Farewell Clubcard TV; I don’t suppose you’ll be missed
With the most detailed information on viewer shopping and lifestyle habits you could wish for, Tesco’s Clubcard TV once looked like a strong advertising proposition. Where did it all go wrong? By Dominic Mills.
As bloated Tesco crumbles under immense (and mostly self-inflicted) pressure, so it is that far-flung parts of the once-mighty empire are being put to sleep – ‘media’ parts, to start with.
One of the first to go will be Clubcard TV, which shuts down at the end of the month. Did you know?
You could be forgiven for not knowing because, cunningly, Tesco announced this on the ‘About‘ support page of the Clubcard TV website.
It actually did this in August, and guess what? No-one seems to have noticed, or cared, at the time, presumably because no-one watches it. (The same pretty much applies to London Live, and I bet the Evening Standard wishes it could pull the plug under the cover of darkness also.)
In fact, it was only last week when the future of Tesco’s streaming service, Blinkbox, was called into question, that anyone in medialand woke up to the disappearance of Clubcard TV.
Since Clubcard TV is ‘powered’ by Blinkbox, as it says on the blurb, the two are obviously closely linked.
Is Blinkbox for sale? It’s not quite clear yet: new chief executive Dave Lewis popped in to the service’s Clerkenwell offices 10 days ago and, it seems, left staff none the wiser as to their future, but certainly not optimistic.
If Blinkbox goes, it surely can’t be too long before the other parts of what you might call Tesco Media are closed or sold: for example, the music streaming service, formerly known as We7, but since rebadged under the Blinkbox name; or books, also branded to Blinkbox.
We all remember too that in January 2010, right at the very summit of its powers, Tesco announced that it would be making straight-to-DVD-films with Joan Collins (or Jackie; or both – it was never quite clear).
With hindsight, I think this qualifies as ‘peak hubris’, the day it parted company with reality.
Was there ever any logic to Tesco Media? In a sense, it was a big bet on the ‘connected consumer’, part defensive, part expansionist. The expansionist part, which was where the project started, was predicated on Tesco’s position as the number one retailer of music and entertainment, and its enormous reach into middle England.
The defensive part emerged a little later, a reaction to Amazon’s (as yet unrealised) threat to its core business. If Amazon started selling – or providing a platform for the sale of – groceries and household goods then it could eat into Tesco’s business.
But if it could hook consumers in via entertainment, and maximise the time spent on Tesco media properties, then Amazon’s threat could be nullified. Better still, if they could be cocooned in ‘Tescoland’ for their entertainment and online shopping needs via the Hudl tablet, then they might never have to leave.
Add in the Clubcard data, and a proposition like ad-funded Clubcard TV looked even stronger: the most detailed information on viewer shopping and lifestyle habits you could wish for to be used to sell advertising.
Where did it go wrong? Well, if you look at what’s on offer, it’s in the content: a small selection and nothing you can’t get anywhere else.
As for Blinkbox, it is caught between a rock and hard place: it’s way off critical mass, and the investment needed just to stand still in technology terms, let alone grow the audience, needs to go towards protecting the core business.
What’s left then of Tesco Media? Assuming Blinkbox goes or is moth-balled, it’s all down to the Hudl, with version 2 launched last Friday (3 October).
With 750,000 units of version 1 shifted, there is clearly a market for the Hudl. But whether it holds the key to Tesco’s digital/multi-channel future is the big question. And if it does, can it justify the ongoing investment? We’ll only know if there’s a version 3.
Crikey, a woman fronts a Viagra ad
One of the roles of this column is to bring joy and laughter from the mad world of advertising.
In that spirit, here’s the latest Viagra TV commercial from the US, noteworthy for several reasons.
One, it features a young woman speaking straight to camera rather than the middle-aged saps more commonly seen. Is this because a) Pfizer is targeting a younger market or b) In the same way women are the key influencers in car purchases these days, the same is true of ED drugs?
Two, she actually mentions the word ‘erection’. And I thought all US advertising was prudish.
Three, she’s English. Why? Is there nothing like an English accent to stir the fantasies of your average American male? By the way, she refers to her bloke as ‘her honey’. Yuk. Very un-English.
Four, about 30 seconds in, enjoy the visual symbolism of the upright masts on the yacht. Hmm, very Freudian.
Five, also from 30 seconds in – and accounting for almost half the total length of the ad – listen to all the side-effect warnings: “unsafe drop in blood pressure, headaches, flushing, upset stomach, abnormal vision and a sudden decrease or loss in vision or hearing.”
It’s so off-putting, it makes you wonder why Pfizer bothered. But then you realise Viagra goes off patent in about three years, so Pfizer will flog it for all it can between now and then. Expect to see more stuff like this.