I worry that a world that still feels familiar to me is being bargained out from beneath my feet.
The bargains are being made between media and advertisers. Advertisers pay the media big money to place ads where they will reach the greatest potential number of desired potential customers.
The word “potential” is used twice because fishing for consumers is just that: The lake may have a million fish in it, but if you catch five with any given effort, it has been a good day.
So the advertisers do all they can to maximize the very small percentages with which they must work. It makes them extremely selective. They covet media that can put them in contact with the lucrative 11-year-old female market. They covet media that can place their products before the eyes of 20-year-old males. They twitch happily at the prospect of “owning” that group of media consumers who are 18 to 49 years of age.
They don’t much care about the 60-plus male market. In fact as a 62-year-old male, I feel more or less ignored by the media and advertising world. I resent that, some. I read a story about Paris Hilton going to buy clothes, and in the shop she saw a pair of shoes. They cost $1,000. She bought other stuff, but she argued to the sales staff that they should give her the shoes. When she wore them, she argued, they would be seen by many people who saw Paris wearing them in the newspaper and on television, and those people, loving Paris as they do, would want the shoes too.
They gave her the shoes. I resented that, but only for a moment. We all want to be liked, and I enjoyed a tiny fantasy rush, thinking about people wanting to buy shoes because I wore them. But the moment was washed away by a wave of relief that I am not Paris Hilton.
The feeling of being ignored is not a new one. I noticed it first some years ago, with all the fuss over the Baby Boomers, who as a body were viewed as a huge bulge in the belly of the marketing python. The Baby Boomers were those people born from 1946 to 1964. I was born in 1943. Missed the boat by three years. All that desirability, forfeited in a rush to get born.
It didn’t mean anything at the time. Marketing demographics existed in the 1940s and ‘50s, but only marginally. In those days there were only three television networks, some AM radio stations, and a slowly growing number of FM stations. There wasn’t much media, and only 24 hours in a day, and advertising was totally mainstream. Kids were kids, and were battered by the usual kid fantasies, but when they watched television, they watched what their parents watched. They saw the same movies as their parents, listened to the same radio stations, shopped at the same stores, wore generic kid stuff, because that’s all there was.
By the ‘80s, I was feeling left out and by the ‘90s I knew the only advertisers interested in me were those with products I would use to avoid the sorts of personal embarrassments and discomforts that came with a maturing body.
Now, in the 2000s, I am feeling less ignored than totally deserted. Recently CBS announced it was canceling four shows because their appeal was to people in their 50s. The newspaper story about those cancellations used the word, “geezer.” It tells us 62-year-olds all we need to know about our market value.
It was nice, feeling wanted, and I will miss it. But not as much as I fear the disappearance of that world I knew. Marketing and media with their power to target the desirable young people not only generally but specifically gives those people terrific power to shape the world in their desirable images. Carrying that cultural force to its extreme, it means that in my lifetime the First Lady of the United States could be Paris Hilton. I shudder to imagine who the president might be.
May 26, 2005
May 19, 2005
Farewell to Service
If X is history, and Y is service, and you plot an ordinary parabola, then humanity has clearly reached the apogee of Service Heaven and is hurtling down a rocket roller-coaster descent into Service Hell.
The apogee was reached, of course, with Nordstrom, whose business model was the service stations (remember when they called them “service stations”?) of the 1940s. At service stations, an attendant came out, asked how much gas you wanted, pumped the gas, checked your tires, washed your windshield, checked your oil and water, and brought you change. The tab for this was never over $5. You can still see service stations in TCM movies.
Nordstrom improved on that model and was in fact Service Heaven. I remember feeling a little “this can’t last” uneasiness in Nordstrom, and sure enough, at the peak of the Service Heaven apogee, banks introduced the ATM card. It was first presented as a “check guarantee card,” making you feel privileged and secure while the banks let you gradually get used to the idea that the ATM card made you your own teller.
When banks proved that human employees could be eliminated, along with the messy salaries and benefits, other businesses jumped on the model and Y started downhill. Slowly at first, ironically with service stations, that regressed to card-operated gas stations, and then the descent picked up speed. Overnight, it seemed, we became our own telephone receptionists and switchboards.
For a long time I assumed the phone tree was the bottom, and that Service Hell had been reached. Then just the other day I went to IKEA. It was very interesting. We walked up some stairs and then began walking through furniture groupings and displays. Our progress was along a sort of trail, well-marked, like you would follow through the great outdoors. Then we reached a stairway taking us downstairs. It was a welcome sight to me, because by then I was hot and tired and imagined we would find the trailhead, if you will, at the bottom of the stairs.
