• by Tim McHale , June 5, 2002

As I grew up, I looked upon my father as "The Man." He was supposed to become a New York City cop, like everyone else in his family, but when he returned from the Korean War Conflict in the early 1950's, he came home with an ulcer, which kept him from being accepted into the Police Academy.

College was not in the consideration set within the McHale Clan mindset back then, so Frank McHale did the next best methodical thing. He investigated all the other civil services and determined which to join based on the benefits. He chose the New York City Sanitation Department.

So, as the rest of the McHale clan was trying to keep the streets clean of drugs, crime and general social disorder, my father was working hard to keep the streets of New York clean of garbage, snow, ice and general debris.

As early as I can remember, my father had a fascination with garbage, how it was generated, who generated it most, how it was collected, how it was transported, where it was deposited (both short and long term,) and most importantly, the safety and health issues surrounding the 12,000 workers who managed the 24/7 process.

After paying his dues in the field, my father eventually advanced and became part of the NYC department management team, which was just ushering in the use of technology and a more careful management of resources relating to the garbage disposal process, beginning in the late 60's.

Growing up, he told me over and over again that his biggest task was "to understand the difference between garbage and waste." By waste, he was referring to city funds being spent unproductively, or worse, needlessly.

The man couldn't get enough of it. He was obsessed. I remember coming home late at night as a kid during high school, only to see the kitchen light on, with my father typing away (2 fingers), well past midnight. As I'd try to cautiously go by him, holding my breath (to keep him from smelling the liquor), my father would require me to sit down and listen to cost cutting productivity improvements. I'll never forget for example of how re-routing each of the 5 borough garbage collection routes were rescheduled to avoid commuter traffic dayparts, which cost the City millions in extra man-power, gasoline and equipment depreciation. Did you know that today, garbage collection routes are rush hour traffic-sensitive, to avoid a 32% decrease in productivity during rush hour time periods. Fascinating stuff, indeed.

He spent his entire 35 year city career thinking about garbage, living, breathing and conceptualizing it in different ways; managing a complex commodity that most people thought was worthless.

Some say that interactive media has little value. Certainly, some of the deals getting done these days would suggest that price/value equation. Conversely, this week's announcement of the record upfront TV commitments indicates traditional media is seen as possessing great value. Where else do you see CPM increases of 5 to 9% or more?

The question of whether any of these deals reflect cross-platform media elements comes to mind. With no major cross-platform deals announced this cycle, one would suspect that upfront TV marketers are still not convinced that interactive media is worth much.

The safe money is to put it all in TV. The only problem is that these TV "investments" aren't really "safe" or well spent. Why? Because heavy users consume the bulk of TV viewing, which are historically uneducated, not fully employed and have little disposable income.

The large majority of marketers who participate in the upfront TV market are Fortune 200 companies, who actually rely on a more upscale demo than the average TV viewer for a good portion of their sales.

As a city bureaucrat, my father would have been able to identify this to His Honor The Mayor, who would have in this day and era, jumped on this purchasing process and changed it to be more cross-platform.

However, that's not how corporations work. Besides the fact that neither large buying operation managements nor TV executives are trained or interested in interactive, it continues to be left off the table.

This combined with career-focused risk averse marketing types taking the "safe" route at Fortune 200's has in my opinion created potentially the largest "wasted" commitment of media dollars in the history of marketing.

As a result, as an industry, we should not expect the interactive medium to rebound with support from the world's largest corporations. To move the industry forward, we should look more to B, C, D & E size-level companies, niche fighters who "understand the difference between garbage and waste."

For his efforts, though not specifically provided in financial terms (he did get an unbelievable city pension :>), my father was a huge success. I remember as a kid seeing Mayor Robert Wagner personally introduce my father to Bobby Kennedy as a new breed of civil servant.

Technically a "garbage man," my father epitomized someone with a vision, who by his example helped me understand in my own way, what value we in the interactive media business are trying to create. For the moment, many of us may need to look closer to home for worth, which will have to make do until marketers understand interactive media's true assessment. Yet it's these experiences that over time become truly priceless and what we remember most.