Contents
The course is from 2-6 April in Silicon Valley, in short, the business course is build around 5 topics:

Topic 1 – The origins of Disruption
“This topic focusses on the fundamental drivers behind the disruptive nature of internet technology. Why and how are current business paradigms constanly being challenged? What are the characteristics of winner-takes-all markets? Which players are prone to be affected most and why?
During the sessions we will constanly compare new models to existing ones, identifying the factors causing disruption, as well as accompanying opportunities for innovation. Together we will discuss how these developments affect your business now, and in the future.”

Topic 2 – Dealing with Infinite Touchpoints
“From a world with limited and fairly isolated customer contact channels in the ‘pre-digital’ age, we have quickly evolved to the digital and mobile age in which the amount of customer contact channels in theory is infinite. In this new age, it is not enough to simly replicate your activities across different channels to manage cross channel customer behaviour effectively and efficiently.
The management of a large amount of customer contact channels requires a systematic approach that capitalises on each channel’s strenght, while at the same time making optimal use of existing resources. It requires using different analytics and selecting the right KPI’s to measure ROI.
The sessions on this topic discuss how brands and organizations can cope with this new reality, its opportunities and its consequences for channel strategy development and management practice.”

Topic 3 – When consumers talk to each other
“Social media are word-of-mouth on steriods”, said Gary Vaynerchuck in 2008. And they have proven to be just that, and more! Although most organization are aware of the simple fact they should embrace social media, only few actualy do. And many of those who do experience  that embracing social media requires structured social strategy development as well as flawless execution throughout the organisation.
This topic focusses on the succesful use of social media for your organisation, with special attention to social media analytics.”

Topic 4 – The Platform Battle: Mobile internet
“Mobile First! This strategic choice of internet powerhouse Google illustrates the fundamental shift in thinking about internet communication as a consequence of the rise of mobile internet. Together with developments in cloud computing this is probably the most fundamental disruptive technological development of the decade.
Sessions on this topic aim to explore new business models enabled by mobile internet technology as wel as the implications of the current battle for mobile platform dominace between the three key players: Apple OS, Android and Windows.”

Topic 5 – Exploring the Valley
“The last day of the business course will be completely focussed on experiencing the Silicon Valley entrepreneurial spirit. Several visits to Silicon Valley companies will offer a unique view behind the scenes of one of the most vibrating and innovative business environments in the world.”

For all information, have a look here.

Related posts:

1. Executives’ approach on Social Media
2. De impact van sociale media op klantretentie

Second screen and TV ad spend
A viable perspective, a brand as filter,  it might only be a matter of time before valuable advertising revenues also move away from the TV and onto the second screen, this is exactly where brands like Unilever can play a role, be it a filter or as another mechanism. Supplementary information in a branded environment, engaging with customers in their environment on their terms. The brand as a platform.

For a brand to be a filter, it needs to exceed its customer engagement, go beyond and truely connect with its customers.

Brand Intelligence and Social TV

Mr. Weed said “the cloud is important to us because now people can select what they want to view when they want to view it, and as an advertiser there are consequences for that.” This development offers opportunities as well, almost everything can be measured, on top of that, interaction about or with TV content (Social TV) adds another layer of brand intelligence to enhance to connection with the viewers/customers.

Social TV and the insights that can be extracted from various sources will enable brands such as Unilever to:
* Enhance its TV planning and buying
* Test its ad variants or test their own ads against competitors’ ads
* Relate social TV interaction to brand sentiment giving valuable feedback
* Refine audience segmentation in relation to the (branded) TV content and get more value for money

How do you think the on-demand world of content will impact brand advertisers such as Unilever?

Related posts:

1. Unilever Deploys Engagement Project on Facebook to Gain Consumer Insights

Together with Panasonic and its Viera Connect platform will launch Myspace TV tob ring together exclusive channels combined with social networking.

Timberlake said:

“It feels like forever ago that we’d all get together around the set and watch the Cosbys. Along the way, TV stopped being a shared experience, and just became something you consume whenever you have a minute alone. But the problem is that people want to share and talk about what’s happening with their favourite shows and characters. Myspace is all about creating an experience where people can connect to what they’re passionate about and connect with each other based on that shared love.”

Expertreviews.co.uk continues:

 ”MySpace TV will provide an app for Panasonic customers, allowing them to tap into the channels provided and use the social networking features.
It’s planned that the service will launch with music (the social network has a catalogue of more than 42million songs and 100,000 music videos to use), although news sports and reality TV will all come online.
Content will come from a variety of providers, including on-demand services and real-time broadcast networks.”

Venturebeat reports:

 “MyspaceTV is an over-the-top social television service that brings an entirely new dimension to the TV experience you’re familiar with today,” said Tim Vanderhook, the chief executive of Myspace, onstage at Panasonic’s press conference. Vanderhook and his brother, Chris Vanderhook, are the founders of Specific Media, the company that acquired Myspace from News Corp. for $35 million in mid-2011. News Corp. had originally purchased Myspace from its founders in 2005 for $580 million.”

Myspace TV is still Myspace

Even if “Social entertainment experience across all devices” is an interesting customer value proposition, it’s still Myspace, still having the challenges of low traffic and not enough interest from the target audiences.
Will Myspace be able to attract viewers in a fragmented and trending space such as Social TV? It’s certainly an opportunity to revive a dying platform, but this paradox is the challenge.

Thanks for the hat tip @davidcushman

Related posts:

1. Justin Timberlake betreedt de social TV arena met Myspace TV
2. Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP updated article Vualla’s Social TV App Seeks To Become The Social Center Of Your TV Viewing Experience