Strategic marketing and advertising advice
Newspapers delivered to your computer seemed a far-fetched vision of the future back then.
Discounting paradigm-shifting realities can put you at risk of sounding dated and out of step like these news reporters. Speaking the language of your customer is your best protection.
Soon the only place you’ll see a coin-operated phone is in the past. AT&T has decided to ditch the business at the end of 2008. The total number of pay phones have halved since 1998 when BellSouth exited. Today, AT&T owns and operates public pay phones in 13 states. Cell mobility is the culprit. Cell use has quadrupled in the past decade and about 80 percent of people in the U.S. now have mobile phones, according to CTIA–The Wireless Association.
While the overt loss in vanishing pay phones means increasing use of cell phones, a more discrete change is the growing shift toward "third screen" content: advertising and entertainment content targeted to cell phones. Third-screen messaging has all the advantages of online marketing with the added impact of personal delivery on a mobile device.
It’s been over 118 years since the first coin-operated phone was installed in Chicago and only a few groups are showing any sign of concern; the Justice League of America calls it "a national crisis." Maybe someone should give those folks a quarter to call someone who cares–if they can find a pay phone.
When the facts are with you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. At the risk of Perry Masonizing, it seems a case of denial is playing out in the legacy media and it’s an open-shut case. The Associated Press reports:
In TV’s worst spring in recent memory, a startling number of Americans drifted away from television the past two months: More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at the same time last year, statistics show.
Blame technology: DVRs and TiVO mess up ratings
Blame economics: people are working harder, watching less
Blame weather: daylight-savings has people outside later
Blame calendars: end of school… people are crazed.
Blame it all. Blame George Bush–just don’t fix the content.
Sitcoms. Reality TV. Dramas. News-magazines. Contrived content. Phony-baloney doesn’t cut it anymore. We’re living in an age of authenticity. Give viewers something worthy of watching and they will.
I’m not a fan of American Idol, but you can’t argue results. In a special production, American Idol Gives Back, major stars performed to benefit a charity. It was genuine and authentic and entertaining and it drew an audience almost larger than all four of the other nets COMBINED.
It’s an example of alignment, the beginning stage of attraction marketing. When you become aligned with consumer desire, you create a magnetic draw and pull business to you. Because alignment’s draw is authentic, this business don’t just buy, they bond.
Bonding is a deeper step of the process we cover soon. Till then, take stock of your messaging and see if there’s enough evidence to convict you of being aligned with your customers.
"I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either," says New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, the paper’s owner, chairman and publisher.
Talk about a shock to the system. I remember seeing The Gray lady in person for the first time. The granite face of The New York Times stared down at me like a well-travelled sailor’s face, hardened by waves and storms, I was 13 at the time, visiting Manhattan with my dad. To any aspiring journalist, this was Mecca, the burning bush, the promised land all rolled into one. I was thrilled.
Today that image seems as lost to history as gas lamps and leaded paint. Declining circulation and revenue are driving newspapers to find a new religion; all roads lead to the internet.
Can you see a day when The New York Times is no longer printed on paper? Once mighty presses silenced by the digital age. Sulzberger can see it. I’ll bet most newspaper companies do. And if they’re planning for it, you better too.
When lights go out because the power’s gone out, we realize how much we depend on it. That’s why we prepare. Are you preparing for the day newspapers stop coming?