David LaPlante

Mobile ESPN Fumbles...Is Disney Next? Or will Apple's MVNO Get the Content? Plus: Why Cabela's Should Acquire the ESPN MVNO Assets.

 

The news of today in mobile is that ESPN is cutting it's Mobile ESPN MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) service. I'm sure this was a supervise to many, however, a long list of industry pundits have been on the Mobile ESPN deathwatch almost since its birth.

Many will drumbeat this as a "lost game", however, I think that this was a merely a First Quarter fumble and ESPN is still poised to win the mobile and wireless sports content game.

(What I do know is that a lot of bloggers -- including myself -- will use this as an opportunity to write some really bad sports cliches in their posts <grin>!)

A notice to the Mobile ESPN Web site today states:

"Thank you for your support of Mobile ESPN. We have been proud to provide fans like you the best wireless sports content experience.

We have, however, decided to change the direction of Mobile ESPN. As of December 31, 2006, Mobile ESPN will cease its wireless service...

...good news is the Mobile ESPN content you have come to enjoy and expect will soon be available through the service of another nationwide wireless provider."

Hmmm. So let's look at some scenarios moving forward that explain today's actions. Comment back what scenario you think is most likely, or add your own:

1. Disney/ESPN thinking: Let's cut all the branding, billing and MVNO overhead and pitch it back upstream to Sprint for an exclusive carrier-on-deck content deal.
2. Disney/ESPN thinking: Let's cut all the branding, billing and MVNO overhead and pitch it out to all the carriers for a long-term non-exclusive carrier-off-deck subscription fees and/or consumption "taxes".
3. Disney/ESPN/Apple thinking: Apple will have their "MVNO/i-phone" out in the next year...we'll scuttle Disney's MVNO and roll ESPN/Disney content in to an Apple MVNO exclusive. An iTunes/Disney/ESPN content conglomerate that only Elliot Spitzer could stop. After all, the only reason Dad will move the whole famdamily over to an Apple MVNO for the Disney iTunes is if there's "something in it for me". (Not that I would know <grin>!)

Anyway, one could easily get carried away with trying to "over-guess" this.

Bottom line is really simple: not enough subscribers. For this, however, there will be no simple answer. (Yes, one will be given, however, we know it ain't always simple to explain away these things.)

Was Sprint the wrong partner? This is doubtful, they were clearly the best network for pushing the 3G video content.

Was the phone selection too expensive or not age-demographic appropriate? Again, not clear. The phones were great, however, amid the Motorola Razr tsunami and a Windows Mobile 5.0 launch, the initially expensive Sanyo was a brand and a price that sports fans may have found too much to digest to switch carriers for.

My guess is it simply came down to the paradigm shift and timing of the content distribution. Should ESPN be available for fees and subscriptions to all major US carriers? Hell yes. Just as ESPN content is not exclusively restricted to just cable operators and not available to DirectTV satellite providers. And from a paradigm shift, we're still trying to piece together the social aspects of why MySpace -- with a clearly inferior user-interface and kludgy functionality -- blew the pants off of Friendster, Ryze, Tribe, Facebook, Xanga etc.

So does this spell disaster for the myriad of MVNO's out there today? Yes and no. Disney may be up the same creek. They're probably better off long-term focusing on making their content as "widely" distributed over as many carriers as possible than "exclusive" deals.

Cabela's MVNO Would Work

I've been joking around for at least three years now that Cabela's should startup an MVNO. My partners would be stoked just so I'd quit yammering about it. The social demographics of Cabela's customers are compelling and they have the distribution channels nailed. I would soooo love to be sitting in a London coffee shop at some trade show talking on an Advantage Camo cell phone. The stares from the London business elite alone would be worth a 30% premium price for the phone.

