Friday, October 05, 2007
Marketing 101 for media types
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,,2175789,00.html
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-08/ff_sheep
Lesson 1 — Just because you can do something with technology, it doesn’t mean should do it.
Why? Because unless it meets genuine existing needs in consumers’ lives in a way which fits in with their lives, they won’t go out of their way to use it.
At least the mass market won’t — there are always early-adopters and techheads who will, but Mrs Blogs isn’t interested in mastering WAP technology to do something she never wanted to do in the first place.
Don’t believe me? Ask the mobile phone networks who paid billions for 3G networks and got handset makers to pack ever more features into them only to see 80% go unused and the hair-whiteningly expensive bandwidth go largely underused.
Lesson 2 — Just because consumers are going somewhere for recreation doesn’t mean they’re sitting ducks for adverts in that place.
Which is why the Second Life adspace is not proving a good investment, along with in-game ads. Unless they're seriously after the demographic there.
So next time check out the stats before you fire of a huge budget at a new channel just ’cause you’re scared you’ll be left behind as you were with MySpace.
You might defend it as a 'real option' strategy, but it's just 'blunderbuss marketing' of the shoot-and-hope variety.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-08/ff_sheep
Lesson 1 — Just because you can do something with technology, it doesn’t mean should do it.
Why? Because unless it meets genuine existing needs in consumers’ lives in a way which fits in with their lives, they won’t go out of their way to use it.
At least the mass market won’t — there are always early-adopters and techheads who will, but Mrs Blogs isn’t interested in mastering WAP technology to do something she never wanted to do in the first place.
Don’t believe me? Ask the mobile phone networks who paid billions for 3G networks and got handset makers to pack ever more features into them only to see 80% go unused and the hair-whiteningly expensive bandwidth go largely underused.
Lesson 2 — Just because consumers are going somewhere for recreation doesn’t mean they’re sitting ducks for adverts in that place.
Which is why the Second Life adspace is not proving a good investment, along with in-game ads. Unless they're seriously after the demographic there.
So next time check out the stats before you fire of a huge budget at a new channel just ’cause you’re scared you’ll be left behind as you were with MySpace.
You might defend it as a 'real option' strategy, but it's just 'blunderbuss marketing' of the shoot-and-hope variety.
Labels: marketing, newspapers
