I see BRANDWEEK is smoking its own dope again. In an article entitled Marketers of the Next Generation, Robert Klara writes, “The marketing of yesterday … is gone. Mass media? Hah! Print ads? You must be kidding. Broadcast? Well, they’re not watching.” After this introduction, Robert invites us to listen to 10 mavens of the future of marketing who tout, among other things, viral videos, mobile-marketing campaigns and MySpace pages. Maybe Robert meant his introduction to be tongue-in-cheek, but are niche activities like this really the future of marketing in any foreseeable time horizon?
Reading the 10 reviews, I see a big distinction between brands like Hilton, P&G, HP and Kraft on the one hand and LowerMyBills.com, Ben Sherman, International Fight League, thehappycorp global, UA Marketing and Del.icio.us on the other. That big distinction is between mass and niche marketing. If you work for a company that fits the latter group, then niche communication channels are going to be just right for you. But if you work for one of the former group, you need to ask yourself if most of the people who buy your brand today will even notice your marketing if you don’t use mass media. Then think about the millions of people who don’t currently buy your brand, but might be persuaded to do so some day. Are you really likely to engage them using the “new media” ?
The notion that people no longer read magazines or watch TV is, of course, completely bogus. Only someone completely immersed in the world of new media could lose sight of the fact that people today watch more television than ever, and that thousands of magazines are still on display at newsstands. Have a look at this slide from adliterate that compares the weekly household reach of the UK’s traditional TV channels with the monthly reach of MySpace, YouTube and Second Life.
And it’s not just those whacky Brits who still prefer their TVs over their computer screens. As Paul La Monica reported in his article Do ‘You’ Really Matter? on CNNMoney.com:
There is still some fuzzy math going on when it comes to what makes an online viral video a hit and what makes mainstream media successful. On YouTube for example, a user-generated video that gets viewed more than 100,000 times is typically considered a winner. . . . Meanwhile, a show like NBC’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip or [CBS’s] Smith, which was the first cancellation of the fall TV season, are branded as failures even though they generated nearly 10 million viewers a week and are supported by advertising.
Now, before I get labeled a complete self-serving Luddite (again), let’s just focus on the real problem faced by mass-marketers who want to use TV as their medium of choice. There is no evidence that individual TV ads are becoming less effective over time. There is, however, plenty of evidence that TV advertising is becoming less cost-effective. Last August, McKinsey & Co. announced that by 2010, traditional TV advertising will be one-third as effective as it was in 1990. Their calculation used the following assumptions:
- A 15% decrease in buying power driven by CPM increases
- A 23% decline in ads viewed due to switching off
- A 9% loss of attention to ads due to increased multitasking
- A 37% decrease in message impact due to saturation
One might argue with the specific figures—for example, there is little evidence to date that DVRs are reducing ad awareness. But one cannot question the wisdom of marketers who seek more cost-effective alternatives. The question is, will the alternatives be found among the mass media or the “new” media?
Don’t get me wrong, new media are an important and growing part of the media ecosystem but, to use them effectively, we need to think through what they are good for.
The new media tend to be used by consumers in an active, attentive mode which is very different from the passive, lean-back mode associated with TV and radio. While in an active viewing mode, people are more likely to attend to the content that is of interest to them, and screen out that which is not. Most brands are just not all that interesting, so their messages are actively ignored. Those few that are interesting tend to appeal to a niche group. New media today are a great way to engage small groups of motivated people – advocates, digerati and self-publicists. The great advantage the new, interactive media have over passive media is the ability for someone to pass on relevant content or information to others. This can have a relatively big effect for small brands, but for bigger brands, the scale of that type of engagement rarely makes economic sense, even when teamed up with a much broader campaign.
Marketers who buy the hype like that in the introduction to the BRANDWEEK article would do well to ask themselves why they are not reading that content online or on a Blackberry. Answer: the printed page has evolved to ideally suit our ability to read the written word. For entertainment and information, magazines and newspapers still compete with the Internet, and they will continue to do so for some time. Titles like Marketers of the Next Generation are great for building an audience (in any medium), but right now we are marketing in the present, not the future. Let’s not confuse our own current best practice with that of the next generation.
Tags: Nigel Hollis, Millward Brown, new media, Brandweek, Robert Klara, mass media, niche marketing
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April 27th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
This blog post made me think about a recent book I read “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson. In it he explores Web 2.0 and how it created a long tail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail. I believe that marketing will also result in a long tail. In the head of the tail will remain TV, Print, Radio, but as you move down you will find Internet, Search, Gaming, Mobile etc. As Web 2.0 keeps progressing there will be more channels and opportunities for marketers. Mass media will not disappear any time soon, but it will have to give way to alternative and ever growing channels. Mobile marketing will never be able to replace TV. However, with the same spend levels it is feasible to say that Mobile + Gaming + Internet may be more efficient in reach and messaging than launching a TV ad. Market research will have a greater role than ever before to measure the contributions of these alternative channels and weigh ROI to maximize campaigns.
