• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, August 31, 2007

During a recent lunch with Brian Wieser, I asked the Interpublic economist why the ad industry has yet to embrace mobile marketing in any significant way.

Wieser, director of industry analysis for Interpublic's Magna Global unit, had just published the agency's first-ever forecast on emerging media platforms, and estimated that marketers would spend only $105 million on mobile marketing this year - and perhaps twice that next year.

While growing rapidly, mobile still is minuscule by the standard of a half-trillion dollar advertising economy. So I just had to ask, "Why? After all, isn't the cell-phone the most personal and ubiquitous communications device ever?"

"No," Wieser rejoined. "The most personal and ubiquitous communications device is the larynx."

Wieser wasn't kidding. And his point wasn't so much about why advertisers were slow to embrace cell-phones, Blackberries and other personal communications devices as a new marketing platform, as it was about how people actually use media, and how marketers can most effectively communicate to them. It made me think. And not just about mobile marketing, but about all established and emerging media - and the way we think about and categorize them.

Take gaming, for example. Wieser estimates that advertisers will spend about $217 million on various forms of video game marketing this year. Wieser believes that marketers need to temper the hype surrounding rapidly emerging platforms based on how people actually use them, and in terms of how effective and efficient they are as methods of marketing communications. He cites other examples of platform-shifting behaviors, such as social networking, which is growing rapidly online, but isn't really a new phenomenon.

Social networking has been around since the inception of the Internet - remember chatting, news groups and Geocities? More importantly, it's been around since there have been humans. In fact, Wieser even suggests that social networking isn't actually expanding the amount of time people spend online. It's just shifting what they do online, and likely drawing time spent from traditional Web sites. Over the past year and a half, Wieser noted that total Internet page views were up less than 3 percent, while page views on social networks were up about 99 percent.

Wieser's observations are worth remembering as the hype surrounding emerging media platforms outpaces both their actual penetration and their economic impact. Social networks are big, for sure, but relatively few people spend the 40 hours a month that the elite "power users" who get much of the media's attention do.

Conversely, usage of conventional media has not diminished at nearly the rates people assume. Yes, consumption of print-based media is down, but people are getting more of their newspaper, magazine and directory information online. And despite perceptions that the Internet is eroding TV usage, people continue to spend more time watching television than they do online. According to recent estimates from Veronis Suhler Stevenson, they may be watching less traditional broadcast TV, but they are watching more cable, satellite and alternate forms of television. That will likely continue as TV migrates from the tube to the PC and the mobile hand-held device.

But a surprising consequence does appear to be happening in terms of the way people use media. The influx of digital technologies is allowing people to consume media more efficiently - on their own time, and in shorter, more economical snippets. As a result, Veronis Suhler Stevenson estimates that the total number of hours people spent using media declined for the first time in recent memory. What the data may not have shown, however, is how much time people spent using other forms of unmeasured media. Say, for instance, the larynx.