The Salt Lake City Cabela's store pulled in more visitors than the Mormon Temple in its first year. Cabela's is an Internet commerce, direct-mail catalogue, retail success story like no other right now:

• Cabela's is the nation's largest direct marketer
• Cabela's is the leading specialty retailer for
• hunting, fishing and camping (the nation's pastime)
• (more folks do these activities than get ESPN on cable, that's for sure)

Hunting, fishing and camping are social-oriented lifestyle brands that Cabela's can easily capitalize on, more than content like Disney, ESPN, or the Outdoor Channel for that matter.

Reno has promised our collective first-born sons (well at least their college education funds in my case <grin>) to get Cabela's to open a retail location here.

I can hope by the time it's open here they've acquired the ESPN MVNO assets and are offering cell phones in Wetland, Advatage and Scent-Lok! If you're from Cabela's and are reading this...give me a call. I've got three years of thought in to this one!

 
  Technorati : Apple, Cabela's, Disney, ESPN, ESPNMVNO, MVNO, Nevada, Reno, SLC, Salt Lake City, Sprint, carriers, marketing, mobile, mobileESPN, subscribers, wireless
Del.icio.us : Apple, Cabela's, Disney, ESPN, ESPNMVNO, MVNO, Nevada, Reno, SLC, Salt Lake City, Sprint, carriers, marketing, mobile, mobileESPN, subscribers, wireless

Excellent article on why relationship messaging with email is a struggle

Daniel Enemark wrote an outstanding article on email and its challenges in relationship messaging. In "It's all about me: Why e-mails are so easily misunderstood", he highlights that researchers are consistently pointing to the difficulty of expressing and conveying emotion as the chief culprit in misunderstood or ineffective dialog. (This applies to any text-based communication. SMS is often worse. IM at least has embedded emoticons.)

I am particularly aware of this from experience within my own inbox and the experiences of customers as they struggle with using email effectively in their marketing. Read a post of mine from May 3, 2004 on Bad Email Habits Observed.

Effective use of email in relationships management is a science. This article and the researchers it cites corroborates why we -- Twelve Horses that is -- went from being an email-centric business in 2002 to a relationship marketing and messaging management company where email is one of multiple channels of communication. We simply couldn't ignore the fact that sometimes a follow-up phone call is what it took to make an effective email campaign convert at a higher rate.

The article cites this at the bottom of the story:

So if you want to buy something on Craig's List, Morris says, "make a brief phone call, even if it's not practical to do the whole negotiation by phone. You can establish a favorable bias with someone and then proceed in a less rich medium, but it's very hard to just get right into the negotiation on a medium that isn't rich."

Email is extremely effective when used at the right time (T), with the right relevance (R), delivered to the appropriate location (L) and used with permission (P). TRL+P is the formula for any communication.  As is any communication. The KEY is to recognize that it can't always be about email. Sometimes a phone call, a text message, a fax, a letter, or even in in-person meeting makes the difference.

My favorite quote out of the article:

Though e-mail is a powerful and convenient medium, researchers have identified three major problems. First and foremost, e-mail lacks cues like facial expression and tone of voice. That makes it difficult for recipients to decode meaning well. Second, the prospect of instantaneous communication creates an urgency that pressures e-mailers to think and write quickly, which can lead to carelessness. Finally, the inability to develop personal rapport over e-mail makes relationships fragile in the face of conflict.

Bingo. Could not have written it better. Here's a link to the study by Profs. Justin Kruger of New York University and Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago that the article cites.

MTV Gets It: Content for the Short Attention Span Generation

So Randy Kennedy at the NY Times wrote an amazing and well thought-out analysis of why MTV will not die (MTV turns 25 this year), but will adapt and transmogrify to survive perhaps another 25 years on the third screen.

I'm something of a freak and a modern-day wonder in that I have somehow made it to this ripe 30-something age without ever having a cable subscription. I was never addicted to and had to have"my MTV"...

I have, however, in the last year become a "video snacker" of MTV podcasts. I've been socially aware of my pop-culture surroundings for the last 25 years to know who Kurt Loder is. Without these MTV Podcasts tho' I'd never know who Sway is.

Here's some choice quotes from the NYT article to get you to read it:

"Short-Attention-Span-Theater Consumers in one test said that any show longer than three minutes was simply too long."

