The Media and the shape of things to come

Digital guru Clay Shirky gives Guardian writer Tom Teodorczuk his media forecast for 2009 – taking in the role of newspapers, books and magazines and TV.

Some Soundbites

Newspapers: “The 500-year-old accident of economics occasioned by the printing press – high upfront cost and filtering happening at the source of publication – is over.”

Books and Magazines: “I think the big revolution is going to be print on demand.”

TV: “The idea that the old geographical segmenting of terrestrial broadcasts is recreatable is a fantasy and a waste of time.”

Please help

Sport Relief

(I should apologise for bringing you here by illicit categorisation and tagging, but I won’t. You might have wasted just 10 seconds. Hopefully you will make the choice to change someone’s world in less than a minute).

Mad Men in the UK

New to the UK and the BBC, Mad Men is a Golden Globe winning drama series set in the world of advertising in 1960s New York.  And with Emmy® Award-winning executive producer and writer of “The Sopranos” Matthew Weiner behind it, Mad Men really is the provocative drama that UK Marketing professionals should catch.

My advice is to cook a good meal, sit down with the wife, and watch it. ….under the pretence of course that the working day has ended…..When in actual fact you are thinking about the approach back in 1960′s, and how it applies (or doesn’t) in today’s era of multiple channels and a plethora of media types.

That’s what I did. Enjoyed it too.

What you are, what you want, what you love doesn’t matter. It’s all about how you sell it.

Manipulation of the media. Hell, that’s what I pay you for.

For UK viewers, it’s on iPlayer for another 4 days.

For the tech heads amongst you the throw away line to the newbie; “now try not to be overwhelmed by all this technology,” was just great.

Can someone help me though? What’s the difference between an Account Executive and a Creative Executive? lol.

US Marketers Losing Confidence in TV

<Update 03/02/08: More advertising shifts here>

Whether traditional TV advertising has truly lost its power, marketers and advertisers are already eager to find alternatives. The US based Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research’s fourth biennial TV and Technology survey shows a dramatic loss of confidence in the medium as the industry gears up to explore new ad formats and forms of video commercials.

Wow.

There is a bit of me that is surprised that someone somewhere still feels the need to research TV and marketing; but with so much money spent on TV advertising it is very understandable that TV is being scrutinised so heavily, and for so long.

Here’s the science bit…

• 2/3s of C-level-executive respondents said they are watching the medium closely, up from just half two years ago
• 87% of respondents said they were going to be spending more on web ads in the coming year.
• 62% percent of marketers believe traditional TV ads have become less effective during the last two years.
• 50% of marketers reported that when half of all TV households use DVRs, they will cut spending on TV advertising by 12%.
• 87% percent of advertisers believe branded entertainment is the key to TV advertising in the coming year, and 65% of them are eager to try ads in online TV shows.

And emerging technologies continue to lure marketers looking to experiment.

• 43% would like to try interactive TV ads
• 55% are interested in ads embedded in VOD; and
• 32% would like to try ads attached to the set-top-box menu.

With the proliferation of new media, media agencies have stepped up their game to help clients deal with the changes. Two years ago, just under half the agencies reported they were ill-equipped to address changes in TV advertising, whereas only 28% did so this year.

But quite surprisingly it is the creative agencies that are falling behind, according to marketers:

• 47% of them said their agency was ill-equipped to deal with the changes, a mere 8% improvement from two years ago.

By the way the study was conducted in January 08 and is based on a survey of 78 leading advertisers across all major industries and categories in the US.