As most boomer’s can attest, the advances in media and expansion of ad messages all around us has grown exponentially, in just our generation. Even though I am at the young side of boomer, I have lived at the forefront of diverse technology and consumerism ALL my life and I would describe the difference by using the term ‘magnitude of order,’ which for those less scientific in the audience is 10 times the previous standard.

I actually think it’s more than that, but I digress. Now, for the ubiquitous, “When I was a Kid,” and media was the classic three network channels and the radio dial, ad or marketing impressions where counted by the handful. Often, a single corporate entity sponsored a whole prime-time, hour-long show. And, back in the day prime-time wasn’t 24/7 like it is now, You really only had a three short hours before The Tonight Show and that was it.

Okay, I know you’re rolling your eyes wondering what my point is in visiting the past, (some of you may actually be remembering your media youth,) but I do have one. What I am aiming to do is offer a dramatic comparison of what the Ad industry was built on and what it has become and how they might not be precepts that agree with each other in the modern day. Back in the day, there really was such a thing as a captive audience and the popularity of the time slot and creative content drove the ad value. Today, captive audience is a quaint archaic reference to the pre-Internets age of no Tivo, itunes or bittorrent! It even predates the VCR, can you imagine!

Crazy huh! Yet true. The ironic thing is the Ad world still envisions its product carrying the same value now, as it did in the golden age of advertising. Now I can hear your eyes rolling in your head and the pfft spitting unconsciously from your mouth! Yes, they do and the Super bowl serves as a prime bloated modern day example. The biggest truth is that their conventional product in and of itself, currently possesses very little value to make impact with consumers, by way of comparison to the olden days. Think of the CD analogy in the current music marketplace … just because the industry wants you to consume their product in the format they dictate to you, doesn’t mean you have to go out and buy the disc to get the product. Or even that you have to buy the product at all. Isn’t technology grand!

Blasphemy you say. Actually, no. Understanding the basic paradigms of advertising will underscore my point. For example, a key advertising analytic is impressions. Lets see how things have changed since the golden era:

Olden Days impressions: television, radio, newspaper and print periodicals. If you were an adult it was what you saw in the prime time TV slots, the Radio spots to and from work and print in the paper and occasional magazine. If you saw more than a few dozen impressions a day during the golden era, you were a stay at home mom. Dad saw fewer and junior fewer still. This was the branding heyday! If you threw enough money and creative talent at the ad scene, chances were good you could make a name like for yourself like any of the familiar, old school corporate Fortune 100 still around today.

Internet Age Impressions: With digital capability came the opening of Pandora’s entertainment box! Lets take a look at the media sources available today. All the media from the previous era still exists but lets add all the ADDITIONAL impressions from surfing online and I am being conservative by saying depending on where you go or what you do for a living, you can see a full “olden days” impression quota before you get to work in the morning. If you work in any conventional cubical farm at all, you have constant Internet access during the day and lets not kid ourselves, you use it! If that’s the case, total daily impressions can be way more than that mythical ‘magnitude of order’ of the total impressions that consumers were exposed to in the olden days. I, as you know, work in media research and my impression exposure in a standard day is easily 3 to 5 HUNDRED impressions from the internet alone. This doesn’t include my drive time radio (which I’m convinced is the last remaining effective olden day ad venue,) and I don’t even watch conventional television! So, when you look at it that way, it adds up doesn’t it!

But wait! There’s more! Lets not forget the PR factor, which adds a whole new dimension in the modern age! Back in the golden age it was easy for the consumer to discern between ads and PR. The media itself helped keep the defining line clear. Back then PR didn’t step on the toes of its advertising brethren and consumer confusion wasn’t nearly the issue it would become. In the Internet age PR competes more directly for the dwindling consumer attention span and it muddies the marketing water even more by the very nature of its evolution into a chameleon that has no problem delivering brilliantly executed mixed messages in formats that were once the hallowed ground of advertising only. In other words, PR is not just for magazines anymore and everything is fair game! Welcome to the viral buzz world and even more competition for your dwindling impression time. (used car salesman grin.)

What’s it all mean?
It means the ad industry will have to adjust a changing consumer landscape, just like the music and entertainment industry does. Stay tuned next week for part two.