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Business Week Discuss 2 Comments
“The Vanishing Mass Market” was the cover story, a special report, in the July 12, 2004 issue.
David Esrati, Cheif Creative Officer and Owner of The Next Wave, had his letter published among 3 others including Laurence Feldman, Professor Emeritus of Marketing at the University of Illinois.
“With more media options than ever, which should have improved segmentation, advertisers now find formulaic media. Clear Channel radio stations sound the same in Portland OR as they do in Portland ME. The same is true for Network and local news, magazines, and newspapers.
The great copywriter Howard Luck Gossage predicted that when the revenue from advertising exceeded the revenue from subscribers for print publications, the content wouldn’t be worth paying for. Forty years later, we’re paying the price with media outlets fearing offending the advertisers, or, worse yet, their corporate masters stock price by doing anything that different from the next guy.
When your product becomes homogenized, it loses value to the advertiser faster than it does to the consumer. But the real problem was there was never really a mass market to begin with, just big players in a small sandbox. Now advertisers are forced to think smarter about how to connect, and in this new world, formulaic media isn’t going to cut it.”
[...] This is the second time I’ve had a letter published in Business Week. The first one was on “mass markets“ [...]
[...] Leonard Pitts Jr. is a opinion writer for the Miami Herald. His column in the Dayton Daily News is one of the bright spots in a generally unbright paper. Yesterday I wrote about satellite TV killing the last easy way for local business to reach a market efficiently. Today, Pitts writes about how Johnny Carson was a uniting force in our country(he died this week)- and how back in the good old mass media days, with only three TV networks to choose from, a show like “I Love Lucy” would garner a 67.3 rating while today’s “American Idol” is considered a hit with an 18.3. As I said in a Business Week letter to the editor, there never was really a “Mass Market” just big players in a small sandbox- now that the sandbox has enlarged (more media to choose from) it leveled the playing field. Satellite TV is a step back to a smaller sandbox. The reason I like Pitts so much, is his commentary on humanity is usually idea driven, instead of personality. His thoughts have a longer life expectancy than just today’s news. This is a mark of a good ad campaign as well, if the idea can keep going and going, it’s generally a good one. Favorites of mine: Got Milk, Absolute __________, The Ultimate Driving Machine- you get the point. Sometimes even great campaigns get ditched due to stupidity- and then the “Hot Agency” (in this case Crispin Porter) “rediscovers” it- like Burger King’s “Have it your way.” Great ad campaigns from major marketers can have a unifying effect on our country, just like Johnny Carson did- remember “Where’s the Beef” or “Whatzzup.” [...]