Strategic marketing and advertising advice
Advertising’s workhorse, the 30-second commercial, is fading as a means of hawking products and services. Ad executives will be busy in 2006 trying to figure out what to put in its place.
Good luck to them: Audiences are splintering off in dozens of directions, watching TV shows on iPods, watching movies on videogame players and listening to radio on the Internet. All these activities cut out the usual forms of sponsorship and take place when and where consumers — not media executives — choose.
Broadcasting pioneer Ralph Edwards, host of the once-popular 1950′s "This Is Your Life" television show, died Wednesday. Edwards was also once the host of "Truth or Consequences," the first commercial show for NBC. Edwards said, "A ten-second commercial on the program cost $9."
Ralph Edwards represents a face of television–and how it has changed. His syrupy-sweet "This Is Your Life," held viewers spell-bound hearing life stories unfold in the space of 30 minutes. It was respectful, plodding and dripped with sincerity.
Just like TV today… uh-huh, right.
Whether media reflects us or we reflect it, changes in both since Ralph Edwards first visited our living rooms is undeniable. And yet, so many times are the practices of that era are carried forward into this one as if by habit. 
There’s a new face reflecting our times from TV screens: it’s one part cynical and two parts savvy. Ralph Edwards’ "This Is Your Life" has been replaced by the E-Channel’s endless loop of slimy exposés. News is no longer sacred, but grist for sharp social commentary paraded as comedy. You may not like it, or even "get" it. But, this is the market we’re living and working in.
This isn’t a call to arms. It’s a wake-up call. In the nine miles I drive between home and office, I’m assaulted by a stream of ad-speak encrusted messages no doubt zoning out listeners quicker than an HR department slide show. Yours doesn’t have to be one of them.
Be your ad and take a hard look in the mirror. Do you reflect what your customers care about most? Are you speaking their language? Is your message genuine and credible? Unless you can absolutely say yes* to all three questions, perhaps it’s time to do some face changing of your own.
Nestled beneath my ’66 Oldsmobile Delta 88′s dashboard hung a marvel of technology granting me access to broadcasts mere mortal AM radios couldn’t. It was a brave new static-free world called FM.
My FM adapter is early evidence of what is obvious to all who know me: I am an early adopter.
Live long enough and you’ll see history repeat itself–and so it is with my XM Radio. When I got another cool little adapter allowing my now merely mortal FM radio to receive broadcasts from space, I thought I was out front. And, like my FM adapter, I paid good money for that gadget.
Last night, I received a broadcast email with amazing offers and about spit out my decafe latte… There, right next to the free picture phone (paid good money for mine) was FREE satellite radio. FREE!
Well that’s just fine. I reccon it won’t be long until my XM Radio adapter will wind up in a box along with my FM Adapter, record player, 8-Track Player, Cassette Recorder, VCR and analog television…
And in case you’re wondering why you can now buy a DVD player at the grocery store for $29 (like I did last week), you better read this.
Advertising is one big stew; a conglomeration of discrete conversations in different settings each with a unique set of protocols. The shift in TV only serves to drive home a bigger (often overlooked) point:
"Advertising was once a simple mass-market media buy; now it is a dialogue between a seller of soup, sneakers or cellphones and a particular media outlet’s narrow audience. That media outlet is just as likely to be a computer screen or a mobile device as a television set, media buyers say. As a result, advertisers are starting to treat TV more and more as just one conversation among many."
—Brian Steinberg, Wall Street Journal
Like sales, advertising is a conversation between two people. Effective advertising doesn’t speak to anyone, it speaks to every ONE it reaches. When you stop advertising and start conversing about what matters to customers, you will have begun serving a tasty meal that sticks to consumers’ minds.