But the foot of the stairs was only the top of the peak, so to speak. At the bottom we trudged on. And on. I remembered an old movie, “Fantastic Voyage,” in which medical people, Raquel Welch among them, were miniaturized and injected into the circulatory system, from which there was no escape, of an individual whose life needed saving.
It was my situation exactly. I was trapped in a circulatory system, and my life needed saving. Raquel Welch could have run into me naked, at her movie age or her age now, and I would not have noticed. Finally we passed into a cavernous warehouse area where all the furniture and appointments and accessories had been digested into aisle upon aisle of compressed brown bundles, and at last we were extruded through checkout lines into air and sky of a sweetness I didn’t remember.
We didn’t buy anything, but we saw something we liked. A china cabinet. We shopped around and found nothing better. So we went back. We found the item and looked around for someone to do business with. In the next hour came the dawn of the real truth about IKEA: IKEA has taken the phone tree business model and cloned it into humans.
I must say that the people who work at IKEA are fine. Friendly, knowledgeable, willing to assume authority and responsibility for your shopping success. But an IKEA employee’s sphere of knowledge and authority extends only about 12 inches outside of his body. An IKEA employee in Lighting or Couches or Pickup has no knowledge of any other department in the building, upstairs or down, or the authority to ask about them.
Thus 99 percent of the shopping knowledge, labor, authority and responsibility became vested in me, the shopper. It was brilliant. Diabolical, but brilliant. Can Y go any lower? I don’t know, but I think President Bush was in IKEA before he cranked up the Social Security business.
The apogee was reached, of course, with Nordstrom, whose business model was the service stations (remember when they called them “service stations”?) of the 1940s. At service stations, an attendant came out, asked how much gas you wanted, pumped the gas, checked your tires, washed your windshield, checked your oil and water, and brought you change. The tab for this was never over $5. You can still see service stations in TCM movies.
Nordstrom improved on that model and was in fact Service Heaven. I remember feeling a little “this can’t last” uneasiness in Nordstrom, and sure enough, at the peak of the Service Heaven apogee, banks introduced the ATM card. It was first presented as a “check guarantee card,” making you feel privileged and secure while the banks let you gradually get used to the idea that the ATM card made you your own teller.
When banks proved that human employees could be eliminated, along with the messy salaries and benefits, other businesses jumped on the model and Y started downhill. Slowly at first, ironically with service stations, that regressed to card-operated gas stations, and then the descent picked up speed. Overnight, it seemed, we became our own telephone receptionists and switchboards.
For a long time I assumed the phone tree was the bottom, and that Service Hell had been reached. Then just the other day I went to IKEA. It was very interesting. We walked up some stairs and then began walking through furniture groupings and displays. Our progress was along a sort of trail, well-marked, like you would follow through the great outdoors. Then we reached a stairway taking us downstairs. It was a welcome sight to me, because by then I was hot and tired and imagined we would find the trailhead, if you will, at the bottom of the stairs.
But the foot of the stairs was only the top of the peak, so to speak. At the bottom we trudged on. And on. I remembered an old movie, “Fantastic Voyage,” in which medical people, Raquel Welch among them, were miniaturized and injected into the circulatory system, from which there was no escape, of an individual whose life needed saving.
It was my situation exactly. I was trapped in a circulatory system, and my life needed saving. Raquel Welch could have run into me naked, at her movie age or her age now, and I would not have noticed. Finally we passed into a cavernous warehouse area where all the furniture and appointments and accessories had been digested into aisle upon aisle of compressed brown bundles, and at last we were extruded through checkout lines into air and sky of a sweetness I didn’t remember.
We didn’t buy anything, but we saw something we liked. A china cabinet. We shopped around and found nothing better. So we went back. We found the item and looked around for someone to do business with. In the next hour came the dawn of the real truth about IKEA: IKEA has taken the phone tree business model and cloned it into humans.
I must say that the people who work at IKEA are fine. Friendly, knowledgeable, willing to assume authority and responsibility for your shopping success. But an IKEA employee’s sphere of knowledge and authority extends only about 12 inches outside of his body. An IKEA employee in Lighting or Couches or Pickup has no knowledge of any other department in the building, upstairs or down, or the authority to ask about them.
Thus 99 percent of the shopping knowledge, labor, authority and responsibility became vested in me, the shopper. It was brilliant. Diabolical, but brilliant. Can Y go any lower? I don’t know, but I think President Bush was in IKEA before he cranked up the Social Security business.
