Google’s Digital Dialogues content series brings together marketing, advertising and media executives to talk about how digital trends like video, multi-screen, and programmatic are reshaping the marketing and media industries.

I was asked by Jason Pellegrino, Sales Director for Google Australia and New Zealand to hangout and talk how Telstra Media is creating and monetizing digital video content to engage our audience.

Online advertising expenditure in Australia in the past year to 30 June has leapt 14.6 per cent to $3.6bn, according to the latest Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) figures.

One of the surprises over the first six months of the year was that total online advertising exceeded free-to-air television spending for the first time since the report began in 2002. According to the IAB, online expenditure was valued at $1.88bn against $1.8bn on television.

The annual Online Advertising Expenditure Report, produced for the association by PricewaterhouseCoopers, found mobile continues to outpace other categories in terms of growth, increasing 190 per cent year-on-year. Search and directories advertising rose by 18 per cent over the same period, while general display was up by 12 per cent.

Australia’s online advertising market contributes $17.1bn to the nation’s GDP and provides more than 162,000 direct jobs, according to the new Digital Dollars report. The first-of-its-kind report was commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and completed by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and is based on the 2011/2012 financial year. Alongside the current economic result, the report also claimed the online advertising will be worth $26.5bn by 2017, reflecting a compound average annual growth rate of 7.5 per cent.

In its previous March quarter report, the IAB found tablet-based advertising was exceeding smartphone spending within the mobile category, representing 58 per cent of total spend. Over the most recent quarter to 30 June, mobile spend reached $45.9m and again 58 per cent was tablet-based.

Over the April-June quarter, general display advertising accounted for 27.3 per cent of all online advertising ($265.6m), while classifieds advertising represented 18.9 per cent ($183.3m)and search and directories 53.8 per cent ($523m).

Video display advertising is also on the rise, and increased by 56 per cent year-on-year in the June quarter to $35.7m. In total, online advertising over the most recent quarter totalled $971.9m, up just over 15 per cent year-on-year.

X Media Lab is the internationally acclaimed creative industries event which creates a meeting place uniquely designed to assist companies and people in getting their own creative ideas successfully to market, through concept development, business matching, and direct access to world-class networks of creative professionals. The “X” in X Media Lab stands for cross-platform, cross-disciplinary, and cross-cultural.

X Media Lab began at the Sydney Opera House in June 2003 and has gone on to deliver over 60 events in 14 countries in 20 of the world’s great digital media cities: Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Mumbai, London, Bath, Amsterdam, Basel, Malmö, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta, Manila, Auckland, Wellington, and Los Angeles.

Celebrating its 10th year, X Media Lab, Australia in partnership with VIVID, UNSW College of Fine Art, and the International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA) produced the KR8V Masterclass Series “Creative Leadership Edition” and I was asked to be a mentor and keynote speaker. I was delighted to be involved.

What I have always found with each X Media Lab I have attended is it to be completely unique event where people with original digital media ideas connect with a superb international network of independent creative thinkers, technology wizards, commercialization experts, potential business partners, and potential financial resources to focus on how these ideas can be brought to market.

The talk I gave was on Creative Leadership and how we at Telstra approach our planning and our immediate media future around customer demands. (See below)

As more people view more video content on their smartphones, tablets, and connected devices, there is no doubt the audience for online video will be greater than that viewing traditional TV sometime in the next five years.

According to Nielsen VideoCensus March 2013, 11.5 million Australians streamed online videos during March this year and viewed a total of 1.77 billion streams, spending something like 5.02 billion minutes to stream the content.

This shift in behaviour will drive innovation in programming with new formats for content production and distribution and this is something we are focussed on at Telstra Media. To help us deliver to this customer demand Telstra invested $35 million in Ooyala the US-based IPTV video company in late 2012.

Ooyala is a leading innovator in premium video publishing, analytics and monetization and provides end-to-end internet video technology services for its customers, which include media companies like ESPN and Bloomberg.