April 27th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
I can’t agree more. My guess at why everyone in advertising is on a death watch for TV advertising is driven by the same motivation that declares an ad “worn out” when it has hardly been exposed. And that motivation is the novelty factor at work with the so-called opinion leaders in the industry. Out with the old — in with the new! They seem to be eager to move on beyond TV to the new world of new media, way before the world of real people are. Weren’t we advised just a few months ago to set up an avatar on Second Life? No doubt someone who can interact with the other marketers inhabiting the space.
May 1st, 2007 at 8:14 am
Hi Alex and Philip, thanks for the comments.
Alex, I agree that the Long Tail is growing more important to marketers and that the combination of media you suggest might have the same reach as a TV, the trouble is that the logistics of coordinating the media buy and the likely cost will be greater. Until the logistics and economics are worked out leveraging the Long Tail will remain problematic.
Philip, my belief is that Type-A media and marketing services types are very different from most of the people out there - and not just because we need to be in-contact and in-control. Expect a new post on this sometime soon.
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:34 am
I think the most important part is in the area of effectiveness. As you say ” Most brands are just not all that interesting, so their messages are actively ignored “.
With TV audiences of 10 million viewers , you just increased exponentially the ineffectiveness of the ad.
However you mix the lean back media with optimized lean forward advertising which is contextual and relevant - we could be onto something. TV 2.0 anyone ?
May 2nd, 2007 at 10:41 am
Hi Trevor, thanks for the comment but I clearly did not make my point well enough. TV is a lean back medium. Even those with a DVR/PVR watch much of the content under normal viewing conditions. As a result, they cannot avoid the ads unless they leave the room. With online or print media people actively control the content most of the time, offering the potential to avoid the ads by turning the page or clicking the X button.
So 10 million TV viewers probably translates into 9 million exposures which receive at least partial attention. Even if you try not to watch an ad you still hear it. The proportion for other media is likely to be far lower, particularly on repeat exposure.
Work done by Millward Brown in 1994 showed print ads had a comparable intial impact to TV but subsequent exposures did not. The ability to capture attention declined after 4 opportunities to see the same ad. The same is not true of TV. I will have to check with my colleagues at Dynamic Logic to see if they find similar effects online and whether it differs by ad type, but why look at the same ad more than once if you can ignore it or skip it?
I would agree, however, that the combination of lean back and lean forward media is a very powerful one. It is the ideal combo of lean back media used to seed interest and lean forward offering the potential for further exploration.
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:54 am
Your view on the following
Eletronic Arts and Endemol announced a interesting partnership which will expand traditional TV programming to the virtual world, with the release next month of their Virtual Me platform
Taking the concept from MySpace participants are able to create virtual selves ( or aviatars as they are commonly known on the internet ) to compete and take part in variations of these hit TV shows – not in person, but with virtual representations of themselves.
Where can the money come from ?
They are suggesting these virtual shows will allow audience partication, - I tend to disagree - the audience will be the contestants.
This is all lean forward, a virtual world where people are participating rather than sitting back and observing.
Using traditional signage such as posters cannot prove to be effective, as you mention in your Second life article the ability to clutter this restricted space is also a threat, we both agree preroles are not the way forward.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:00 am
From Charles Frith:
A good post with solid points. Interruptive advertising is here to stay (for a while) but the last comment is the most telling. The kids who are in their bedrooms preferring myspace over watching television right now are the FMCG consumers of the the near term future. Today’s 15 year old that finds social media more interesting than the passive role of watching television (with PVR’s) with it’s entertainment/marketing communications trade off will be 20 in 5 short years and they have a low tolerance for mass media messages. They haven’t been conditioned to accept the status quo that their parents have. They’ve grown up with more choices. Conditioning is a powerful force in the marketing communications business. One that most marketing and advertising people are uncomfortable to discuss.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:08 am
Hi Charles, thank you for the comment and apologies for the accidental deletion!
You raise a very important issue. Will today’s 15 year old continue to value social media over passive media in years to come? I am less convinced that they will. My suspicion is that their media usage will morph as the time constraints of adult life cut in.
When looking at video game use it was obvious that the people who spent the most time playing them were college kids, and that there was a pretty big drop off as people got into work and such. But then maybe the technology does not allow for such a compelling ‘on-the-move’ experience for games and it should do for networking. A case of time will tell, I guess.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:14 am
Hi Trevor,
Virtual Me sounds fascinating. Now that sounds much more like a compelling experience. Familiar enough that most people can get their heads round it and fun enough to create stickiness.
Where does the money come from? I need to learn more about what they propose but it sounds like an ideal environment for the good old commercial break. If the content is compelling enough I suspect people will stick around to start the game over.
Thanks,
Nigel