Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

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• Entertainment Blockbusters - A Whole New World

  May 9, 2008 :: Anson Burtch :: 1 Comments
  A new entertainment blockbuster was released everywhere on April 29th.   The media was all over its release with stories, reviews, and commentary.  Fans lined up in droves the day before to be the first to experience it.  After the first day, the blockbuster had raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.  
  
  What caused all this stir?  Was this the new Indiana Jones movie?  Or maybe the latest Rolling Stones tour?  No, the blockbuster in question was Rockstar Games latest release, Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA).  That's right - a video game.  Welcome to the 21st century, where movies, television shows, and concert tours compete with console-based video games.  Games give an added dimension in that they incorporate these other forms of entertainment and then give the user the ability to control them.  Witness the popular Guitar Hero video game which is like rock concert except you are the one playing.  Or GTA itself, which is highly cinematic in its lighting and camera angles so it feels like you are moving around inside a movie.  
  
  While the target demographics may be narrow for such titles as GTA, the profit margins are anything but.  The game sold 3.6 million copies on its first day which translated into $310 million in sales.  By the end of the first week 6 million units had sold for a total of $500 million in sales.  The movie release of "Iron Man" that very same weekend generated a mere $104 million at the box office.  GTA's numbers smash the income garnered from most Hollywood films during their entire theatrical release.
  
  GTA reportedly cost about $100 million to produce.  Compare this to Spiderman III ($258 million) and even Titanic ($200 million in 1997 dollars), and the video game is starting to look like a bargain that generates huge profit margins.   With this kind of consumer anticipation, media fenzy, and return on investment, video games have come of age.  No longer are they the second cousin or a nickel and dime industry.  Monetarily, video games have arrived and will be a permanent part of the entertainment landscape for decades to come.
  Tags: blockbuster burtch demographics entertainment grand-theft-auto gross iron-man movies profit video-games

• Public Opinion in Presidential Elections

  Mar 28, 2008 :: Anson Burtch :: 0 Comments
  I attended a fascinating lecture by CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider last night at UNC’s school of Journalism and Mass Communications.  While the title of the lecture was “The Role of Media in Politics,” the discussion focused more on the role of public opinion and how the mood of the times shapes the political debate and ultimately decides who gets elected.
  
  Schneider opened with a quote from former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. "There are only two things you must know to pursue a career in public life. You must know yourself, and you must know the times."  As someone who analyzes polls for a living, Schneider identifies “knowing the times,” as the key to political punditry.
  
  Public opinion saved Bill Clinton’s political career. When the Monica Lewinski scandal hit, the media declared Clinton finished. A poll was taken, and Clinton’s already high approval ratings went up 10%. Two-thirds of Americans believed he should not be removed from office, even though the same two-thirds agreed he lied under oath. Overnight, conventional wisdom shifted, and the media was now talking about the “comeback kid.”
  
  When it comes to public opinion and presidential elections, Schneider coined a concept he calls the “law of missing imperatives.” It asks the question: what do the voters want that they are not getting from the incumbent? In 1968, American politics, especially the Democratic Party was in turmoil. Violence and unrest were prevalent, and the country seemed to be coming apart. So voters elected Richard Nixon, because they viewed him as a strong man who could bring order. He was also a moderate republican in the middle of the political spectrum.
  
  In 1976 after the Watergate scandal, Americans felt lied to and betrayed by their president.  Polls showed the American public wanted morality. Along came Jimmy Carter who famously stated, “I will never lie to you” and won the election. Four years later in 1980, Carter had earned a reputation for being wishy-washy and indecisive. In response, the country now yearned for a strong decisive leader, and Ronald Reagan fit the bill.
  
  We can apply this logic to each presidential election cycle. In 1992 Americans saw George Bush Sr. as out of touch with regular everyday people. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, played saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show and specialized in empathy. His ability to connect won him the White House. Most recently, in 2004, John Kerry ran on the platform of a strong ex-military veteran, someone capable of taking on the role of commander-in-chief. According to Schneider, Kerry read the times wrong. People felt like they had a strong commander-in-chief already and weren’t looking for someone to fill that role. While this type of analysis does oversimplify things and paint very broad strokes, there is some truth to it and it illustrates the importance of public opinion.
  
  Mr. Schneider went on to talk about this year’s crop of candidates. One of the most unique things about Barack Obama is that he is an African-American politician who does not come from the civil rights movement. His perspective isn’t one of racial grievance, as others have had, and he’s not making it a part of his campaign. Obama is also running as an outsider, someone not tied to special interests or “politics as usual” in Washington. Schneider believes that Obama is in tune with the times and is aware that people want to be united. They are tired of the rampant partisan politics perpetrated by the Bush administration and are looking specifically for someone to bring them together. (Ironically, before being elected president George W. Bush said, “I’m a uniter, not a divider,” and then spent the next eight years doing the exact opposite.) Hillary Clinton is running on her experience. She delivers, Obama inspires. That is why the race for the Democratic nomination is so close. Both options are attractive.   
  
  Mr. Schneider pointed out that while this election should be a sure thing for the Democratic Party, it is not. John McCain also offers a uniting policy. He is viewed as outside the Bush administration and has acted bi-partisan in the past. In order for the Democrats to win, they must paint a McCain presidency as if it would be Bush’s third term.
  
  A dynamic speaker, Mr. Schneider was insightful and confident about his topic. If there was one take-away from his lecture it is that politicians must know their times and ignoring public opinion will cost them.
  
  
  Tags: barack bill-schneider cnn media obama presidential-politics public public-opinion

• The Writers’ Strike OR How I learned to love the blog

  Jan 16, 2008 :: Anson Burtch :: 0 Comments

  I’ll admit it.  I have never been a fan of blogs.  When the phenomenon first appeared, the very advantage it offered – now anyone can get their opinions out in cyberspace for the world to read – was exactly what kept me away.  Who are these people?  Why waste your time reading what Joe Schmo has to say on a topic he probably knows nothing about?  As the popularity of blogs grew and even as blogs started appearing that were written by actual experts, I remained unconvinced.  Call me old fashioned, but I preferred my news with some sense of credibility and fact checking behind it.

  Then something happened that fundamentally changed my view.  The Writers Guild of America went on strike in November.  This is a huge issue, which not only affects millions of TV viewers, but hundreds of thousands of people employed in the entertainment industry (but that’s a subject for a different post).  Immediately I scoured the web for information about the strike.  I tried the traditional news outlets, TV station sites, newspaper sites, magazines, and came up with nothing.  A few gave it a brief mention, but I was amazed at how such a huge issue that affects a large segment of California’s economy barely moved the needle.  (Of course then I realized, the networks and the news are owned by the very companies the writers are striking against…D’oh!) 

  Further research led me to Unitedhollywood.com, an unofficial blog started by some of the guild's strike captains.  Needless to say, I was immediately hooked.  Here was a place where I could get unfiltered information straight from the source.  While obviously biased, this was exactly what I wanted - a blow-by-blow tally of the ongoing fight complete with strategy, tactics and the dirty tricks the other side is playing - things that would never make it in the nightly news.  I’ve got the site bookmarked and now check it daily.  Ironically, reading this blog led me to (gasp!) read other blogs.  All those embedded links were so inviting it was easy to click through and read someone else’s opinion.   I hear that the comments sections are a big part of the blog experience, but I’m not that far gone….yet.

  
  

  Tags: blogs i-hate-blogs writers writers-strike