because he is not focusing on one single product, but on the brand called Jamie Oliver and the potential it has to grow in to new business areas (knowingly or unknowingly). What all these brands have in common is that they constantly develop new ways to use the brand to engage, not just optimising single product sales.

At the same time media companies have less and less capital to produce content for the ever increasing demand and this opens new possibilities for brands to create compelling stories that build awareness and drive business. In a fast moving world, who else has the knowledge and the expertise to produce specific quality content but the brands. It´s just a matter of turning sales in to positive brand experiences for the fans.

In the future this is also necessity for brands. As more channels appear and the major ones try to monetize their audiences, it just get too expensive to reach the hearts of fans through plain marketing. Brands need to start producing quality content that we all enjoy and share. In social media or in real life.