Its services include an IP streaming player, content management systems and storage. The jewel in Ooyala’s crown is its sophisticated analytics engine that gives valuable insights into how videos are being consumed. Ooyala’s technology sun w the start of 2013 has been weaved into our current IPTV offerings across T-Box and the Digital Content Services products and portfolio.

Besides the video delivery technology Ooyala provides it also reveals unique insights and this month a special edition of its quarterly Global Video Index was produced that revealed the most recent trends in multi-screen video consumption from broadcasters and entertainment networks around the world.

The findings spotlight dramatic differences in time spent with live content compared to video-on-demand (VOD) and prime time online viewing hours compared to traditional TV.

The report provides a snapshot, taken in March 2013, that demonstrates the continuing shift of premium content from the constraints of traditional distribution to the burgeoning cross-device landscape, driven by the ubiquity of video-capable connected devices. The insights in the report can help content distribution companies better understand consumption to inform content and advertising strategies.

Ooyala’s ability to apply analytics to increase revenue through improved discovery, personalization, and overall viewer engagement has garnered the company a partner portfolio consisting of major broadcasters and entertainment companies, including ESPN, Bloomberg and of course our team at Telstra Media.

The Global Video Index: Broadcaster Edition is available for download at Ooyala.com. Highlights include:

— People tune into live video 2.5 times longer than VOD content on broadcast and entertainment networks
— Prime viewing hours for online broadcast content is noon on weekdays and 9PM on weekends
— Tablet viewing spikes on weekends, when viewers spend twice as much time watching video from broadcasters online
— More than 75 percent of time spent watching mobile video in March was with long-form content
— Nearly half of all tablet video consumption was with video at least 30 minutes in length

With video now being consumed across multiple devices and the resulting audience fragmentation, it is more important than ever for advertisers and content providers to understand the viewing behaviors of their audiences to increase view-related revenue by algorithmically recommending highly relevant content.

Exciting times are ahead.

What a wonderful week attending South by Southwest (SXSW) my favourite film, interactive and music conference that takes place every spring in Austin Texas.

SXSW 2012 was a transmedia learning experience for me, see last year’s post here

This year I planned well and organised a great schedule. I even put together a MOG playlist to download of the music I wanted to see.

Before departing I was asked by Ad News magazine to send a few blog posts during the week. Below are links to the stories on their web site.

Blog 1 – Tablet storytelling, 3D printing and fast creations

Blog 2 – Smartphone geolocation apps, Danny Boyle, art theft and hypnosis

Blog 3 – SXSW is the the “new” Cannes

Ad News also asked me to write an article for the magazine. Below is the story I wrote on the flight back to Sydney.

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The South by Southwest (SXSW) conference and festival is held every spring in early March Austin, Texas. The event offers a unique convergence of emerging technologies, original music and independent films that foster’s the creative and professional growth of anybody who has a career in the communication industry.

In my opinion SXSW is the premier destination for creativity and discovery.

SXSW began in 1987, and has continued to grow in size and evolve each and every year since. It includes SXSW Interactive popular with advertising industry lasting for five days, Music for six and Film running concurrently for nine days.

This year was my second time attending and I must say I handled the occasion must better.

Last year while I found SXSW an innovation smorgasbord I was completely overwhelmed at times by its size and spent far too much time worried about how to navigate the what seemed thousands of talks, panels, workshop and events to attend.

This year I approached it differently, as I learnt the secret is to ease into the event and let each and every day wash over you as you obtain the bursts of inspiration and insight.

The quality of the SXSW product is world class. From a conversation with Nick Cave about his creative craft, Nick said, ‘I seem to have spent my whole life butting up against people with no imagination’

To Jason Silva the National Geographic Channel’s Brain Games genius who spoke about a world where the exponential progression of technology is increasingly shrinking the lag time between what we can imagine and what we can create.

From the Smashing Pumpkins to the Poynter Institute’s major study of storytelling on smart phones and tablets where it was outlined how the elements of touch, gesture, interactivity and position come together to create engaging, satisfying customer experiences.

