Outside Television to Launch June 2012

In the upcoming weeks, Comcast will launch Outside Television, a cable network born of the 35-year-old Outside Magazine. The network will provide content focusing on skiing, running, hiking, surfing and other outdoor activities to a group of approximately 140 million outdoor enthusiasts across the United States.

The network will be available as part of a package of specialty sports and lifestyle channels on Comcast's Xfinity TV in key markets near coastlines, mountains, and the Great Lakes, where outdoor activities dominate the local lifestyle. The birth of the new channel reflects the continuous increase in spending time outside as more Americans aspire towards healthier lifestyles.    

Some of the channel's content will be supported by a brand or sponsor, such as the North Face Expeditions program and Warren Miller Entertainment. Outside TV will also work collaboratively with Outside Magazine to provide integrated opportunities for advertisers across television, print, online, mobile, and social media channels. 

Outside Magazine's video content has until recently lived on YouTube, so the new TV network serves as a significant step for mass distribution. Dennis Gillespie, senior VP of Distribution for Outside Television, hopes the new network will encourage an influx of converts to the outdoorsy way of life.

Outside Magazine already acts as a Bible for those who are passionate the active outdoor lifestyle. I think extending their reach with a TV network has the potential to be hugely successful in speaking to a larger audience, and thus allow brands to gain greater awareness and customer loyalty.

NBA Embraces Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest during Playoffs

It's nearly impossible to find a group as impassioned and knowledgeable as die-hard sports fans. Not only are these individuals religiously tuning in to catch the game, they're also seeking to engage with the program on a heightened level by unlocking premium content through social media channels.  According to a recent Mashable infographic, 80% of sports fans monitor social media sites while watching the game on TV, and even 60% of fans do so while attending live events. With buzzer-beating baskets and game-changing fouls happening at rapid fire speed, there's a beautiful marriage that exists between sports and social media, an entity known for its immediacy.     

Cognizant of this harmonious relationship and the extensive presence of their fans on each network, the NBA is leveraging the power of Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest to unite basketball fanatics around the excitement of the NBA playoffs. The NBA will launch its community-rooted "Hoops around the World" program, and encourage fans to tweet photos of their neighborhood courts using the hashtag #hoops. The @nba Twitter account will retweet its favorite shots, and the stunt will culminate in an interactive world map illustration of all submissions before the finals begin.

The NBA will expand to greater audiences with Tumblr and Pinterest, two platforms not typically exploited by the association. The NBA will devote its Tumblr page, launching next Wednesday, to photos from professional basketball history, including shots from classic match-ups and iconic moments from the game's greatest players (pictured above). The NBA's Pinterest page, expected to launch late next week, has a two-tiered strategy. It will drive fans to the NBA's e-commerce site to browse throwback apparel, and feature funny moments in NBA history, quirky characters, and other storylines that reinforce to fans why the NBA is so fun to follow off the court.  

With TV ratings for the impending NBA playoffs expected to shatter those of previous years, the NBA is rightly vamping up its social media outreach. I'm particularly intrigued by the use of Pinterest to interact with fans because of the site's heavily-skewed female audience. It will be interesting to track engagement on each platform throughout the playoffs and see where the league is seeing the greatest success.

Tumblr Introduces New Tools for Brands

Internet memes rarely amount to more than a fleeting laugh or two, but last week a Tumblr-based meme reached both the press and the highest levels of government. "Texts from Hillary," a Tumblr that began as a joke between two friends at a bar, became a national conversation about Secretary Clinton and even garnered a response from the ex-first lady herself.


And though every Tumblr creator may not gain enough exposure to earn an invitation to the State Department from Hill, there's still plenty of room for optimism. The numbers are staggering. Brands take note: with over 120 million users, 50 million blogs, 20 billion posts and 4.5 billion weekly impressions, Tumblr has reach and relevance. And while CEO David Karp initially cringed at the thought of advertising on Tumblr, numbers like that are hard to ignore.

Karp contends that while Tumblr was designed without brands in mind, they began showing up about a year and a half ago on the blog platform, particularly in the fashion and publishing categories. Since then, he and his team have been digging to find out what exactly these companies find valuable and how Tumblr can become more brand-friendly.

Karp announced today at the Ad Age Digital Conference that Tumblr will begin rolling out a new package of features for advertisers, starting with a tool for planting branded Tumblr posts into the blog's Radar feature. Radar, which gets 120 million impressions per day, highlights editorially selected posts in Tumblr's dashboard and exists as a space for brands to advertise both on the site and in Tumblr's mobile app.

