The Media of The Young - according to MTV

The young Dane and executive from MTV “Henrik Werdelin” did a good presentation on how MTV was using the new media and new technologies in innovative ways to engage with their audience.

Already from the beginning, I sensed a connection between this presentation, and a presentation at the conference from the day before, where a journalist told about the design of future media. Actually this journalist by training spoke about something quite different from designing new media, and seen with my marketing eyes his fluffy views could have made him a millionaire, if he had only given what he was speaking about a clear name – if he had branded it. Because after his presentation I sensed from the mood and talk of the other participants at the conference that they’d been fascinated and interested by him – but where’s the money if you can’t put a name to what you buy into?

My point of bringing this other keynote speaker into context with the skilled guy from MTV, is that they spoke about similar stuff – or at least complimented each other.

I am willing go out on a limb and present a new concept, based on the ideas I got from both interviews. What I found that they were both talking about, and what in my eyes clearly came through as a theme across several presentations at the conference that may even turn out to be a future trend, is what I would call Social Process Re-engineering: How social processes may purposely be simplified, re-configured, re-invented by means of new technology and new media. The purpose should then be that important socio-cultural processes can be made less costly (in terms of e.g. money, time, and psychological factors) and even more enriching (in terms of e.g. convenience, greater social interaction, more efficient use of resources). The expression is inspired by Michael Hammer (19xx) article about “Business Process re-engineering” (read obvious “rip-off”), but the concept as I see it, deal with fundamentally different processes: processes in society outside of the corporate sphere.

Thought Henrik Werdelin from MTV didn’t go into these theoretical considerations, he came with a number of straight forward examples of how MTV have born similar thought in mind in their activities. I have chosen to pass on a few of these here.

Campaigns should be pro-social and I was confirmed in my belief that companies should, especially when dealing with the youth, continue to take into account that consumers also take environmental, political and ethical factors into consideration in their decision making process as a consumer. MTV continues to put great emphasis on a wide variety of human rights issues like women’s rights and AIDS.

Other briefer statements I recall, told that
__The line between what’s real and what’s virtual is blurring with the emergence of virtual communities (sms, web and via games)
__Mega-communities like “Friendster” he however didn’t think would succeed, because the young didn’t want to “hang out” with more than 15-20 people at the time. (This can been seen also in the online gaming world, where huge numbers of gamers subdivide themselves into clans or guilds)
__Communication should continuously be localised and customized to the audience
__The focus of MTV’s new media development was especially to create systems and setups that invited people to develop their own content and to interact more with each other. The example he gave was “Happy Slaps”, where young slap someone while catching it on their phone, either as a photo or as video
__The trend that you actually “perform with your phone” is expected to become even greater with time, as what’s going on in South Korea spreads further across the globe. The development in South Korea for the use of mobile phones is estimated to be 3-4 years ahead of Western Europe.
__Technology is that biggest driver of new behaviour
__Kids will be less tech savvy – or at least less interested
____Technology will be downplayed and
____User-centric solutions and interfaces will be upraised
__People of all ages will generally play more
____Play can become exercise
____Gaming is already a profession in South Korea

(This is just a note for myself: Kim, remember visiting iFILM again!)

Moreover, we were very briefly introduced to a number of ideas MTV were playing with, such a
__Viral mMarketing (via mobile phone pranks)
__Participation TV, in the spirit of background.bbc.co.uk
__Adding a bluetooth enabled software program to the phone with a mood-indicator
____You set your mood, and can monitor the mood of whoelse is in the room

In order so succeed with this kind of marketing tactics, you have to be willing to take a risk, because though you may well win some, you will loose some too! Dare it and learn from your mistakes. Though MTV spends millions of dollars on researching their audiences they still take initiatives partly on gut-feeling combined with inspiration from that research.

The presentation by this young executive from MTV was definitely among the best at the conference. First of all it said something new, it touched upon topics that were on the forefront of media evolution, where many of the previous presentations did not do that to the same extent. It also gave insight into a company that appeared to be highly professional, innovative and willing to take risks. MTV seemed to be able to offer its audiences products, services and experiences that though they appeared to be far away from music per se, still managed to support the brand MTV – it even seemed to reinforce it! Henrik Werdelin explained that this was possible because music remained at heart of what they did.

The Political Summit about the Future of the Media

Five politicians kicked off Friday morning discussing the future of the media in Denmark – specifically the relevant legislation.

I am not going to bring you any “gold nuggets” here from the discussion – because such were very scarce indeed. They were predominantly a bunch of dinosaurs completely out of touch with the fact that the current media legislation is very far behind the technological development. The interactive media of today, and most certainly of tomorrow, offer such a wide possibilities of interaction and communication among people that is not taken into account in the current Danish legislation.

The five politicians, who represented well the diversity of the Danish parliament, agreed on much more issues than they argued about. Especially, they all agreed that “Danmarks Radio (DR)” (Danish National radio and television) should continue to receive funds for developing content for all current and coming technologies; such as web, podcasting, sms, mms, PDAs etc.

One point that I was particularly fond of and surprised by - made by Holier K. Nielsen, was that he found DR should make their entire archive of texts, audio and video available online, for all to interact with. Usually, I don’t share many convictions with Holier K. but this I believe is a very good idea. What Denmark’s Radio has produced through the years has been paid for by the people of Denmark, and as such it should be available to all. We should claim shared ownership of it – and at least get access to it!

With the coming of PVRs (personal video recorders), video-on-demand and similar technologies it clearly came across that there was a fear that the quality of television broadcasts in Denmark would generally drop.

This however only leads to another question: ”What is good quality TV shows?”, and “Who will ultimately decide what good quality content is and what isn’t?” These questions, which are really at the essence of a discussion of media and culture politics, were of course not answered. They weren’t even discussed properly.

I find that a real pity. I would argue that if the market is given total power then the programs shown on TV would homogenise and there would be little room or attention left for experimental or even just innovative TV. It is an innate dilemma of a market led approach that if you leave choice solemnly to the market, to people, then they will often only choose what they already know, like, want, prefer, or need.

What room does that leave for new programmes, new TV-people, new channels and even new documentaries? I cannot say that I hold the answer to that specific answer. The question simply raises again the questions of choosing between the product paradigm and the marketing paradigm.

This choice, as an answer to the above question, cannot be right (nor wrong). There is always a trade-off. I believe a third paradigm should be created and discussed: A paradigm that is a co-evolution between the product and the marketing paradigm. And “NO” I haven’t got that at hand either (I knew you’d ask that) but I am working on some ideas that I hope will develop into a rigorous theory. It will take a wee while though… Until then we’ll just have to cope.

Inspired from 2 "New Media Days" [27-28 Oct ´05]

About an hour an a half ago a conference called "New Media Days" ended in Copenhagen. Though I wasn´t challenged as much as I´d like to have been, I have been inspired by more than one of the speakers at the event.

Over the course of this week-end, I intend to jotter down some of these thought here on the Amok Idea blog. Some are gonna get the knife and others I´ll praise!

Until I get that far, you may wanna have a look at someone elses blog from the conference - it is in Danish though.

Blogging New Media Days