Consumption, Value and Worth - Panel Discussion at MIT

November 21, 2008

These are notes from the panel on Consumption, Value and Worth at MIT's Futures of Entertainment 3.

Where does value come from in the evolving media landscape?

Anne White (VP Programming & Creative, PRN by Thompson): "We had a discussion of Web 2.0 in the context of retail media -- but found it difficult to define. So we looked back at Web 1.0 first. We thought of a sign that told people about deals -- and then decided that Web 2.0 was about creating a two way street -- about contribution to media and an interaction with media".

Anita Elberse (Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Marketing Unit at Harvard Business School): "When we look at the very first ads on TV, they looked very much like print ads. Maybe 2.0 is our path is the same". We're still making things that look like TV on the Internet - not yet fully understanding the capabilities of the networked world.

Rishi Dean (VP Product Strategy, Visible Measures): "It's about moving from a broadcast media into a more participatory media. But it's less about defining Web 2.0 but harnessing those dynamics -- and how to leverage those dynamics. The whole concept of losing control is where Web 1.0 is afraid of".

So 2.0 is taking advantage of fluidity and using it to get a message out.

Renee Richardson (Harvard Business School): "There is that fear of loss of control -- but this is not a bad thing".

Rishi is developing a way to understand how to measure visitor dynamics and the effects of social media. It is a way of understanding audiences (the company is called Visible Measures).

Rishi: It's about making these analytics in a format that is understandable. What is actionable -- what is actionable? How does one compare that to what's already out there. You can do it with engagement metrics -- but then you have to see what's out there that it is comparable to.

"An advertiser needs to know the value of putting a video up on Youtube vs. comparable media efforts".

Henry: "Could you give us an example of how you do this?"

Rishi: "We put everything into three buckets. How many people saw the image -- what did people associate with it. How did people understand it?
Online -- how did people mash it up -- break it. We think of it in the way of "how many people saw that message -- whether in parts or wholes." We think of engagement as a time spent metric, a way to understand how people were understanding and interacting with that message.

Anita: There was a commercial that was rewound and fast forwarded, and slowed-down. It was because consumers were trying to understand if the ad was real or not. It was intriguing.

Rishi: The way we look at engagement -- we can see whether people rewind or fast forward. If you put that into the context, you can add it to the reach of that message and gain a frequency metric to help the brand assess not only what they did online, but how they understood the brand as well.

Renee: One of the problems that sometimes happen is that the attention is coming from the wrong audience. The consumer may reinterpret the product in a strange way. That could be perceived as dangerous. Some companies choose to reject that attention.  But some allow it to shape and popularize the product. I do research qualitatively to understand why this is happening -- why consumers have done this with a product. Also -- if you should panic if your "drag Queen Barbie" is popular in one market and not the one you tried to aim for.

Rishi: To shield yourself from negative attention is to shelter yourself from the positive effects this can have on your brand.

More updates as the conference progresses. Thanks for tuning in!