The Affari Edge Blog

Network television has taken another step towards releasing its content online, for free, and I like the sound of it. Thanks to a story at Forbes.com, I have been alerted that “Hulu’s Here”. In case you weren’t aware, Hulu (which sounds like the name of Uhura’s and Mr. Sulu’s space-aged love child) is the new Internet video service of NBC Universal. The site will feature full episodes of TV shows mostly from NBC and FOX, with programming from sister networks such as F/X, The Sci-Fi Channel, and USA. According to the article, you won’t just be able to get most of the programming from those channels, you’ll also be able to get TV classics such as WKRP in Cincinnati (one of my all-time favorites) and the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Movies from several studios, such as Sideways and The Breakfast Club, will also be available.

Even though the service is free, there is a price to pay. Unlike content on YouTube, there will be the occasional commercial messages on Hulu. Once you start playing a selection, a banner ad will be featured at the top of the screen (unless you select the “full screen” viewing option). Brief commercial breaks will appear about every 22 minutes, and like most network-driven online content today a quick commercial at the beginning or end of the broadcast will appear. And apparently the “overlay ad”, those annoying ads that just glide across your computer screen with a cleverly-concealed “close” tab will show up from time to time.

Despite the commercial interruptions, I think most web viewers will ignore (or at least put up with) the commercials. Banner ads, while not as annoying as the old-fashioned pop-up ad, are everywhere on the internet any way. And network television (cable networks included) invade the screen with overlay promos for upcoming shows on a regular basis. I think they do it too often, but over the past few years I feel most people have gotten over the intrusion (except when it covers up a graphic pertaining to the show like a chyron… I hate that). What is conspicuously missing from the Hulu “about us” page is any mention of advertising which I feel is a bit misleading to the consumer who isn’t totally clued in.

I’m also a little miffed at the service in general simply because following a press conference announcing its launch, and the nice pub from Forbes, the site isn’t ready yet. After signing up for the beta test version, the only e-mail I’ve received from Hulu is that yes indeed I signed up for Hulu. But even with the delay I’m curious about a couple of things regarding how successful Hulu can be.

Louis Hau, who penned the article about the site, seems to wonder if Hulu will be as big as YouTube. To me, I don’t think it has to be. In fact, I know it won’t be. But that shouldn’t make anyone think Hulu will be a disaster in the making. Hulu will be the only legal place streaming shows from NBC and Fox, and the other networks I mentioned earlier. If a niche audience is willing to go out of its way to watch an episode of Monk or My Name is Earl, than the advertiser is being taken directly to the person it wants to reach during a regular network broadcast. YouTube may have 2.5 million views of Chris Crocker crying about Britney Spears (sadly, it does), but who’s watching that garbage? Even if ONE show on Hulu has one-percent of that audience (25,000 viewers if you weren’t a math major), that’s 25,000 potential clients exposed to whomever advertises on that stream. And Hulu is unique in that unlike YouTube it will NOT accept user-generated material. The reason is simple: the minds at Hulu don’t want crap on their website. And you have to admit that 98% of the original, user-generated video on YouTube is indeed crap.

Finally, what really intrigues me is how a site like Hulu will affect the DVD market. Nowadays it’s cool to have seasons one through ten of The Simpsons on DVD, taking up valuable space on your entertainment center but showing your friends you’re a fan and you have enough disposable income to buy all of those box sets. But what if one day you could stream all of those episodes, and still get the bonus goodies that sell most DVDs today? Keep in mind just ten years ago people used to show off CD collections with towers of discs in their living rooms. Then came Napster, which begat Kazaa, which begat Apple iTunes. Who shows off stacks of CDs in their jewel cases any more? For 99 cents a song you build your library on a chip in you mp3 player.

So I’m still waiting for my personal “invitation” from Hulu that says they’re ready for me. I’m ready for them and I’m curious how eager the rest of the world is ready for a similar service.

While scanning today’s edition of The New York Times, I came across a rather interesting article regarding a whole new look for casual dining chain Applebee’s. In an attempt to pump up sagging sales, Applebee’s is launching a whole new ad campaign featuring the voice of comedienne Wanda Sykes as the company’s “spokesapple”. The spots, part of Applebee’s annual $180-million ad budget, features a feisty apple convincing people who are eating alone to get together with friends and family at Applebee’s for a meal. But the chain isn’t just stopping there. The entire chain will undergo a renovation in terms of a new logo, new uniforms, new building designs, and an upgrade on interior decorating.

Now at first I have to give Applebee’s some props for this massive public relations overhaul. Their recent ad campaigns, under former agency Draft FCB (Applebee’s is now with McCann Erickson) didn’t make the chain stand out from other casual dining chains such as TGI Friday’s or Chili’s. And with the economy to blame mostly for slumping sales (higher gas prices and a shaky housing market means less disposable income for the family to eat out), why not shake things up with a new look and a new feel to remind customers you still exist.

