The death of Mass Media?

During a session at yesterday's Forecast 2005 entitled "Disruptive Technologies," a group of panelists debated the impact of various technologies such as DVRs and targeting software on the media business.
The resolve presented to the group was: "Emerging technologies will completely break down the last vestiges of mass media and mass marketing." Panelists were not completely sold on this notion, but they universally agreed that the TV business in particular was set to undergo tremendous change.
Mediapost reported
Interestingly, in London another group of people were discussing interactive technologies in broadcast and other media. James Stoney from Red Fig, Nigel Walley of Decipher were discussing the very same issues.
The PVR as we call it in the UK is already having a seismic impact on who people consume TV programming. Nigel Whalley at the BCMA seminar last night shared his view that the EPG in conjuntion with the PVR will have a fundamental effect on TV advertising. Adam Singer of Cordelia and an authority on matters relating to broadcast and technology is equally of the same view.
Back in the US some people argued that product placement would address to some degree the impact of the PVR.
The response by Adam Gerber director of media strategy at MediaVest

You can't squeeze a 60 billion dollar marketplace into product placement, Gerber said. People will turn their sets off.

And they most certainly will, if the type of product placement described by Fast Company magazine August 2004 is anything to go by. Linda Tischler writing The Good Brand descibes a recent episode of the The Restaurant

AmEx's presence on The Restaurant was, he (John Hayes CMO for AmEx) admits, occasionally ham-handed, as chef Rocco paused, midcrisis, to extol the virtues of the company's small business service

But AmEx is a really good example of the above debate. in 1994 Fast Company report AmEx spent 80% of its marketing budget on TV; by 2003, that number had fallen to 35%. The change driven by the audiences migrating to to DVD's, the internet, cable (HBO), video games - and TiVo.
John Ranelagh former Commissioner for the ITC says that there is growing evidence that TV has lost young males to video games.
The issue is now, its not tomorrow, or next year. The issue is how then do you spend your marketing budget, how do you reach your customers, how do you differentiate in a crowded marketspace. How do you create pull to your brand?
The answer is to create, scaleable creative assets that can travel across channels, across national boundaries, across stakeholders, that will drive business results; reducing costs, driving sales, and creating greater customer advocacy.
We call it engagement marketing.