From the performance of Prince on the La Zona Rosa stage with a 21-piece band for Samsung or the more intimate talk from Dr Mario R. García an American former newspaper of forty years who passionately spoke to the audience on how all traditional publishers should now forget about producing product for magazine or newspaper first. It must be mobile first thinking for all publishers and everything else next. He said remember the eye, brain and the finger or was that Prince who said that?

From Cirque du Soleil and Nerdist who joined forces for a one-of-a-kind evening featuring artistic performances presented by Google, Adobe and Klout to a packed hall to see Danny Boyle the Academy Award winning director insights on his twenty years pushing the creative boundaries in filmmaking with work as diverse as Train Spotting, Slum dog Millionaire, to the Opening London Olympics Ceremony. One audience member asked Richard why you turned down a knighthood. Danny replied unassumingly and in wonderful way, “It just wasn’t my cup of tea”.

From seeing Bre Pettis the inventor of Makerbot and on ongoing developments of the 3D printing revolution to just leveraging geolocation and geofences with the SXSW Go mobile app or being inspired by Jeff Goodby, co-founder and co-chair of San Francisco agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners via his ‘off Broadway’ pop SXSW event at the Driskill Hotel. Jeff brought together Livia Tortella, chief operating officer of Warner Bros Records, angel investors Aileen Lee and Bing Gordon, Ideo’s Paul Bennett, Lucas Film’s Ivan Askwit and Damian Kulash, lead singer of OK Go, who played an acoustic set at the after party, The get together was an exclusive, candid discussion moderated by Goodby entitled “So When The Hell Do You Sleep.

My first tip if you want to go SXSW in 2014, it’s best to book early for not only accommodation but all to get a Platinum badge. As soon as the badges are put on sale Platinum as it’s the same price as Interactive if you get in early.

My thinking is why limit you to one side of SXSW. You are best to stay and play with creative discovery streams Music, Film, and Interactive regardless of your creative profession.

On that the second tip is to go outside your profession when you are organising your topics to attend. If you in media go and see some design, art direction or costume making. If you’re in data or analytics go and see a film direction workshop. If you are a social media expect go and see some music. Actually definitely go and see some music if you are a so called social media expect. You need to get out more.

My seven days at SXSW this year was extremely rewarding on so some many levels. In some ways it’s a bit like going back to university and seeing all your old class mates where you are swapping stories and discussing talks and trying to solve all the problems of the world.

In other ways SXSW is a bit like a health retreat as its breaks all your bad creative habits and you see certain things you are doing is now no longer effective and you need to make some big changes when you get back.

No doubt Interactive which starts the show is the most frantic of the nine days so many advertising agency professionals, geeks and entrepreneurs seem to speed everything up for a day or two all trying to fail fast.

Things in the Interactive world move fast and as software continues to eat up the world everyone is looking for the smallest advantage to get one up on their competition.

That said digital people are really good at copying things. All the talks are tweeted, photos taken of panel presentations and for the next twelve months agencies will use this copied material in every marketing presentation to clients. Some digital people seem to like to go to a panel, tweet, bagged it out and leave. For god sake go and meet the people at the end of the talk and share you thoughts. Tweeting when you 5 metres away from them is pathetic.

It’s actually not so much the bantering in the panel talk that I get inspired with. It’s meeting the panellists and having a chat with them and hopefully finding a time to have breakfast, lunch or dinner or a drink with them at some point at the event. Maybe I’m just a stalker.

The real discovery moments for me tend to come from when the event starts to slow down a bit via film and music streams. The profession here is all about the craft, the creative process, the techniques and the constant drive of storytelling. Digital tends to stay in the platform itself. It’s like in the 1960’s someone said you need to do TV. Yeah I know that.

Listening to how the film and music industry is adapting to the digital explosion is fascinating. As an Australian film and television graduate I do find spending time with industries that want to create content and experiences much more interesting then marketing messages in short bursts.

So many industries however are changing fast now. From media to retail every company is adapting to their audience who have moved to mobile and tablet as their main source of information and entertainment.