I also have to commend Applebee’s on how it has built up to this weekend’s unveiling of the ad campaign by taking out a full-page ad in USA Today on October 9th, directing readers to a website featuring “tryouts” by other types of apples for the Sykes apple that was eventually chosen. Applebee’s then allowed the videos to spread virally through websites such as YouTube to create a buzz. With Applebee’s wisely buying commercial time during TV programs such as “Desperate Housewives” and “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”, the chain is hitting it’s target audience– the moms of these families who ultimately decide where the family will eat.

But the biggest problem I have with Applebee’s has nothing to do with the new ad campaign or the refreshed logo and look of the place. To me, it all comes down to the food. Now maybe it’s because I’m a 30-year-old man and I don’t play on the emotional pull of “Together is Good”, but for a place like Applebee’s I’m just thinking about what I’m getting to eat. To me, a basket of boneless chicken wings at Applebee’s will taste just as good (or bad) as the same order of boneless chicken wings from Chili’s, TGI Friday’s, Ruby Tuesday’s, or Bennigan’s. With all of these aforementioned chains offering essentially the same line of food (burgers, chicken, sandwiches, fattening appetizers, and 2-for-1 drafts), there’s just no good reason for me to select one over the other. And most importantly, and this is what kills casual chains from the male point of view, I can think of several local or regional restaurants here in the Tampa Bay area (such as Tank’s Tap Room or Beef O’ Brady’s) who offer food that taste BETTER than a national chain and cost just about as much.

Applebee’s isn’t too worried about the smaller restaurants, rather it’s the fast food giants who have helped dragged down the casual dining market a bit. MacDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s, now offer healthier top-end choices along with their traditional greasy burgers. Kentucky Fried Chicken (trying to wean itself from the “KFC” moniker) is trumping how their low-priced combo meals are in fact meals and not fast food. Sister company Pizza Hut claims their family meals of pizza and bread sticks, or big servings of pasta, cures all ills when it comes to cooking for the family.

So it’s going to take more than just a new look and an altered menu for Applebee’s to pull ahead of the crowded, yet lucrative, casual dining market. Bennigan’s plays up the Irish pub angle (although as an Irishman I’m not buying it) while TGI Friday’s plays up the “flair” card with wacky outfits and drink specials. Red Lobster cornered the chain seafood market while Olive Garden snagged the middle-class Italian market. Applebee’s will have to come up with something creative with their cuisine, not their logo, to really make the other apples in the casual dining bunch look like oranges.

There are tons of stories floating through cyberspace about how television network news is dead. While the ratings for network television news have declined sharply over the past several years, the forum for the 30-minute nighttime newscast is hardly dead in America. However, the television networks know that in order to keep the younger end of the crucial 25-54 demographic interested in the network news, especially the tech-savvy 18-34-year-old crowd, a little reinventing of the wheel needs to be done.

Now I’m not saying the wheel is network news broadcasts themselves. Networks have tried over and over again during the past few years to bump up ratings by changing hosts such as CBS and NBC have done, or by switching to a two-host system which ABC tried briefly in 2006 before Bob Woodruff was seriously injured while reporting in Iraq. I’m talking about “the wheel” as network newscasts on line.

Up until now a network’s website, which was heavily promoted throughout the newscast, featured repackaged news segments. Basically the website served as a dumping ground for features you may have missed or would like to see again. But that begs the question, if you didn’t see the feature the first time around are you really inclined to go searching a website for it? It’s the old “tree in the forest” adage at play here. If you’re not watching the network news in the first place, are you going to go out of your way to find a network news feature on the network’s website? Probably not, and I highly doubt anyone has been so moved by a network news feature recently they e-mailed all of their friends and said, “You’ve got to see this piece on Medicare from NBC!”

ABC News is trying to change that, and I love their approach detailed in this article from the New York Times. ABC’s internet webcast, titled simply “World News”, features regular ABC World News anchor Charles Gibson as host (most of the time). What’s unique about this though is Gibson merely isn’t cuing up eight or nine feature already shown on the ABC World News report that night. Instead, this 15-minute webcast features stories shot by the ABC News staff specifically for the webcast. What’s really interesting to me is how these stories are presented.

Jason Samuels, the senior producer of the webcast, takes a fresh approach to presenting the news to a generation of people whose lives don’t fit the network television schedule like generations past.

“I don’t have to count the seconds,” he said. “I just try to put in a good show that’s around 15 minutes. Do one long stand-up, do much longer sound bites, play an interview,” he said, summing up his advice to the staff. “Produce a story in any way you think is engaging — there are no rules.”

That right there sums up EXACTLY what network news programs have to do with their online content. Break all of the rules– the same rules that have been dragging down network news ratings for more than 20 years now. Reporters aren’t tied to 90-second or 2-minute packages, and unlike most newscasts stories aren’t bogged down with network promos masquerading as news stories or celebrity gossip. And staples of newscasts from the past, or newsmagazine shows prior to Chris Hansen busting one pervert after another, in-depth interviews are featured.

