• by Ted Smith , September 17, 2010

Many years ago, conventional wisdom was that games and entertainment was a youth industry and health was for older people. My colleagues in entertainment were always playing with new interactive programs which would "never be relevant to chronic disease treatment marketing."

I was told that the Baby Boom -- like the Greatest Generation before it -- has a more traditional view of media and medical information: "Everyone knows you should ask your doctor and maybe another doctor and look with legitimate suspicion at the Wikipedia."

They also said that the Boomers still read enough printed magazines to make it worth everyone's while to advertise in these publications while the readers nursed a long list of chronic diseases: "Remember: it is one pill a day for every decade of age after 50 -- you can set your clock by that." The result today is often a message and media plan not too terribly differently than one from 1991.

Many of us shouted into the void that it will all be digital someday and we will be vindicated.

Like a Supernova: Growing Until It Disappears

A funny thing happened on the way to digital convergence-- it became uninteresting. One of the great chroniclers of the digitization of health consumers is Susannah Fox at the Pew Internet and American Life Project. In her studies, the lens is not focused on age but the intensity of adoption of online resources by all American consumers.

There is an entire movement surrounding "e-Patients" and those who get "Health2.0." In a recent exchange in an online community dedicated to e-patient ideas, Fox lays out the situation pretty clearly:

"Just to remind you of the sea change we've been through, in the year 2000, ... 25% of American adults looked online for health information (now: 61%). Over the last 10 years, using the Internet to get health information has become an assumption, not an exception. The repetition of this finding from every sector -- for-profit, non-profit, academic, government -- has made it boring. But I draw inspiration from Clay Shirky, who has said, 'Tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically boring.'

"Talking about people Googling for health info is boring. Talking about how health is becoming social online is interesting - even exciting. People are sharing and critiquing what they find. If they don't find what they need, they are creating it. In short, the data -- Pew Internet's and others' -- are quite clear that the online health revolution is over and that use of digital tools in tackling health problems is the natural state of affairs."

Digital is Boring and Essential

Let this be the last article proclaiming that media mix is so 2000. Instead of talking about how digital won, let's take up a different burden in marketing. There is an expectation that the information will be there, and simply being there is not winning.

Winning in a post-medium world demands new finger holds and toe holds for media planning. I propose three here and welcome your feedback on ones I'm surely missing.

1) Level of consumer investment in the channel: This is a better predictor than demographics or context alone. Leaning forward and connecting with advocates is the profile of a decision maker: some who asks for -- rather than about -- products.

2) Consumer psychographics: From prior research, we know there are a few broad segments of consumers that differ in their need for information and their belief in their abilities. We will see in this decade the places and people that influence these different psychological styles.

3) User-defined brand/product affinity: This dynamic should take on greater importance. The first era of that was SEM.I In the next era as "Like" grows and social graph targeting matures, we will see plans that start with the self-identified who are brand-predisposed - people who will welcome the message and share it rather than those who get interrupted by it or must claw through it on the way to what they want.

The truly new media plans will be very digital, but that is the boring part. More importantly, they will be in tune with what that channel makes possible so that marketing campaigns can fit very important individual interests and affinities.