The (industrial) (r)evolution of media picks up speed

Is Adweek on the web worth $20 a month? How is value set in a content rich world? That is the scary truth facing many for profit media organizations and the question cuts so deep that it threatens almost everyone in a very broadly defined vertical. This is happening while prices for ordinary things are going through the roof. 

 

Now, imagine a time long ago when generations of blacksmiths began to find their skills were no longer commanding a respectable living in a busy and faster moving world that required their craftsmanship less and less. Incredulity, scorn, ridicule, fist fights, you name it, happened for decades all over America as technology impacted culture on multiple levels and changed us forever. The same thing has been happening for the past decade. It's just getting started.

 

The industrial revolution in the US displaced families anchored for generations on hard work in every small town in a growing America and it happened in a cloud of mistrust and anger as America culturally "moved into town and took a job". This was, in fact, the positive outcome of a giant 'social correction'. Social corrections reorganize social capital in order to move ahead further. And while this really big picture observation chunks up decades into blurbs, it also helps explains right now.

The industrial (r)evolution of media is about content(information).  Supply and demand of high quality content in a world that is consuming more content than ever but, is suddenly and temporarily saturated with it because the damns have been removed from the river...or control over access to the market for content and ideas was lost to technology. 

So, you can only get Adweek's content if you subscribe but there are so many good marketing and advertising blogs out there right now, that if you go to them, you get a lot of great insight anyway. If you are a producer of sought after content, trying to hang onto the old profitability and distribution patterns of those ideas even more tightly is proving to be a fool's errand and social media is taking us to school on this point everyday. That is not to say that branded content has less utility but, in fact the means for monetizing content is changing dramatically on all fronts. The trend towards social media should be looked at as a strong societal impulse. It is not a fad nor is it a business platform waiting to be developed.  It is an important outgrowth of the information age dynamics using the same technology that freed up all content (media) and is now showing us the way to what is next: this will likely entail specialization in producing content as well as specializing in distributing that content. These are two businesses, not one.  <update: check out this Forrester blog entry> Ultimately, supply and demand dictates the value of ideas but by further specializing in the production of content or the distribution, I believe old media companies will be forced to choose a specialty in order to achieve the needed skills <efficiencies> for the next generation of media consumption. In this last thought is the one basic reason behind this blog.....this is a multi-generational trend. There's no way a society is flexible enough to go from the media culture we have had for 80+ years to this new paradigm in one decade. It'll take the children of the Millenial generation to really see this challenge through. The big picture captured by all these events that is one of a changing social mood...unfolding in what I loosely call the root trend. From this perspective, the large and pervasive changes occurring now, not only make sense, they allow you to see the future (in some respects) without a crystal ball.

Content is getting cheaper not because it is not as good but because competition in the market for ideas is swift and will get even swifter with new modes of distribution for content on the way. The incredible amount of focus of social energy on the creation and distribution of content is driving this massive cultural change...and it is not one set of business dynamics that can be "managed". This is the same dynamic the blacksmiths never saw because they were not connected to the state of supply as we are today. Because we are so connected, we can now see that 'good enough' or even 'great' will not hold for long because the bar is always moving, especially during a social correction. This last point is perhaps the central point of a 'social correction' at a large degree of trend in social mood. This is the same social backdrop for the industrial revolution during and after the civil war.  As social mood changes what we pay attention to changes...the things that we collectively value (all kinds), change. Add new technology to this social mix and the outcomes are best looked at from this very large perspective.  Change in the world of consuming produced content cannot help but be profoundly impacted in this environment. (The evolution of media was not initiated by a social correction, it just occurred slightly before a big one began happening. The industrial revolution achieved social traction only at the end of a giant social correction)

If there is a tiger chasing you and about to eat you, it does not matter why. Our emotional reaction to feeling threatened is analogous to why this perspective ellusive. Social mood is anchored in our emotions and shared (unconsciously) in the background of our daily communications with other people.  It is a very diffused process hard to pin down at any one point and is why the discussion are better focused for business by looking at entire markets and verticals.  When we can stand apart from the big emotions we filter outside events through, we are better able to see deeper into the social correction process and how it will matter to marketers a lot during a secular inflection point already made obvious by the events in media but, also by many more parallel social trending developments. This is the root trend. It matters to marketers.

Is AdWeek worth the price of admission? To the core groups of subscribers, yes definitely. Social mood tells us that this core group will change a lot over the next decade both because of competition to create and distribute like content and in how users interact with content in general.  How should that change how the brand is managed today? and for next year?  The kind of flexibility needed in periods of such change is not common in large companies with long chains of command. The key to using this insight is to understand the priorities outlined by the social trending patterns affecting our markets most closely and keeping our resources allocated in a manner that acknowledges them.  That is the job of marketers in the (industrial) (r)evolution of media. Dave.

ps...if you are interested in digging deeper into media changes and challenges there is an expanded discussion here. The ownership of ideas is discussed as well as how markets dictate what is needed whether we choose to listen or not. The era of "Choice" will eventually be considered the transition to a new era of how we use ideas in the US. It's not really about media but if you are in media it sure seems that way. This blog is all about characterizing this new era from as many angles as possible in ways that matter to marketers. updated observation: isn't it interesting at how in following the theme: How We Value Things Changes as Social Mood Changes.....that the velocity of money in the economy is slowing remarkably quickly. Social mood tells us with unmistakable clarity that this social creative energy is being reallocated to places where it can and will be used to organize our social capital  through this correction so we may get set to proceed on the next secular upswing.....which, by wave principle. promises wholly different  characteristics.