The Radar ads will augment two already existing brand-friendly features. In February, Tumblr launched "highlighted posts," allowing Tumblr users to pay $1 per post and gain greater visibility for their work. Tumblr has also experimented with promoted directories, which enables users to achieve a top listing in Tumblr's blog directory. Brands like Huggies, J.Crew, Ann Taylor, and GQ are already finding ways to effectively reach consumers on the platform.


The Radar ad units will launch on May 2, but Karp's core goal for Tumblr is still all about empowering creativity for users. He has mentioned repeatedly that he has no interest in running traditional display ads, so brands will need to work on creating engaging content that is still organic to the Tumblr environment.

YouTube Introduces New Ad Model

I almost never watch TV. Sure I watch a lot of TV shows, but I rarely manage to catch my favorite programs from the comfort of my couch as they are aired live. So, like many other Millennials, I turn to online formats like Netflix, HBO GO, and Hulu to catch up on what I've missed because I can access these portals from almost anywhere. And since it's so quick and convenient, TV viewership is moving rapidly into the online space.

Cognizant of this shift, Youtube has launched a new ad model to support its collection of video channels by selling channel sponsorships to advertisers. Within the Youtube platform already exists clusters of episodic content organized into channels. For example, some channels have themes such as "Young Hollywood," "Mom's View," and "Automotive."

The new ad model will allow brands access to 96 different YouTube channels via sponsorships. The sponsorship package includes standard display ads, overlay, and pre-roll video and deems the sponsor as the sole advertiser on that particular channel. Youtube will cover the cost of production, and then share revenue equally with the sponsor once the investment is reimbursed.

The model uses keyword targeting instead of demographic stats for sponsorship packages, so it's a great way to interact with different lifestyle communities on a platform they're already loyal to.
Brands such as Uniliver, Toyota, GM, AT&T and Lowes have already signed up for the new advertising format and are paying a hefty price. According to Adweek, the ballpark value for sponsorships is an annual $4 to $6 million, depending on the channel. Channel sponsors in the music, pop culture, and sports categories will likely cut the biggest checks.

As online video entertainment reaches the forefront of the digital space, the arena is sure to become more competitive. Since the new format grants brands exclusive share of voice among key influencers in particular channels of interest, this is an incredible opportunity for brands with engaging, consistently refreshed content to stake their claim.

Snowboarding gets Shazamed

If you weren't planning on tuning in to Red Bull's Supernatural snowboarding competition on NBC this Saturday, I highly suggest it. It's going to be epic. The event will feature two hours of the raddest snowboarders in the world shredding through man-made obstacles, jumps and drops, and you can catch the madness from the point-of-view of the boarders as they tear down the slopes.

Thanks to the media-discovery Shazam Application and Contour, an industry leader in video storytelling, viewers nationwide can watch exclusive footage streaming straight from the helmets of top competitors and feel like a part of the action from their own living room.

Intermittent visual reminders throughout the event will prompt viewers to download the app and engage with it during the show, and boarders will urge their fans to get involved through their personal social network profiles. Once Shazam is activated, fans can can unlock content and connect with other viewers through Facebook and Twitter to keep the conversation going.

The Supernatural event is just one installment of the Red Bull Signature Series, an NBC broadcast featuring 35 hours of extreme programming that will roll out in the coming months. And though we've become accustomed to seeming some pretty intense stuff from the world's top athletes, a Red Bull stamp on this event means it's likely to be like nothing we've ever seen.

So the lesson here is that an event this disruptive should be paired with technology that's equally as mind-blowing to enhance the viewer experience. Like many other snow enthusiasts during this snowless winter, I didn't have a chance to hit the slopes these past few months. So a chance to land every jump and flip through the eyes of those competing is the next best thing. Check out the preview of Supernatural below, and follow along with the action Saturday at Twitter handle #supernatural.

Tribesports Leads the Pack in Sports Social Networking

With the 2012 Summer Olympics kicking off in only a few short months, London is busy gearing up for one of most widely enjoyed, legendary sporting events in the world. And while most of us will never be Olympic athletes, it doesn't mean we can't strive to grow our athletic prowess and link up with other enthusiasts who share similar skills and interests. London's got us covered in this endeavor as well.

Tribesports is a London-based, social networking site that provides a hub for the sporting community to share advice, athletic interests, equipment preferences, and fitness challenges. The beta site launched last June, and it's quickly gaining momentum and revenue as more sports fans opt in.

