• Media Metrics: What Does the Consumer Want?
    A couple of months ago, in Mediapost's weekly Media Technology Futures e-mail newsletter, I was griping about something and kept hammering away at the fact that no one had considered the consumer.
  • The New Next: Mobile Is the 'Always On' Revolution
    Consider this: Eighty percent of U.S. consumers have one, and 60 percent of them take it to bed. The mobile phone is the first mass medium that's personal, always on, always with you, and even has a built-in payment channel. Most marketers have been slow to realize the potential of the mobile device as a powerful "pull" platform. Here are six examples that are ahead of the trend.
  • Targeting: Media Planning Died Last Year
    Independent companies have been trying to start up ad auction exchanges for years. Remember the famously flamboyant endeavor of the now-failed Enron? Well, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) thinks it's time to get serious and tapped eBay to create the first successful ad auction platform. The initiative faces resistance from media agencies. Martin Sorrell, CEO of the WPP Group, summed up the feeling by coining the new term "frienemy," concisely expressing his combativeness toward the automated, Internet-focused ad placement services promoted by Google and Microsoft.
  • Video Vertigo: Lights, Camera, Context?
    Lately, it seems as if consumers are being courted more aggressively than ever to participate in the burgeoning "user-generated" content phenomenon. It's become the "it" thing that portals, programmers, and marketers are focused on in the digital video space and rightly so, given democratized production, easy online access, and consumers' addiction to YouTube.
  • Column: The Biz -- People Who Need People
    The media business is a great one to be in these days. There are so many changes with regard to how people can get their content and what kind of content they can actually get. Figuring out what all of this means and how to capitalize on it is both the supreme challenge and the greatest thrill of working in media today.
  • The Consumer: TV Is Holding Its Own
    Mystery, suspense, intrigue - 2007 is going to be a great year for industry-watching. How is the industry going to evolve? Will it evolve at all? I'm really looking forward to seeing how events play out this year. I think it's going to be a bit of a watershed in many ways. It's been three years or so since the cover of BusinessWeek proclaimed the end of the mass market, which coincided with our own trade-press gathering to bid adieu to the 30-second TV spot.
  • The University: Class Notes on Gen Xbox
    My first semester at the University of Southern California is over. Throughout the semester, the students challenged stereotypes of media-savvy young adults. Yes, they are savvy, no doubt about that. However, they are not hard-wired to blog, podcast, and completely ignore network TV.
  • Integrated: Brand-Bonding Drives Desire
    Shopping and logical thought are often worlds apart. Why do we buy the car we do? Not because it gets the best gas mileage or because it's the best deal. We buy it because we want it. It's about pure desire, rationalized either before or after purchase.
  • The Sell: The Value of Scarcity
    Champagne is simply sparkling wine made in the champagne region of France. Because it can only be made in one small area, there is a rather limited supply. Consumers are willing to pay much more for champagne than sparkling wine from California, which may taste just as good but lacks the same cachet. The lack of resources, i.e., scarcity, drives up prices. Scarcity is at the heart of the media planning and selling equation, and no topic is more relevant given the current trend of multiplatform viewing in media.
  • Column: Relevance -- The Key to Unlocking Conversion
    Conversion or conversion rate are terms that take on various meanings depending on your marketing objectives.
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