We all know that we now live in a World where the consumer has the choice of what brand messages to absorb right?
This is a basic error on the part of marketers. Consumers choose what they consume and if the brand communication that inevitably comes with that choice is unpalatable then they ignore it or switch to something else. But how bad would a brand message have to be for you to stop watching what you chose to watch? It irritates you yes but if you're really into the content will you stand it?
A question glossed over by the online media industry who pompously state that consumers will tolerate advertising messages from things such as pre-roll ads in order to watch content. Well they will if they have no choice and of course with a lot of content they don't have a choice but to watch ads so where's the empowered consumer?
Oh yes and by the way something that is really starting to grate with me is this still constant referral to the death of all media that isn't digital. Just so we're clear and I think I can speak with authority on this...
TV is not dead
Print is not Dead
Radio is not dead
They are now part of a wider mix that includes some level of
active consumer choice and some level of
passive consumer involvement. Active consumer choice is not always that active. Unless the content is itself interactive then once the choice has been made to consume then the consumer becomes passive again until its time to make a different choice.
Here’s an active consumer for you. I’m watching something on the telly, I don’t like it. I turn it off. When I was a teenager in the 80’s this meant I could do a number of
different media related things instead – listen to music on my record player, listen to the radio, read, play on my Sinclair Spectrum and err... that’s about it.
I see no difference in the media led activities teenagers do now it’s just the choice of activity that has increased, not the emotion or the desire to consume.
Of course interaction is very much alive but it works best when people are interacting with each other not with third party content. To use my teenage years as an example again.... I called my mates on the home phone (or a phone box if someone else was talking to someone at home) or went round to their house. It's the same emotion and result as texting or calling from my mobile or IM etc just not quite as convenient.
Lets not get caught up in this old media is dead debate. it is a mistake for digital media to crow over other media as if it has somehow won a battle of the mediums – it hasn’t.
What digital has done in all it’s myriad forms is enhanced and democratised media – it allows so much more choice of not just what people consume but where and how they consume it and this is the key thing to remember with regard to media choice. Situational and convenience based choice
Are people really going to stop wanting to flop in front of the TV when they get home from work?
Is anything going to replace that feeling of sitting in a comfy chair with a good book or the latest edition of a magazine?
Well no, those emotions stay the same. It is just that some of the delivery mechanisms have evolved or been invented anew and that doesn't mean the old forms of media are wrong or out of date
As Stephen Fry, champion of all things new, bright and shiny has just commented when asked if new media replaces old.... "they didn’t burn all the horses when cars came out did they?"
The technology that has swamped us over the last twenty years has been designed to enhance choice and convenience. The consumer is at the heart of that choice but you are mistaken if you think that they choose the platform for its own sake– they choose the content first and the MOST CONVENIENT form of delivery second.
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