Robin Kelly reports on a new development  at what is probably the biggest television festival in the world:

For a television festival, Mipcom April 7-11, 2008 was interesting in that it focussed less on the business of production and programming and more on distribution platforms, social networks, mobile extensions and advertising. From the online aggregators of hi-end broadband content like Hulu, Blinkx and Brightcove came the industry gauntlet of ‘work with us and make some money or the pirates will find it illegally and you won’t…’
Not that the studios and producers aren’t interested in extending their reach. The real question was how do you make new money on new platforms? How do you convert a massive online social network into cash?
Simple really – advertising. But is the advertising industry ready to reinvent their clients across websites and wapsites? Is the ad industry capable of more than the 30 second spot?

New media brands
Welcome ad agency Ogilvy, MIP’s latest partner invited precisely to answer the question of transforming brands onto these new platforms and content models. After a humble and cautious start (it is the first time the ad industry has been invited and represented at the conference), Patou Nuytemans, digital director at Ogilvy One, introduced Michael Tchao, GM of Nike’s Techlab Group. He’s tasked with expanding the company’s venture into consumer electronics.
And what followed was the highlight of the four days in the rainy southern coast of ridiculously expensive and beautiful Cannes. Nike +, a collaboration between Nike and iPod, is a tremendously successful crossplatform extension of two brands. As a case study for how brands and products can fund the new platforms television is playing out on, it’s inspiring.

The mutual benefits of a Joint Venture
At any gym or long stretch of road, you’ll see it. Runners and cyclists with iPods. It almost seems strange that the two companies haven’t collaborated before. Nike + takes things a lot further than personalised pouches in shirts and shorts for slipping the Nano into though. With a Bluetooth connection between two electronics connected to the Nike shoe and Nano, Nike+ measures your pace and speed. After your run, iTunes uploads the data to a site where your effort is stored visually. It’s in the storing process that the power of the social network comes into effect. After a simple registration, you’re invited into the biggest community of like-minded running individuals across the globe, virtually competing against each other in very real races. As a single example, the US West coast challenged the East coast to a 30 day race: whoever could accumulate the most team members (by aligning yourself online) to gathering the most number of miles in a month, would win.

The Cash Network
Nike+ makes money through sales of the tech. The setup involves the shoes, the ipod, or the new Nike strap – for those who don’t run to music (obviously this moves beyond the Apple collaboration). But the real business is based on the spending power of the millions using the site. For example, a few thousand runners, referring to themselves as the ‘500 mile club’, asked Nike to create a running shirt for those who’d earned the honour. And that’s exactly what they did – create a whole new on-demand business, based on pure demand, not the touch and go of global distribution.

The Human Race
The Nike+ campaign culminates in a global event just prior to the Beijing Olympics – The Human Race. 1 million runners, 10 miles, and a race that anyone can enter from any place on the planet – just so long as you jog up the distance within the time the race starts and ends. The commercial spin offs for this – besides the fact that Nike is hoping this chain of runners will be visible from space – are endless.

What TV can learn from this
Nike’s evolution from campaigns focussed on the individual runner and sport stars in the 80s and 90s, to a globally connected network of all level of runners interacting with each other and the brand indivisibly, is a promising sign for the television industry. As TV expands onto new devices, through new means, in an environment where an audience proactively consumes content when, where and how they want it, producers and networks need to ensure new ways to fund the growth. Independently, Nike and ipod are global brands with little in common. That users of both products created a bridge that both companies capitalised on, shows how much can be gained by listening to your audience. IPTV affords satellite and cable operators, television studios and networks, an ability to canvas want people really want and when. By collaborating with device manufacturers (think Spiderman3 on the Nokia N95), online networks (think CBS and Joost, NBC and Hulu), television is poised to reinvent itself in ways the music industry failed to.
That the advertising industry is as involved in these changes in carrying their brands onto the new networks, that they’re even at the world’s biggest television conference agreeing that there’s more to the commercial possibilities than the 30 second spot (that even the PVR leaves behind), is a good sign.
 

_{Robin Kelly is a founder of Don’t Look Down Communication (2001) and co-owner of Don’t Look Down Entertainment (2005). He works on multiplatform new media strategies for digital entertainment companies and manages teams of people in the delivery of these strategies.}