Speakers at iMedia & Variety's Integrate '06 Summit discuss top strategies, considerations and challenges for reaching entertainment consumers.

On Thursday April 13, iMedia Connection and Variety's presented Integrate '06, our second annual entertainment marketing summit. This year, summit speakers closed the book on the days when good content was enough to carry an entertainment project. From here on out, it's no longer about what you produce, but how well it engages and involves today's more sophisticated consumer. 

Perhaps this new concept was best summarized during the Summit's Visionary Marketer award ceremony. Recipient Albert Cheng, executive vice president of digital media at the Disney-ABC Television Group, asserted that, "Content is not king anymore. Consumers are king. To focus on them is one of the most important things we can do." 

Cheng also stressed the importance of finding the right mix for distribution, and feels that while digital media is still all about TV -- the shows, characters and relationships viewers have with them -- the challenge is now to provide access and alternative means for viewing. He then outlined eight goals he holds for a digital media group to provide that viewing access, as well as to measure how well it is reaching consumers:

• invest in quality content
• create a great consumer experience
• redefine your idea of the network (broadcast, cable and beyond, for digital)
• maximize technology, and use it to transform the consumer experience
• sharpen our brands: build them around the content
• concentrate on how to make interactive ads more compelling
• be flexible about your business model, and be open to new ways to figure out what information consumers want, and how they want it
• establish selective partnerships. Before taking on a partner in a project, we ask ourselves these questions: Do they respect digital rights management? Are they a brand we want to be associated with? Do they recognize the value of our content?

Creative Showcase: Integrated Marketing
Aligned with the themes Cheng discussed, Suzanne Kolb's case study presentation on integrated marketing seems to have been nothing but encouraged by the changing media landscape. Kolb says that we're in a time where there's an interesting convergence happening. "The idea of entertainment consumers is not just who we market to, it's who we program to." As EVP of marketing and communications at E! Networks, Kolb feels her goal in deciding the hows and whats and wheres for content offerings is, "to do what we can to get consumers to relate with the overall brand."

Kolb outlined nine components, offline and online, of E!'s recent "Live From the Red Carpet" coverage of the 2006 Academy Awards, including on-air coverage during the event, and E!'s six-channel online Oscar's hub, The Vine @ E-Online. "We let the viewer know they could be everywhere on the red carpet all at once and miss nothing with our E! Everywhere platform," says Kolb. "This kind of programming is mostly content. The audience is not being messaged to-- they are too savvy for that."

Catching the Marketer
In his keynote presentation, Tom Ortenberg, president of Lionsgate Theatrical Films answered the question of how you manage to be everything to all consumers at once, discussing the very different marketing strategies Lionsgate used in several of the studio's recent film successes, "Crash," "Hostel" and "Madea's Family Reunion."

Ortenberg says, "We look for films that appeal to single quandrants, but have crossover. We concentrate on a core audience, hammering the message into them, and then broaden that message when we see an opportunity to grow it from there."

He elaborated on Lionsgate's view of the new entertainment consumer, "They are more sophisticated beings. They are wary of commercial messages." Ortenberg also said marketers can never underestimate the smarts and savvy of today's consumer. "Play up to your audience, never down."

Case Studies: Mindset Mapping
Talking about audience hot buttons across entertainment outlets, Vince Broady, co-founder of GameSpot and SVP of games and entertainment at CNET Networks, presented a case study on tracking human behavior of the 18-25 year old demographic to help engage their interest in an entertainment property.

"These individuals are creating their own universe; their own state of awareness, engagement and privacy at a level never seen before," says Broady. "So relevance is more important than ever before-- even more important than reach."

Broady then went on to discuss a TV-based behavioral experiment his team conducted, in association with publisher TV.com and involving the TV show, "The Office." Through this example, Broady introduced the concept of The Pod, which is "a pod-like social structure, layered like an onion, with the self at its center." When trying to reach the youth demographic, which relates most to this concept, Broady asserted, "You can't force yourself in, but if you are invited in there, you gain a huge level of loyalty and trust." He elaborates: "Interests and passions drive marketing. Reach those and your message will be a good match. Once you are in, that strength becomes your ally with word-of-mouth."

Panel discussion: Movie Marketing's Brave New World
The above theme was also repeated in the final presentation of the day. Panelists David Brooks, president of marketing at Focus Features; Kevin Campbell, EVP of strategic marketing at 20th Century Fox and Gordon Paddison, EVP of integrated marketing at New Line Cinema, discussed one of the biggest issues of the day: how to harness user-generated content. While Brooks advised marketers to, "communicate with fan sites early and often. Get them promotional items and exclusive content," Paddison went even further: "Engaged fans will tell their friends. They are your viral army. Speak their language, or give them the tools to say it themselves.

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