Within hours of the deadly Sept. 11 attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., it became painfully clear to managers at Putnam Investments that staff, brokers and
stockholders needed, as quickly as possible, comprehensive information about how these events affect the company and its investment outlook. Ordinarily, major financial players
like Putnam communicate executive messages via a complex and costly live satellite uplink to brokers gathered in hotels around the country. However, in the midst of this
unprecedented crisis, Putnam joined with a number of companies in exploiting Webcasting's unique ability to communicate to diverse constituencies quickly and inexpensively.
"We got word on Wednesday that they would be turning to us to deliver 20 five-minute on-demand pieces from the CEO to investment managers," says Jack Heath, president of
Biznews24, a streaming media provider. By Friday, the Putnam site, which a year before had virtually no multimedia content, was covered with links to full video messages from the
CEO. "They had probably the biggest distribution of streaming content by any customer I've ever seen," says Heath, yet it cost the company only about $20,000, much less than the
$100,000 pricetag for satellite uplink gatherings. "Now they totally do things this way."
If declining budgets and shrinking staffs weren't enough, the travel jitters following the events of Sept. 11 have begun to move large amounts of corporate PR onto the
Webcasting platform. "The phone is ringing a lot more, a 30 percent to 40 percent increase," says Stewart Chapin, SVP marketing for Activate, a Webcasting subsidiary of Loudeye
Technologies. One company that had been promising to try a streaming media presentation "sometime in the future" contacted Chapin shortly after the attacks and scheduled six
Webcast events in three weeks. While many of his clients already had been testing the waters of online communications alternatives for their time and travel savings, "one of the
big impacts of Sept. 11 is that it has brought it all into focus for people who were moving on a slower or pilot path," he says.
Something More Than Cool
Not only has the sheer volume of corporate Webcasting escalated sharply in these post-attack months, the medium is being asked to carry a much broader range of communications
tasks. It's not just audio/video-on-demand anymore. "In 95 percent of cases, there is something more than a naked stream," says Chapin. Synchronized slide presentations, user
profiling and live audience feedback are becoming commonplace add-ons to Activate Webcasts as communications professionals begin integrating Webcasting within existing PR
programs. When Microsoft launched its Windows XP operating system in October, it supplemented the live unveiling for consumers in New York with a parallel Webcast to more tech-
oriented audiences with in-depth slides. "It means that [streaming media] is moving past 'oh, it's cool' to 'here's a business practice,'" says Chapin.
While many companies have been doing audio streaming of quarterly earnings reports for a while, in the post-attack environment Webcasting may have its greatest impact on
internal communications. "A lot of these folks say they just can't afford in terms of money or stress putting trainers on planes to go anywhere. They need to dial back the big
six-figure sales meeting," says Chapin. Thus training and demo chores are among the first things companies convert to Webcasts. Even if they aren't looking to save money, the
increased efficiencies of the Web allow corporate communications to touch their constituencies with more presentations more frequently. And just like Web advertising, online
streaming allows for highly precise tracking of how many users accessed an event, for how long, when, and from where. The increased use of interactive add-ons to Webcasts also
allows for a real-time feedback loop from most events.
Of course, tech companies were the earliest adopters of Webcasting. Corporate sites like ITWorld.com, IBM, Intel and GE put on elaborate product demos and informational
seminars rather than send tech teams around the world on dog and pony shows to prospective clients. But now any company with a dispersed internal or external audience should be
thinking about Webcasting's efficiencies. Activate is seeing growth in the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors as well as the automotive and large manufacturing businesses where
communications departments need to reach out to a large employee or dealer base. Outside of the usual suspects, financial institutions, Biznews24 is picking up new clients like
Raytheon for training streams and GE for crisis response when its CEO commented on a recent Airbus crash.
Better Than Live?
For some companies, the aftermath of Sept. 11 has helped to prove incontrovertibly that the Web is not only a fast, efficient and low-cost way of reaching a dispersed
population, in some cases it may also be more effective than live meetings. The Yellow Pages Publishers Association was set to convene its members in early October at Disney World
to announce a number of important changes in the organization's policies and personnel. Member cancellations forced the YPPA to scrub a $1 million, 500- to 600-person convention
and replace it hurriedly with a Webcast. "We were with our backs to the wall," says Frank Capozza, SVP of Communications and Government Relations. Audio emails promoted the
virtual conference, which was a professionally-produced, 45-minute taped stream that ran on Nov. 1 and featured concise speeches from the Association principals.
The first Webcast attracted 506 attendees, but a post-event survey found that two or three people watched per computer. "Our penetration now was much greater than if we had
held the meeting," says Capozza. And the YPPA achieved this reach at a cost of only $70,000. The survey also found that 71 percent of viewers said they would like to see more
Webcasts in the future and 90 percent found this one very informative. "I don't think I've ever run a corporate meeting before where 90 percent said they thought it was relevant,"
says Capozza.
(Contacts: Frank Capozza, 908/286-2384; Stewart Chapin, [email protected]; Jack Heath, 603/624-8634)
Webcasting Resources
Below are several sources for your Webcasting needs. This is not a comprehensive list: Look for more resources in future issues of PR NEWS.
Biznews24
http://www.bn24.com
Products: Enhanced video streams, custom production, video email, live Webcasting
Clients: ADP, Miller Brewing, John Hancock, Verizon
Contact: Sales, 603/624-8634 (Boston); 703/465-9200 (DC); 212/331-1225 (NY)
Activate
http://www.activate.net
Products: Live, 24/7 and on-demand Webcasting
Clients: General Mills, Compaq, Sun
Contact: Sales, 206/830-5300
LiveReality
http://www.livereality.com
Products: Interactive Webcasts with voting, slideshow, PowerPoint, and downloading capabilities.
Contact: [email protected]
ConnectLive
http://www.connectLive.com
Products: Live, archived and custom produced A/V streaming
Clients: Verizon; U.S. Depts. of Defense, Education and Census; BusinessWeek.com
Contact: Sales, 202/513-1000, [email protected]