Commentary

Media Inefficiency Is Back -- But From Social Media Friends?

Attention all wannabe media owners, disguised as tweeters/social media generators: Talk to me sometime. Person-to-person. Leave the wide-reaching, broad-based content to the professionals.

Sure, the world is moving to more personal marketing/targeting from big media marketers. But right now, there are plenty of uneven results. (Hey, GuitarCenter. Stop with the ads and emails. I already bought two guitars from you. Don’t be greedy!)

But now we have social media going in somewhat the same direction -- with rising group general texting/tweeting efforts. Is everyone now an opinionated media platform, looking for the broadest audience/friends?

Maybe we should perfect better personal marketing/targeting before everything gets too crazy -- from those established big media platforms, as well as for smaller concerns. Until then, maybe we should be a bit lazy. Embrace one’s media imperfections.

advertisement

advertisement

Now a couple of weeks into the new TV season, we have another batch of wide-reaching prime-time TV network TV programming attached to major Fortune 500 advertising. Some general entertainment and other media diversions will be enough to fill my day: Fox’s “Lethal Weapon,” NBC’s “The Good Place,” ABC’s “Speechless” and CBS’ “Bull”.

Traditional TV viewers don’t necessarily seem to mind. So far, audience erosion for nonsports TV programming this year has been down 7% season to date; which is kind of average. By anyone’s measure, there are -- again -- few “hits” so far this season. 

TV/media owners may be more worried about NFL viewing declines -- off 11%. But NFL TV programming is still watched virtually live unlike much other TV programming content. So those NFL TV commercials are still being seen in real-time.

Think addressable TV programming is a better bet? Not yet. Set-top box data can tell you only so much — and consumer purchasing-based third-party data and algorithms are limited. 

Media spillage still abounds (but probably less so): TV does this -- and that’s OK. Keep up the good work GEICO, Nissan and Crown Royal Vanilla. I may consider your wares -- imperfectly.

Next story loading loading..