GenDigital

Mobile ESPN Throwing In The Towel

After only nine months of operations and a reported $150 million investment from parent company Disney, ESPN has decided to pull the plug on its MVNO service Mobile ESPN. To the best of my knowledge after following the leading sports media franchise for the past five years, I believe this is the first time where they actually came up short in completing a strategic objective. Think about it...they want to get in the print game to take on SI, and bang, ESPN: The Magazine is a profitable venture...they want to get in the regional sports game to compete with Fox Sports, ESPNU is already establishing itself as a major player. I won't even get into their foray within the gaming market, but you get it, the list goes on and on. Ultimately the demise for Mobile ESPN was their inability to attract customers to their service. Some of it can be pointed to the relatively high monthly costs of Mobile ESPN, perhaps a sign of ESPN's hubris, thinking all sports fans have to have it no matter the cost. When things took a turn for the worse about three months ago, meaning senior Disney execs most likely said something like get some customers by xxx date or we're cutting you off, Mobile ESPN quickly cut prices and cut a distribution deal with Best Buy, but even that wasn't enough to stimulate a sizable number of acquisitions. Moving forward Mobile ESPN will continue to exist although not as an MNVO, but as a content licensor. The company said it is in talks with all of the major carriers to distribute its content to their customers, most likely for a small incremental fee each month.

Samsung Releases New MP3 Player

Samsung has released a new 4GB $249 MP3 player called the YP-K5 that received a decent review from Business Week. Borrowing a few characteristics and brand equity of the market leading iPod, the YP-K5 seems to have some pretty cool features and the packaging and accessories to go along with it, but I highly doubt it will be able to take any tangible share away from Apple since it doesn't have a USB port or Mac compatibility. Note to Samsung, for starters, you might want to try and come up with a cooler sounding name instead of YP-K5.

AOL's Loss is MSN's Gain

Network Live, the partner company to AOL responsible for last summer's wildly successful live stream of the Live 8 concert series on AOL has ended its relationship with AOL and moved on to a new distribution deal with Microsoft. Network Live has renamed their operation Control Room and its first featured online stream will be a John Legend performance on October 2nd from the Royal Albert Hall in London. The company plans to make 36 live concerts available on MSN's online platform over the next couple of years.

Sony Unveils E-Book Reader

After a couple of hiccups, yesterday Sony finally unveiled its new e-book reader device to the media. The initial reviews that have come out so far have been extremely positive. You might wonder why we're even covering this topic. Well, there is somewhat of a paradigm shift taking place in the secondary school and collegiate textbook market. One of the biggest complaints received from college administrators (only because they hear it non stop from students and their parents) is the cost of textbooks, which we estimate is a $2.5 billion business just among college students. More colleges and high schools are looking for alternatives and the given the state of digital technology and Gen Y's extreme comfort factor, alternatives like e-books seem to make some sense. With the release of their new e-book reader yesterday, Sony has set itself up to quickly become a market leader in a category that should grow by at least 20% this year and next year. The big challenge will not come from the school administrators or students in our opinion, it will come from the book publishers themselves, who by some accounts, have been slow to embrace e-book technology as an additional distribution platform for their textbook offerings.

Look Out, Here Comes NBC Roaring Back Again

If all goes as planned, it will be a very happy holiday season for NBC, who, over the past three years has slid from the number one broadcast network down to number three among teens and college students. If you received our Fall Television Preview Report we released last month or you're a subscriber to our monthly Insights report, the following tid bit shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Yes, as it turns out, so far, our Fall Television Preview Report where we asked a select group of our proprietary panelists to rate all 25 new television shows as well as their likelihood of watching each on a regular basis, is right on target. For the second straight week, NBC's "Heroes" was the highest rated show according to Nielsen, no coincidence that "Heroes" was the number two rated show by our panelists behind only another NBC show, "Friday Night Lights," which also came out with a little bang last week. And of course, Sunday night football isn't hurting their cause either, especially among the guys. If this trend continues, we expect to see NBC move back into the number one position as the most watched broadcast television network among both men and women when our Fall study results come out in November.