There are some very exciting innovations about to drop in a number of industries and the advertising industry better be prepared to match them on what they need to engage audience who are consuming brands and experiences on the go. How they mix art and science is going to be the true winners.

Brands are now telling Interactive stories and delivering them mobile first before they look to go across multiple platforms and channels over time. It’s more than just integrating online and offline experiences. It’s about dispersing the story systematically across multiple media, each making their own unique contribution to the whole.

The big insight from SXSW is spending 50% on the idea and 50% on how people are going to hear about it. Jonah Peretti CEO and Founder of BuzzFeed said is an engaging power talk ‘learn from the Mormons’. You might have an idea but focus on how you to spread it and no doubt focus on that spreading on the communication device they have with them all the time.

See you at SXSW in 2014

This week I attended the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) a major technology-related trade show held each January in Las Vegas, Nevada. What I found at this year’s event was a breakout year for the development of the connected home.

From computers embedded into tables and walls, to location base car entertainment platforms that connect to your white goods, to wearable health computing devices the size of a wristwatch, the offerings at CES 2013 may show the way to the often-imagined connected home of the future.

Before digging into the current state of the connected home products, it’s important that we express the concept of connected home the same as content producers, providers, and equipment makers do.

The definition or the ideal is a internet enabled home that organizes, simplifies, and unites a consumer’s content, entertainment, and communications into an easy-to-use and elegant solution.

To achieve this concept, the connected home must bring together everything from computers, tablets, smartphones, smart TVs, set-top boxes, to lighting, appliances, heating and air conditioning systems, all accessible and controllable through a simple, intuitive and consistent interface. The consumer is in control of all the things that are important to them and there are many company’s attempting to achieve this outcome.

To imagine this world lets try to paint a useful example of how the connected home could enter your life.

You could be driving home from work and your car notifies you that your home needs something. Maybe it is more eggs as you drive by your local grocery store. It’s a fun fantasy, right? Well, it’s actually already a reality and what I saw at CES were many company’s attempting to deliver a connected home consumer experience in various constructs.

For example major appliances makers like LG featured a full line of “smart” home appliances – ranging from refrigerators to ovens to washers and dryers. Now your fridge can provide recipe recommendations based on what’s inside and you can set your spin cycle with a few clicks on your mobile device from anywhere. It even let’s you check-in on your robotic vacuum via a live feed to an on-device camera.

What was clear based on a number of company meeting is to be successful it is so very important to get the customer experience (CX) strategy in order if a consumer focussed brand is going to be at the center of this very personal world.

While the new connected home products at CES were exciting to expereience it was clear to me that TVs, smartphones and tablets still remain the most advanced entry point for consumers to the connected home future.

Another example worth highlighting was the the stellar opportunity outlined from Technicolor. They highlighted their latest innovations to clients, partners and the press. It would seem hundreds of customers and prospects visited their large booth to discover the companies embedded technologies and in-home solutions which promosed to enhance consumers cnnected lifestyle.

Notably, the launch of Qeo, Technicolor’s new software framework for smarter home solutions was of particular interest. See video below.

From a consumer perspective, my feeling is the connected home idea is a place where all of your media is integrated around your identity that can be accessed in a very easy to use way on any connected device. The ideal connected home should be an entertainment experience enhanced by data and social context available over a very fast internet.

Connected home idea will only succeed by letting the user have a more relevant passive experience, while offering the opportunity for the user to dive deeper or interact with anything he or she comes across. This of course has many implications for future consumer behavior, but it also presents some very interesting considerations for advertising opportunities. Brands will now be able to uniquely target consumers based on deeper behavioral insights across multiple devices. And new mediums – like you refrigerator – will quickly pop up as potential billboards for brand messaging. Imagine the scenario where your fridge knows you need eggs and overlay the potential for your local supermarket to deliver a $2 off voucher or advertise product benefits from a local farmer. It’s advertising at a personalized level, delivered in real-time and guaranteed to be contextually relevant.

Not too bad a future I have to say.