Take a look at this article out of Media Life which clears up for us blithering idiots the underlying dynamics of the HOT upfront market.
Oh NO … It’s not that TV is the most influential or most trusted advertising medium, it’s not that it has the best ratio of reach and impact or the best ROI or is best able to create a consumer or that it has the ability to positively impact other advertising mediums… It’s a referendum on Digital. Because Digital is so beloved, marketers are slapping it on the wrist (by shifting 800 Million smackers over to Network TV) until it gets its act together. “It will be interesting to see if digital gets the message and makes better progress toward 100 percent viewability and battling ad fraud” says Bill Cromwell. “Gets the message” ?? – Dude, sorry but seems YOU didn’t get the message. Let’s hope he doesn’t hold his breath, and in the meantime take a look at some past pontiffs:
1998 CEO of TiVo – “2/3’s or more of HH’s that advertisers care about will be fast forwarding through TV ads”
2004 Forester Research – “We’ve reached the end of the era of mass marketing”
Seth Godin – “We have reached the end of Traditional Advertising”
2005 – “The :30 spot – at least how it exists today – is either dead, dying, or has outlived its usefulness. Take your pick.” Joseph Jaffe in Life After The :30 Spot
Ad Age – “The post advertising age is underway”
2006 Tech Crunch – “Let’s just declare TV Dead and move on”
Future Lab – “advertising is Dead”
2006 – Bill Gates – “I’m stunned how people aren’t seeing that in 5 years we will laugh at what we had”
2007 Wired – “Traditional TV won’t be here in 7-10 years”
2007 The Telegraph – “TV is Dying”
2009 – Bob Garfield – “The present is apocalyptic. Any hope for a seamless transition or any transition at all from mass media and marketing to micro media and marketing is absurd. The sky is falling. We are exquisitely and irreversibly f’d”
The story of transformation and innovation continues to belong to TV. It’s clearly evident that changing the rhetoric from “our predictions are inevitable” to “our predictions are reprehensible” turns out – for some, to be too much to bear.
Now lets Rock! Tired Of Toein’ The Line by Rocky Burnette (son of Rock and Roll pioneer Johnny Burnette) was co-written by Ron Coleman of The Everly Brothers. This single off of his 1980 LP “The Son Of Rock and Roll” was a smash hit, peaking at #8 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and reaching #1 in Australia.
