stedavies.com - communications consultant

Below is the transcript of the panel discussion I was part of at the ITV conference on Wednesday. Copy accredited to Tom Barber at ITV.

Panel Session

Jemima Kiss, Guardian
Simon Gunning, Yahoo!
Gerd Leonhard (futurist)
Stephen Davies, stedavies.com
Nick Adams, Mindshare
Pele Cortizo-Burgess, ITV Imagine

It started with first thoughts of what has happened in the day. Jemima Kiss was quick to advise ITV that we need to get out there and explore these different spaces and think about how to do things differently. She says: “It’s rarely disastrous when you take risks”.

Gerd Leonard also praised ITV, saying: “This is a great starting point, I know a lot of big media companies haven’t even thought of putting on an event like this. There’s been some great ideas but the difficult bit is how you get there now.”

Stephen Davies said: “He learnt a lot himself. He talked about a lady who has set up the Corrie Blog and asked the question “How will ITV engage with those types of people.”

Pele added: “Viewers are more creative and want to get involved. Owners of the brand need to engage with those people.”

Having heard the panels initial thoughts from the day the first questions was:

Does the digital age signal the end of newspapers?

Jemima Kiss from The Guardian responded: “I don’t think papers will die out completely” but it’s “not about the paper it’s printed on. It’s all about the content.”

Gerd believes that newspapers are only just waking up to the opportunities open to them. “They could have created Digg, but none of them did. They now need to look ahead and do something different.”

Stephen Davies argued that “Old media simply adapts. Radio didn’t kill TV and this is the same for newspapers. Digital content can work alongside the traditional format. One can enhance the other.”

Pele said “It’s not one or the other. They each have a different role to play in people’s lives.”

Will it become more important to get a scoop on a news website or in the
physical newspaper?

Jemima Kiss told us that one third of The Guardian’s traffic comes from people searching for archived news. The website compliments the newspaper well, but you do have to think about what’s going on the website though.

Would you advise using online promotion for shows or stick with more traditional methods? How do you get a buzz going about a programme? The panel all agreed that you have to use the appropriate medium for the
right type of programme. Stephen Davies said that you “have to find the best fit”.

Gerd expanded by saying when using online promotion “you need to create a place people enjoy visiting and they will then come back.” If it genuinely engages the viewer, they will keep coming back and tell their friends about it.

Will bloggers become more important that TV Critics?

Simon Gunning launched straight into answering this by saying: “Critics associated with a brand eg Guardian are well thought of and people value their opinions. But there are two distinct roles there. People will still discuss and write their opinions online for people to read, but people will still turn to their favourite critics.”

Do we need to be concerned with the amount of negative online advertising with invasive techniques to catch your attention? Do we need to be careful how we use such techniques?

Nick Adams started by saying: “If a target audience is relevant, then it can work well. Most companies do not use these negative campaigns anymore.It’s usually only companies advertising things like credit cards
that do it in a wrong way. But disruptive marketing can work very well, particularly for things like film and TV, again in relevant places.”

Simon Gunning said “Yahoo tracks your web usage and provides adverts relevant to you to create more directed advertising for the user.” Jemima Kiss agreed, saying: “Adverts aren’t invasive anymore. There is a huge potential to provide interesting, exciting things on behalf of brands.”

Gerd continued to be slightly controversial by saying: “Traditional advertising would be dead in five years.”

Simon Gunning was quick to disagree: “Traditional ads get seen by many people. There are many ways of advertising, including online promotion but that 30 second advert will be at the centre of all other parts of advertising.”

Pele added: “It’s about creating a deeper experience with the brand.”

To provide forums for our viewers, should there be any sort of editorial control over what’s being written?

Gerd started by saying things “need to be balanced. The point of control is flexible; you have to decide what control you actually need.”

Jemima Kiss added that the number of ‘trolls’ – which is what people call those who ruin message boards by posting rubbish – are few and far between. “You can’t hide from people opinions, so don’t be scared,” she said. “These communities become trong and generally police themselves.”

Nick Adams warned that quite often during the promotion of a show there is lots of money around, so the forums are very active. But the money dries up after airing and the community is left high and dry which “can fuel negativity towards the brand”.

Jemima Kiss also asked whether ITV needs to create its own communities when there are people out there already doing it themselves?

We constantly hear content is king. Should we allow our material on other sites?

Simon Gunning was quick to say: “You should give your promo material away to the likes of google, yahoo, YouTube etc.

Jemima Kiss agreed saying: “It’s a no brainer. You always get better results using this type of material on the internet.” She used the example of the Daily Show which is shown only in the US but now has an international following thanks to it being made available on YouTube soon after it airs. There isn’t any money in it at the moment but it will come later on.

The panel were then asked for their final words. They included “Make it personal, make it relevant” “Allow two days a week for employees to be creative” “Engage your online advocates” and “Be obsessive compulsive”.

The questions could have continued all afternoon, many different points were being raised and it was creating a juicy discussion but there was a schedule so it had to end there.