Last week I went to Channel 4 HQ for a meeting with Richard Davidson-Houston and his colleague Mark Haefner. The purpose, was to show them my dissertation where I demonstrated how brands can communicate in conversations with their consumer. I had used Channel 4’s On Demand service, 4OD, as a test subject. Of course, as a recently graduated student, I had the ulterior motive of trying to get a job out of it too.
First impressions of the building were great. If you own a telly, which I imagine you do, you’ve probably seen the Channel 4 idents with a 4 made up of pylons, council estate, rock and so on. The camera pans around until it becomes clearly visible. Well at the entrance to C4 HQ they’ve got a massive 4 made up of umbrellas, which becomes clearly visible as you walk up to the front entrance.
The guys liked my ideas and they told me about forthcoming communications and developments that they have planned, to which I gave my opinions and constructive criticisms where necessary. Perhaps giving criticism to a potential employer is a stupid idea but these were nice guys and I was being my honest self. If anything I’ve given them valuable consumer feedback, for free.
So C4 programmes are on YouTube, very good, and about time. They’ve realised that they need to bring content to the user instead of merely driving consumers towards the content. My dissertation revolved around this concept of people using social networks as their ‘hub’ or base station and if people, or brands, want to communicate with them then that’s where to do it.
One of the most obvious and popular examples is Facebook. Do you know anyone that hasn’t got a Facebook profile? If you do, there amoung a few. As a planet we populate this hub in greater volumes than some countries so that’s were content providers such as C4 need to provide content.
So I believe that C4 along with other television programmes should provide their content ON Facebook. We as consumers can then watch what we want, when we want, how we want and with who we want. See my photoshopped examples below.
4OD for Facebook Fan Page. With updates of latest programmes such as Deal or No Deal. Users can ‘like’ and comment. Adverts on the right can change according what programmes are most recent, such as the ad for the Deal or No Deal scratch card.
Watch programmes with friends and chat in adjacent window. Adverts on the right can change according to what users have said in the chat box. In this example Julia says: “Omg I wanna get the box set so bad!” and the ad has changed to an advert for the Desperate Housewives box set.
Watch in full screen whilst chat box is hidden or turned off.
A users status is automatically updated so that their friends can see what they’re watching and who with. They can ‘like’, comment, join you, or start watching in their own thread. This is social television viewing.
On a users profile a favourites box can be added which is updated automatically with a users top 5 favourite programmes as they’re released.
It also turns out that C4 are trying to work out ways of driving traffic from short video clips of programmes, to the full length versions on the 4OD site. The company I’m working at now would be perfect for doing just that, so it’s possible that We Are Social could pitch for this account.