"Even now, in its infancy, mobile video is starting to make the very definition of television, as a place where people watch "shows" on "channels," sound pleasantly anachronistic, like a description from an old issue of Popular Mechanics."

"MTV's research seems to support Calloway's impressions, showing, for example, that more than 40 percent of the network's viewers use phones with text-messaging ability."

"People prognosticating about this world talk a lot about "video snacking," with all the implications for brevity and empty calories that the term suggests."

______________________________

End notes:

As I finish up posting this, Logan (age six) comes bouncing in to the house from Yoga with mom . He sees my iPod on the table, snags it, plugs in headphones and navigates to all the ESPN X-games content and starts watching it. He can barely read but he can navigate, access and enjoy content on my iPod. NOTE: He's sitting 6 feet away from a large TV that he could have had on in 2 seconds. He would rather watch the iPod.

Diggnation promo's Reno-Tahoe

Gotta download and listen to Diggnation Episode #30 whereby we (Diggnation, Twelve Horses and the Reno-Tahoe destination) make Podcasting history. The first technology podcast to promote a vacation destination is in the iTunes can! Listen to the last 5 minutes...

What will be interesting here is the response rate...stay tuned!

Verizon sues telemarketers

The carriers tend to get beat up a lot. Sometimes deservingly so, other times they're the easiest target:

• "I ran out of gas, dammit Sprint!"
• "This whole Iraq thing - clearly a standards battle between CDMA and GSM."
• "The neighbor's dog -- I think his name is Cingular -- just crapped on my lawn."

So when a carrier does something really Really REALLY right, it should be recognized. Please recognize Verizon today for suing two spamming telemarketers (article on San Jose Mercury News) and reinforcing a message that spammers are not welcome on any communications channel:

Verizon Wireless filed a lawsuit Wednesday against a San Diego-based telemarketer that allegedly sent unsolicited recorded calls to more than 1 million California cell-phone customers this summer.

&

Verizon filed a second similar lawsuit Wednesday against Coral Springs, Fla.-based Resort Marketing Trends, also seeking an injunction. The suit alleges that the company made an estimated 280,000 unsolicited calls since July to Verizon cell phone customers, mainly in New Jersey.

Last year, if you recall, Verizon sued 51 individuals it said exploited the Verizon network to send millions of unsolicited text messages.

Thank you Verizon. Good job.

Quitting mainstream media...

As of this week I am no longer a regularly featured columnist in the local Reno Gazette Journal. In other words, I'm quitting my only mainstream media ('MSM') affiliation.

My purpose for writing a local column was weighted and distributed as follows:

• 50% to attract new and qualified talented employees while avoiding costly recruiting fees
• 30% local brand awareness for our products/services
• 20% experimentation with MSM and see what type of reaction I would get

As expected, ninety percent of the dialogue that came back to me was from rather strange folks that had either a conspiracy theory or decided that I would be a willing ear to vent on or both. I also received a tremendous amount of "charity spam".

For that reason I am running back to the shelter of blogging and will turn my attention to thinking about podcasts and what effect they will have on marketing communications, messaging and how it rocks the concepts of corporate control!

Bacon's and Blogs: No big surprise

MediaPost reports today that Bacon's—the PR and corporate communications bible of who's who among broadcast, print and Internet media—will begin listing blogs. No big surprise here—only more validation that blogging is now officially part of the marketing communications mix.

From the article:

In January, Bacon's MediaSource will begin sharing with its clients the names of what it considers to be the 250 most reputable blogs, the messages they contain, and the frequency with which client-relevant information appears on them.

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Banks Struggle with Service

From: Banks are Failing to Provide Service Excellence

At Bank of America, for example, there will be some 30,000 new hires annually, but roughly 43,000 will leave the bank. The difference is the number of jobs that won't be replaced.

Service automation is the promised land; however, why can't my bank send me a SMS when they make a mistake on a wire or if there's an issue with my account? Now, that would be service excellence.

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