Jun 06
26
The Future of TV
First question: Is there a future for traditional TV in a Web 2.0 world? There are a lot of ideas of whether it will have relevance in this article from one of the execs at Battery Ventures in Boston.
Consider this:
While we have not seen a major decline in traditional spot CPMs, companies
have begun experimenting with more frequent product placements, ranging from
a secret santa gift of a video iPod on NBC’s The Office (later
offered as a download on iTunes), to the weekly product placements on The
Apprentice. Product placements are up 84% in the last year and
writers are feeling pressure to write product placements into their storylines.
OK – I get product placement big time (and by the way my wife was the first person to sell product placement in the games biz – back when she was working for EA and had an Australian NRL game to market. She sold what she called in-game signage. Even the people at EA didnt realize what she was doing at the time).
But the thing about product placement is that firstly it only works if it is synchronous with the story line (what brands would you position if Barry Lyndon was being remade today for instance?) And what do you do about all that back catalogue that is out there?
It seems to me that product placement is not the panacea. The panacea is to involve people. Involve them in the brand and in the way that the brand is communicated. And that is something that a lof of marketing people find it difficult to comprehend. Because it means that you have to take time, and you have to stand back and listen. (I find it difficult to do this myself a lot of the time!)
Most importantly it means that you have to get off the whole bandwagon of a USP – a unique selling proposition, and instead look at how you create a UBP – a unique buying proposition. People don't want to be sold on things. But they will continue to want to buy things as long as there is stuff out there that they like and want. In fact I believe that people are so consumption focused now, that there is very little in their lives other than to consume.
The great thing that the new media enables (and to steal a line from Dave Winer – take the B out of Web 2.0 and you get the real future: We 2.0) is to allow people to participate. And we have not even started yet in terms of the build up of this wave. It is going to be a tsunami of enormous proportions. Consumer created, consumer mediated, consumer involving…. every aspect of consumerism will involve the consumer.
Remember what Benjamin Franklin said: “Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I might remember. Involve me and I will understand.”
Media is on its way to being understood by the public. Not in a philosophical or erudite way, but in a totally visceral unconscious way.
What will that do to TV?