My favorite part of this webcast is the lack of commercials. There’s only one commercial, 15 seconds long, at the start of the webcast. After that, it’s laid out for convenience. The webcast on October 11, 2007, was a mere 16:27 long, and starts with updated headlines. The remaining 14 minutes starts with Gibson giving “signposts” to upcoming stories. Those same signposts are featured underneath the video player screen. Not only are there no commercial interruptions, you know exactly what you will get in that newscast, something someone my age (soon to be 30) appreciates greatly. Instead of dressing up reporters, sets, or story ideas with 53-year-old adults trying to look hip, ABC manages to deliver the news straight and without the bells and whistles others in the past have tried.

The big question is, will the coveted 18-34-year-old crowd actually tune in on a regular basis? To date, ABC averages 4.5 million downloads of the World News webcast per month. That averages to only about 150,000 a day, or roughly the amount of households watching a major market local newscast on any given night. ABC has a great product here, but the trick is to tell those 18-34-year-olds who don’t watch the network news on a regular basis to actually sign on and listen to a guy they probably remember as the host of Good Morning America 15 years ago.

As if the never-ending attention to Britney Spears and her lethargic MTV Video Music Awards performance wasn’t enough for people trying to find a shred of news in the local newscast nowadays, along came Chris Crocker.

Crocker, as you are probably aware of by now, is the “star” of the “Leave Britney Alone” videos on YouTube. What was just a simply awful video of a young man screaming about how unfair people were being to Spears has become a worldwide phenomena. Amazingly, it has also turned Crocker into a celebrity. His MySpace videos have topped 35 million views, the Britney video has been spoofed on late night talk shows, he’s been a guest on those same shows, and he has signed a contract with 44 Blue Productions to star in a new reality series. What’s even more appalling is the reality show deal came just one week after the Britney videos were posted on line. I’d hate to be a waiter in Los Angeles who has been turned down in casting call after casting call only to see this guy get a deal just like THAT because he turned the camera on his self.

Now understand I’m not flabbergasted by Crocker’s fame because of his sexual orientation or just plain weirdness. You are what you are and that has actually helped Crocker tremendously. What’s really bothering me about this is two things: the rise of a “celebrity” who really isn’t a celebrity, and the fact that the media and general public are eating it up.

Let me tackle the second issue first. It wasn’t that long ago people voiced their displeasure over the news media’s coverage of Paris Hilton’s imprisonment or Lindsay Lohan’s continuous run-ins with the law. Recently, people are moaning over the wall-to-wall coverage of Spears’ custody battle for her kids with former husband Kevin Federline. But an interesting things remains under this alleged disgust: people love a train wreck. Even I have to admit when I’m bored and have a few minutes to kill I’ll check out TMZ.com or the New York Post’s Page Six (but only after I’ve exhausted my viewing of more important websites).

If you doubt people like train wrecks, then explain why reality TV is still around even though it really doesn’t reflect reality at all. Explain why the first few episodes of FOX’s “American Idol” pull in higher ratings than episodes featuring the final 12 contestants. Think of why you watch shows like “The Next Food Network Star” or “The Bachelor”. You don’t really care who wins, you just want to see who screws up the most. With this love for the freakish, whether it be a reality show meltdown or DOT cameras showing a collapsing interstate bridge, we just love seeing things going wrong. Enter Crocker, and America embraced him with open arms.

And this opens the door for my other point of contention. The accolades for Crocker have ranged from The Daily Reel proclaiming he is, “an insidious comic mastermind” to the Ocala Star-Banner’s Dave Schlenker comparing Crocker to the late Andy Kaufman. While there is an entertaining quirkiness to Crocker’s schtick, the man is hardly a comic genius. In fact, he claims the Britney video was his honest feelings toward Britney and not an act. There’s no fine line between comic genius and comical by accident. Kaufman, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce… they were comic geniuses. Crocker is comical because it appears he has a lot of issues in his life right now.

Yet Crocker is invited to awards shows, Hollywood parties with real celebrities, and TMZ paparazzi follow him around town looking for a photo op. Only in America… and only in cyberspace. If there’s one thing about Crocker’s newfound fame is it is only a testament to the power of the internet. One video, whether it be funny or sad or gory or enlightening, can find it’s way into millions of peoples’ every day lives and illicit a response. This is a guy, who is only 20 years-old, who for a couple of years has posted videos and photos of himself doing weird things and building a fan base. The Spears video launched him in star status, whether I like it or not. It’s amazing what popularity a slightly (check that, WAY) off-centered young man could garner with a simple video.

Imagine how popular someone could become with a good video online.

We here at Affari Edge have decided to do something, well, unique.

Okay, so it’s not so unique. But we Affarians love bacon. I mean, who doesn’t??

So much so that we’ve created a new website: Just Add Bacon.com to highlight our love for bacon!!

Actually, the site is a place where we can showcase some of our creative talent and have fun. So head on over to the JAB site and watch the videos. Laugh. Cry. Laugh some more. We had a great time making them.

More importantly, however, if you think your company might be interested in exploring the use of “viral” videos, or you need a professional commercial, Affari Edge can help you reach your audience.

With or without Bacon.