Here's how it works: users first create a profile bio indicating sports they play, their favorite equipment, skill level and other sporting achievements. They can then create challenges to reach any number of goals, ranging from getting a better night's sleep, to training for a 5k, to eating only one bowl of cereal a day. Users can take on the challenges of other Tribesports members, and the site features a live feed of who's doing what.

The site stretches its social legs even further with the invention of "Tribes," which are active communities of users who share sporting interests and can be centered on a discipline, location, skill set, quirky attitude, or even preferences in running music. Through the Tribes vertical, users can organize events, schedule meetups, and seek advice from those at their skill level or more experienced athletes.


And then there's the product side of the platform. Using an intelligent aggregated shopping solution database, Tribesports enables users to search through millions of sports products from over 250 retailers and add their preferences and product reviews to their personal bios. Members can click through directly to retailers, and Tribesports takes commission on all products sold through the website.


The Tribesports community has huge influencing power within the athletic realm. According to website founder Steve Reid, "Sportspeople love talking about their equipment. On Tribesports users can search for more than 1 million products across over 1000 different sports, adding items to their equipment list, or wishlist and add reviews, ask questions or request validation on which equipment best suits their needs."

There's also a huge opportunity for brands to gain exposure within the site, as Tribesports can create targeted sponsorship and advertising packages for companies to directly target any type of athlete, from barefoot runners to archers, in specific markets.

Though sport-specific online communities multiply at an alarming rate, Tribesports is one of the first destinations for all athletic enthusiasts. It provides an easy to navigate interface and non-intimidating format for even the most novice athlete to connect with helpful members. We're excited to see how the site develops as more and more consumers seek to connect their online habits with offline activities.

Off-Location Reporting from SXSW

If you're like me and were unable to make it to this year's South by Southwest Interactive Festival, you may be glued to your Twitter feed trying to keep up with all of the innovation, collective brainstorming, and brilliant rhetoric happening at an alarming rate. After all, SXSW acts as a bellwether for all things tech we're going to see in 2012, so it's foolish not to tune into the buzz.

The 19th annual SXSW conference, which kicked off this past Friday in Austin, TX, gathers a swarm of the greatest minds in the digital space and the most tuned-in, savvy consumers under one roof. Attendees vie to be the first to broadcast new trends to those in their social networks, and are surely glued to their devices at all times.

To save you time and bandwidth, we've culled some highlights in the areas of brand marketing, mobile technology, web services....and even binge eating.

Brand Marketing

Though many scorn the presence of big brands as a departure from traditional SXSW protocol, marketers have entered the mix and are making their presence known. Though some brands attend simply to return home with an iPad full of notes about this year's hottest trends, others make waves by introducing services to the nation's largest audience of early adopters and vigilant influencers.

Chevrolet is one of a few big names in attendance this year. They're promoting Chevy via their own version of OnStar called Catch-a-Chevy, which offers a premium experience for conference attendees by shuttling them from event to event in cars filled with indie music and graffiti-art. Chris Perry, VP of U.S. marketing for GM, describes the initiative as an effort to reach out to social-media influencers: "All of the Chevy activiations at SXSW are focused on bringing value to the participants while giving them a positive experience with our brand," (Ad Age).

Kraft is also generating brand buzz by hosting oreo-branded ice cream socials, placing mac-and-cheese trucks throughout the SXSW grounds, and offering Wi-Fi hotspots and charging stations.

Mobile Applications
The latest in mobile technology is always a top area of interest for entrepreneurs, developers, and consumers at SXSW. This year, a new technology called Highlight seems to be making the biggest splash.

 

Highlight is a social, location-based app that allows users to log in through Facebook and locate friends with similar interests who are nearby. The app recommends who you should contact based on mutual interests, mutual friends, and a slew of other Facebook content. As of late, the app is only available for iPhone users and has received some criticism for draining battery life.

Web Services

According to a PCWorld article, a technology known as Correlate is slated to change the game of customer service by making sense of e-mails coming from consumers. The service first syncs with your e-mail inbox and uses labels and flags to categorize what's coming in based on the content and sender. Correlate then attempts to derive the sentiment of the e-mail and allows the recipient to easily uncover major themes and company issues that may need addressing.

Though it's hard to predict the future success of Correlate, the service shows great potential for companies that frequently interact with their customers.

Binge-Eating?

And finally, what tech convention wouldn't be complete without an eating contest and brief cameo from a gorging superstar? On Sunday, everyone's favorite world renowned foodie Kobayashi set the world record for eating 13 grilled cheeses in one minute. Grilled cheese is a childhood favorite of mine, but after catching the video below I'm not sure if I'll ever eat one again.