ADwire » Herding Cats

Herding Cats

July 30th, 2008 at 11:17am Cindy Harris

Web-based TV is shoving traditional TV aside quite rudely. A new study on media habits reported in today’s Ad Age is the first that gives real evidence to the theory that people are migrating from traditional TV to Web-based streaming video for entertainment. The study indicates audiences are not “supplementing” but rather replacing the new media for the old. Whoa! That’s huge.

The alarms have been sounding in media shops about the Web, VOD (video on demand) and streaming video for a while now and, the reality is we can no longer count on 3 networks to provide a common American experience or, more to the point, a tremendously huge audience for the product or service your advertising.

And while fragments are bad when it comes to grammar, a fragmented advertising audience means good and bad things.

The good thing about fragmenting an audience is that you can target your message to those people who are really into your message, versus the old-time “Spray and Pray” advertising that only had to promote their products on the 3 networks, on the radio and in newspapers and in magazines.

Example - You’re more likely to see a high ROI for an ad promoting San Diego’s Comic Con if you placed it prior to an exclusive Battlestar Galactica podcast (and as an aside, BSG was seriously robbed by those Emmy people) than you would if you ran it on the evening news or during an episode of “America’s Got Talent.”

The bad thing is that we ad professionals need to work harder. It takes more time, more research and more creativity to reach an audience these days. The other negative with a fragmented audience is there is little chance you or your advertising agency can keep up with all the different niches. You will, be definition, be missing some. The web and its real-time communications also means that a chat board that LOVES your product at 10 am may be in full revolt by 11:35 am because a few negative posts by unsatisfied (or just malicious) customers.

It’s a whole new frontier, one where herding the audience will make or break your ad campaign as much as your message and your creative.

Giddyup!