December 20, 2006

The New Media Emperor May Not Be Fully Dressed

The media seem intent on publishing their own obituaries in advance of their demise as day after day we see headlines about how 'new' media are displacing 'old' media. This reminds me of the dot.com boomtime when reporters took their personal experiences of being online all time time and inferred that that was what 'everyone' was doing or about to do.

In 2006 some Network TV programs delivered rating levels that haven't been seen in years: "American Idol", "Dancing With The Stars", "The Super Bowl", "The Academy Awards", "The Rose Bowl" are just some of the shows that garnered enormous audiences this year and are likely to continue to do so for some time to come.

Similarly, Yahoo, MySpace and Google also generated huge audiences in the past year. But how effective is a 'page view' or a search result for an unknown brand? Oo one has established that the web can build brands the way television built marketing primacy for Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Toyota.

Perhaps the web is an efficient way to grab the low hanging fruit of people who are in the market today for a product and aware of and favorably inclined to your brand, a way to convert an advertising-generated predisposition to a sale.

Branding means predisposing customers and prospects to your product or service. In my opinion, this is best achieved via what are called traditional media such as Television, Radio, Outdoor, Magazines and Newspapers. What the Net seems to do well is to capture sales from people who have already been pre-sold on the Brand by these 'old' media.

So, first thought for media strategizing in 2007: it's not a matter of what's old or new, it's what will work best to generate results now and that's likely to be a blend of media, vintage and fresh.

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