Commentary

Media Insights Q&A with Jack Myers, Chairman, Media Advisory Group

Jack Myers, Chairman and Media Economist for the Media Advisory Group, is one of the leading media prognosticators in the industry. His Jack Myers Media Business Report and the Survey of Advertising Executives have become industry standards and continue to help media companies serve their customer base and plan for the future. 

 

In addition to the article below, there are six videos on www.WeislerMedia.blogspot.com where Jack talks about a range of issues, from the role of research in companies, DVR and 3D, sensory recognition, trends to 2020 and his annual Advertiser Survey. 

 

CW: You've seen the media transition from radio to network television to cable television and now to the internet. What do you see as the timeline for the current media evolution, and the similarities and differences to past media evolutions?

advertisement

advertisement

 

JM: The timeline issue is interesting. I have been incredibly accurate in my forecasts on the business and how it would change. I just haven't been as accurate in predicting how long it would take for changes to happen.

There are interesting common themes between what happened between broadcasting and cable and what is happening now as digital is becoming more and more important. We used to say that no medium has ever replaced another medium - it's been layered on top of the previous medium. But what we are seeing with digital is that it truly is in many ways replacing legacy media.

We see that in newspapers where the readership is declining. It doesn't mean that newspapers are going away -- but for many consumers, newspapers are no longer a part of their lives. For many consumers, the print magazine is no longer a part of their lives. And I think ultimately we are going to see in the next few years for many consumers especially young ones, traditional modes of viewing television video content is going to change.

Traditional ways of listening to music have already changed. So I think we are seeing much more significant changes in the business today and I also think we are going to see them move much more quickly in terms of advancing into the culture than we have in the past.

 

 

CW:  The big question though, concerns the revenue model.

 

JM: The revenue models are critical. Everyone talks about ROI and ROI is a very custom issue. Every marketer has a different set of measures, a set of metrics.

I think we are moving from a period of standardization in measurement to a period of customization in measurement. And I think it will elevate the research community to a much more important role within both the marketers at the agencies as well as at the media companies. This is because they will not only have to buy and oversee the methodology of a Nielsen or a MRI, but they are also going to have to work with the customers directly - the research people at the agencies, the clients, the marketers. They will all work together toward a common goal of delivering ROI by whatever measure the marketer determines. 

 

CW: What do you see as the dominant media for billing dollars 10 years from now?/p>

JM: Social Media. That is, social media, conversational marketing and word of mouth - nearly 50 billion dollars. It is an extraordinary rocket ship going forward. But what is important to recognize is that social media doesn't exist without other media to drive it.

So Facebook at this point is not really social marketing but it is a social medium. It has not developed social marketing tools and resources.

The way social marketing will evolve is through established and trusted media brands. Brands like CNN. "American Idol" has a strong social component. Any program that has a strong fan base or fan club is going to be a social media property and fan clubs exist around almost every major television show and the talent in those shows.

But the media companies are not monetizing those fan clubs. Fan clubs have grown up separate from them. Now they will begin to capture those databases and they will learn to monetize them through social media. And marketers will want to be a part of that and will pay to be associated with those fans. This radically changes the nature of our business and puts a lot more emphasis on content. The way it is today and the way it has been for five decades is that marketers were content agnostic and that they focused on the platforms - they had network TV buyers and print buyers and radio buyers separate. Now they are becoming platform agnostic and focusing on content. They are associating themselves with that content across multiple platforms. It is an interesting and major change in the fundamental dynamics of our business and we are just beginning to adapt to the reality of that change. I think the single most important and opportune shift in the transformation of our business is the growing importance of content.  

CW: Jack, Thank you so much for your time. How can we get in touch with you?

 

JM: My email is jm@jackmyers.com and my websites are www.jackmyers.com and www.MediaBizBloggers.com.

Next story loading loading..