Time Warner Cable Media: Holding Fast Over Moving Forward
THE TIME WARNER CABLE MEDIA NEWFRONT
THE THEME: Impressions Matter
THE GOODS: A Time Warner Media branded “take out” box, Bluetooth selfie remote, Kernel branded pin art “impression box”
THE SURPRISE: Performance by Leon Bridges
THE TAKEAWAY
What becomes apparent as the revolving door of sales executives trod the stage, each introducing the next with the same stale, “Now let’s welcome to the stage”, is that Time Warner Cable Media is insisting on shouting about the status quo (present dominance of television) rather than planning into the future.
No doubt, cable will remain a valuable part of any media plan — however, if TWC Media doesn’t begin to think about ways of contextualizing its business outside of the realm of the old guard I think they’ll find they will have less and less impressive metrics to point to as the years go on.
THE EXPERIENCE
The lights of The Edison Ballroom marquee give off a dull shine against the curtains of rain sweeping down the street. “Impressions Matter” is emblazoned across the building in the way you’d expect to see posters for a Broadway show. My first thought is: Do they?
Admittedly, I’m coming at this from a content perspective and this presentation seems squarely aimed at media buyers — but still, are impressions worthy of the marquee? Anyone can buy impressions. You can’t buy brand loyalty. You can’t buy engagement time — the one metric I continue to think of as “golden” in that it’s purely voluntary.
Once inside, I’m given a rubber Time Warner wristband that I’m told contains my personal information provided in my RSVP. As I emerge onto the balcony level, I see kiosks littered about. When touched with the wrist band they automatically send information on Time Warner Cable Media initiatives or partnerships.
I touch one for Leon Bridges’ latest video, and one for a Kernel sizzle reel. I’m emailed seconds later with a link to download each piece of content or watch it in “Dropbox”. It’s utterly perplexing why the elaborate construction was warranted. If videos were played on the kiosk screens it’d have removed a significant barrier to entry.
The Art Deco trappings of the Edison hotel make for a dark scene, punctuated with buffet tables filled with Vegas-style fried entrees. Revolving metrics flash across a gargantuan screen on stage: Devices you can’t live without, number of attendees, favorite celebrities. Questions asked of the attendees when RSVP’ing, displayed in a perfunctory manner with sparse and simplistic logos.
SVP/CMO Fred Bucher takes to the stage and stiffly reads from the teleprompters positioned on the opposite end of the room:
“All of us in this room have two things in common, we are looking to connect with consumers and we are living in a great time of transition.”
After a few more minutes of introduction he invites Joan Gillman, EVP, and Sean Cunningham, President and CEO of the Video Advertising Bureau, to the stage to have a “candid” conversation around metrics. In particular, finding a unified metric to work from across all media. Sean displays a chart with YouTube celebrities and their channels and declares, “Subscribers are not viewers, are not ratings,” highlighting that only a fraction of these YouTube celebrity subscribers actually watch a video when prompted to do so from their subscription notification.
While I understand the desire to find a unified metric for the purposes of buying media and measuring effectiveness of campaigns — this thinking is reductive. If we’re to use television shows as a benchmark, couldn’t we as easily say that “viewers are not sharers”? There’s no option while watching television to immediately share something you’re enjoying. There’s no “like” button to measure sentiment. Simply put, to equate these tw
o mediums on the same terms is misleading.
In the market TWC Media exists in, their ability to hyper target down to the household level, serve relevant ads, optimize and track results is promising. In turn, it reduces wasted ad inventory served to the incorrect audience. But this, I believe, only looks at part of the landscape — leaving behind the new frontiers of digital content on social platforms and their role in the ecosystem.
When the carousel of personnel stops revolving, landing back at Fred Butcher, he introduces singer Leon Bridges. His voice harkens back to the best days of soul — raspy but hopeful, pensive but accessible — honest. I look out over the audience. They’re checking their phones, tapping away on laptops, empty chairs numbering around forty or fifty at this point.
The context is striking. Leon Bridges is an exceptional talent. Put him in front of music enthusiasts, soulful youth, and the room would erupt with joy. Here, however it’s a quieter affair — a misguided attempt at reaching an audience far outside his own. The parallel to me in Time Warner Cable Media, is a room seeking to reinforce their own reality, rather than accept the new avenues opening up before them in an ever-evolving market.
Michael Todd Cohen, VP/Content Director, Digitas Studios
