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By Mavis Scanlon
This is the first in a series of monthly reports on cable marketing.
After almost three years in the video-on-demand space, Scripps Networks is still grappling with the best ways to market and deliver the service.
Since Scripps' VOD content is available only in certain markets-its HGTV, Food Network, DIY and Fine Living VOD packages are available to about 7.5 million digital cable subscribers-it can't advertise the service on its national networks. Its cable operator partners may have their own branding initiatives for on-demand services. And operators may have strategic objectives, such as reducing churn, that are different from networks' objectives, which include branding and driving viewers. That could lead to differences over the best way to market the service.
"We actually have a three- or four-part marketing strategy, whereas the cable operator has a one- or two-tier marketing strategy," says Channing Dawson, SVP, emerging media, for Scripps. Eventually, Dawson says, "a fair amount of the consumption of our product will be on demand, and that has all sorts of implications for all parts of our business," from programming, packaging and producing to marketing and advertising.
As David Zaslav, president of NBC Cable Networks, points out, everyone in the cable industry agrees that video on demand makes digital cable more attractive to customers. That may be about the only point of consensus, however.
Operators differ over the best way to offer VOD-for free, by individual title or by subscription. Broadcast and cable networks and network groups offer their content in a variety of ways. Up in the air is the question of exactly what consumers want from VOD-all original content or repackaged content. And there is still not enough VOD content, in part due to studios' unwillingness to release product closer to when they are released on DVD. In short, developing vibrant marketing programs for VOD are the least of the networks' problems.
"The economic model and the rights issues associated with clearing that content are the two issues that we've been struggling with for a year-and we're still struggling," Zaslav says.
And while the industry dickers over these undeniably important issues, it risks losing consumers' attention to the DVR.
"If you can record everything from your ten favorite channels on a PVR, then having that material on VOD is not such a big deal," says Josh Sapan, president and CEO, Rainbow Media Holdings.
Sapan advocates producing original content for the VOD platform, arguing that original VOD content such as Rainbow's Mag Rack, Sports School and World Picks will eventually become the brands most associated with the technology.
Dawson at Scripps also says that on-demand content has to be distinctive and has to serve a particular audience in order to be successful. To that end, Scripps delivers highly edited versions of its networks' content, including compilations of content focused on one subject, such as "Ten Window Treatments," and shorter openings to segments.
"We're starting to rethink how you get in and out of segments," Dawson says. "You start to rethink how you build segments so you have just as much content in a faster segment, knowing that people have a hair trigger on the remote."
Education is another clear marketing challenge, but one that the industry is trying to meet. As Stacey O'Neill Whitt, Scripps' director of marketing, emerging media, points out, one 30-second spot or a single-page ad may have to include several messages, including how video on demand is different from a standard network, how to access it, the cost (free or not) and how to navigate in a VOD window.
"There is no standardization between the MSOs, so all those navigational and educational messages have to be customized for each operator," she says.
It's a lot to take in. The best approach, she says, is, first, to work with the operator to get a general awareness message out about on demand and how it differs from standard networks. From there, use the brand and the content to deliver the narrow message showing the value of the service and how viewers will benefit by using it.
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