2 October 2009

Content is King: And Confusion Is Clarity

I have been writing for years now about how online video, Internet streaming and mobile devices will cloud the media, but here is final proof on how confused and confusing the advertising industry and its feeder, market research, have become.
I don't even need to understand the details.
The simple fact is that confusion spells clarity.
Here is how.
For close to a century, we have been led by the thumb rules of the mass media
  1. Channel leadership based on high capital costs
  2. Television rating points (TRPs) based on prime-time
  3. Hype based on a little bit of data and a lot of "relationships"
  4. Brands based on broad recall
That era is over, with the Internet and online videos and iPods and all the elements of the Long Tail (including low-investment satellite broadcasts)

Is it any wonder that market researchers are groping in the dark? Stereotyping of the consumer is the illegitimate child of 20th Century mass marketing.
That is ending. Rejoice. Now I can have an old man in Mozambique listening to Britney Spears. And I can have a 20-year-old Peruvian teenager liking South Indian plantain leaf meals.

4 comments:

Pagal Patrakar said...

I'm not sure if the advertising and media industry is going to change so soon in India (where we can say that the era is over). Although I agree the sooner they do it, they better it is for them. And yeah, internet will push them to change, but when?

I get a feeling that the Indian advertising industry and the marketing fraternity are not yet ready to believe that internet has "really" arrived in India. They are also not ready to challenge what you call the thumb rules of mass media.

And if and when they challenge those thumb rules, I guess it'd be one of the best things to happen to Indian media industry. I'd especially want them to challenge the thumb rules of advertising on a TV news channel. My two bits over the issue are here

Madhavan said...

Thanks. My comment was on the industry as such from the point of view of business/advertising, and not just on India.
Yes, it may take a while, but business practices will spread faster than you think. Because both technology and costs are driving an even trend.

Sumit said...

Right On!

Just a matter of time before the data will start speaking for itself.

Google Analytics has already been transformational at some level. But the proliferation of devices and mediums ranging from Twitter to IPhone has made the aggregation of insights more challenging. Just a matter of time though.

"In God we trust, everyone else must bring data"

Unknown said...

Hi

I think if you are in the field of journalism, Content is your power.

Communication Program