• by Mitch Oscar , Op-Ed Contributor, May 1, 2007

In the later years of the ‘90s, Jack Myers, fellow TV Board blogger, helped usher in the age of cross media marketing platforms (CMMP), whose primary goal was to generate incremental revenue for the parent company as well as to provide its sibling divisions with a multitude of off-channel exposure. In those days the major media conglomerates were in constant morph by acquiring all kinds of assets -- mostly through stock trades -- from every conceivable medium, i.e., broadcast, cable, publishing (newspapers, magazines, custom), out of home, new media (online), themed venues (retail, sports), place based as well as TV production and event marketing. This corporate strategy was developed to entice the marketer to allocate even more advertising dollars to the parent company at higher CPMs as well as provide free, additional cross-promotional exposure to generate greater awareness, which would hopefully translate into ratings augmentation for the program, and accolades for the parent company as well as benefit the advertiser through an up tick in products sales.

Famous players included (to name the more prominent):

ESPN Brand Partnerships

ESPN/ABC Sports Customer Marketing & Sales

News Corp One

Turner Global Marketing Solutions Group

Disney Integrated marketing Endeavors

ABC Unlimited

NBC Connect

CBS Plus

Viacom Plus

Bloomberg TV

By the turn of the 21^st Century, the CMMP buzz died down and so did many of the primary players. News Corp., NBC and Viacom desisted; the other entities, though still in existence today, are shells of their former selves -- at least in the trades.

There were a few contributing factors that led to their demise: the cross media marketing groups were treated as stepchildren within the corporate family; there was little synergy between divisions, given that they were run as independent fiefdoms, each with its own bottom line and bonus structure; the final product, in most instances, turned out to be an enhanced added value -- an improvement in billboards, mentions and tickets -- but not quantifiable, and in many cases, a limited execution; and most importantly, the advertisers were hoping for pricing discounts when committing incremental dollars, which ran contrary to the media manager’s dreams of financial grandeur.

So why mention this now, you might ask.  Because they are back. In the last month there have been three announcements of new initiatives by the major media conglomerates that on the surface remind one of the original cross media marketing platforms:

Fox One. A sales unit to develop and implement integrated marketing opportunities crossing the gamut of News Corp.’s global assets and a variety of media platforms.

CBS Connections. A sales division designed to reach across the company’s many delivery platforms including Entertainment, News, Interactive and Paramount TV.

The Warner Bros. Television Group Digital Media Sales. A sales unit whose mission is to provide advertisers with a one stop, comprehensive, multiplatform approach for media planning and spending. The group will be responsible for brokering Internet and mobile advertising related to all content from WBTVG’s television production arms: Warner Bros. Television. Warner Horizon Television, Telepictures Productions and Warner Bros. Animation as well as Studio 2.0, WBTVG’s new digital production venture.

However, this time, in my opinion, there is an important distinction between the original CMMP concept, which was solely based on a gaggle of media assets that were owned by a media conglomerate, and its latest iteration, whose foundation is content. This time the media companies will provide advertisers with the ability to marry a marketing message to specific content, regardless of genre, that traverses many old and new distribution platforms. This time around, the medium is not the message -- the content is.