McDonald's Testing Mobile Entertainment Media

McDonald's, the number one fast food restaurant among teens and college students is testing out a new mobile marketing initiative nearby their headquarters in the food court of the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, Illinois. The home of Ronald is running a test where customers have the opportunity to order select free music and video content from their cell phones. The content is then played on the TV monitors around the restaurant. McDonald's worked with infrastructure company Akoo to set everything up. All sounds like a pretty cool and unique concept, right? I would tend to agree but that would be based on the content offerings (music, videos, etc.) being relevant and popular. As a follow up thought, McD's might want to consider talking to some of the movie studios to get access to trailers of their upcoming youth targeted flicks, that to me, is something that makes sense.

Coach Partnering With Estee Lauder For Brand Extensions

Coach, the number two luxury retail brand among college women behind only Burberry, has announced a deal with beauty heavyweight Estee Lauder and their BeautyBank division to co-develop a series of beauty products including a signature fragrance. The first round of products, which include the fragrance, are expected to be available next Spring in Coach stores or available for purchase on the Coach web site.

Early Indications of Gen Y "All About Me" Effect

One of the underlying themes that all Gen Y marketers confront as they plan and strategize their media plans is the whole notion of relevance against an increasingly fragmented media landscape. We've been nothing less than relentless in telling our clients to test out mobile marketing now rather than waiting another year and following the rest of the pack. We've also been emphasizing the strategic importance of a peer to peer model. That said, as Gen Y grows up, hopefully graduates college, and heads in to the world of work and marriage, the question we typically receive from clients and the media is whether the so called "social norms" that Gen Y displays (the materialism, the casual factor, the drama, etc.) will stay with them through independent-hood. According to this article today, some marketers aren't wasting anytime testing out the unproven theory. Marketing to moms, especially young moms has quickly become the demographic/psychographic segment du jour along with young people. Check out Conde Nast's Cookie Magazine, a magazine for young moms, and one of the few bright spots in what has been a challenging couple of years for magazine launches. The article goes on to highlight some of the recent efforts of blue chip brand marketers, like Unilever, to leverage some of the social norm equity of Gen Y and put it smack dab in the middle of their marketing to moms strategy. For example, Unilever took its near category leading Suave brand and gave it a makeover with new packaging, new brand messaging speaking specifically to these moms, and best of all for Unilever, a higher price. Is it working? Apparently so, the article says sales are up 3% over the past 12 weeks, which in the heated haircare category is pretty darn good.

Jane Mag Founder Coming Back Choosing Radio Over Print

It was only a matter of time before mega successful creative Jane Pratt announced her next venture. I've followed her successful career ever since she was at former teen stalwart Sassy. Her next gig though has nothing to do with print at all. Following the current media consumption trends, Jane signed a deal with Sirius Satellite Radio to produce and star in a once a week, three hour, live radio show airing on the fledging satellite radio network that will be called "Jane Radio." This most recent announcement by Sirius, the number two satellite radio provider among teens and college students behind XM (although Sirius has been gaining closer), adds another strong personality to their growing list of content targeted towards a female audience, giving it a strategic advantage over XM. The show is expected to launch later this fall.

Amp'd Mobile Gaining Traction, Lands P&G's Clairol As Advertiser

If you are a subscriber to our monthly Insights report covering media, marketing and trends in the Gen Y space, this announcement should come as no surprise, especially since we devoted a whole section of the most previous report stressing the importance for brand marketers and media companies to "test the waters" of mobile marketing asap. In its biggest advertising coup to date, fledging MVNO Amp'd Mobile has announced a deal with Procter & Gamble's Clairol Herbal Essences, the number three shampoo and conditioner brand used by teen and college women. Beginning next month, Herbal will run 15 and 30-second spots before and after programming on various Amp'd Mobile video channels. If you aren't familiar with their MVNO broadband model, check it out, it is unique in terms of its brand positioning and value offer to the customer. To date, the MVNO has signed up 50,000 subscribers, but I remember reading somewhere last week, they expect to double their subscriber base by the end of the year thanks to some new retail deals they cut including Best Buy.