May 12, 2005
The Incast Revolution
The World Wide Web is the Fourth Revolution in the 16,000-odd-year history of media.
The First Revolution was the alphabet, introduced into practical use around 1500 B.C. The effect of the First Revolution was to let information travel across distances. With an alphabet, people could put ideas, fables and histories on paper, or stone, or into clay, allowing the information to be carried, or distributed, from place to place.
The Second Revolution was the printing press, introduced in commercial form by Johann Gutenberg around 1450 A.D. The printing press provided the means to reproduce many copies – and exact copies – of books very quickly, as opposed to the old, “scribal culture” tradition of reproducing a book one copy at a time, which was very slow and very expensive. So the effect of the Second Revolution was to provide the media with volume. Many historians believe the printing press has been the most important invention in the history of humanity.
The Third Revolution was the telegraph, introduced in 1844 by Samuel Morse. The telegraph provided the media with speed. Before 1844, information traveled only as fast as a man on foot, a man on a horse, or a man on a steamship or railroad train. In 1844, it became possible to move information from Point A to Point B at more or less the speed of light.
The Fourth Revolution is the Web, which we may date from about 1995. The effect of the Web is to turn the direction of information around 180 degrees. In the old, and still dominant, “broadcast culture,” information goes from a central location out to the masses. It has been a very effective technology, but also a very expensive one, and very inefficient.
In the Web age – let’s call it “Incast” – the masses come in to the information. Web information, whether it is print, audio or video, is nothing more than files on a computer, accessible globally to anyone with a phone and a computer. Incast is ridiculously inexpensive and almost totally efficient. It is the first one-to-one marketing model in the history of media. Broadcast is so expensive that not many people become broadcasters. Incast is so cheap that practically anyone can go into the media business. The result is an enormous democratizing effect. The Fourth Revolution is the reason that a publication like Voice of San Diego can exist.
We are now on the crest of the Fourth Revolution, headed at global high speed toward an unseen destination. One result we do know is that eventually, print and television will merge. They already have, sort of. When you watch television news, at the end of a story you are told, “For more on this story, go to our Website at www.msnbc.com.” Very soon, the merger will be complete, and your television set will work like a computer, and your remote control will also be a mouse. When you watch a news story on this new television, there will be a link right on the screen. Click on it, and you go to the in-depth, “print” version of the story. Media students already are aware that in the new journalism, they are going to have to write for both print and television: the 90-second version (about 210 words) for television, and the 4,000-word version for print.
The TV version, meanwhile, will “wait,” since it is only a file in a computer, for you to go read the in-depth story, and then click back to the TV news, which will resume where you left it. It is difficult to imagine what that simple change will mean to the media-public relationship. Right now, we are in a primitive stage of the new relationship, like people in the 1890s who suddenly had a telephone they could use. To use it effectively, they almost had to understand how to build one. Same with the Web, that has caused enough hair-pulling to fill a billion pillows. But the Incast business model is strong, only the fourth revolution in media history, and it won’t be long before we know more than we do now.
The First Revolution was the alphabet, introduced into practical use around 1500 B.C. The effect of the First Revolution was to let information travel across distances. With an alphabet, people could put ideas, fables and histories on paper, or stone, or into clay, allowing the information to be carried, or distributed, from place to place.
The Second Revolution was the printing press, introduced in commercial form by Johann Gutenberg around 1450 A.D. The printing press provided the means to reproduce many copies – and exact copies – of books very quickly, as opposed to the old, “scribal culture” tradition of reproducing a book one copy at a time, which was very slow and very expensive. So the effect of the Second Revolution was to provide the media with volume. Many historians believe the printing press has been the most important invention in the history of humanity.
The Third Revolution was the telegraph, introduced in 1844 by Samuel Morse. The telegraph provided the media with speed. Before 1844, information traveled only as fast as a man on foot, a man on a horse, or a man on a steamship or railroad train. In 1844, it became possible to move information from Point A to Point B at more or less the speed of light.
The Fourth Revolution is the Web, which we may date from about 1995. The effect of the Web is to turn the direction of information around 180 degrees. In the old, and still dominant, “broadcast culture,” information goes from a central location out to the masses. It has been a very effective technology, but also a very expensive one, and very inefficient.
In the Web age – let’s call it “Incast” – the masses come in to the information. Web information, whether it is print, audio or video, is nothing more than files on a computer, accessible globally to anyone with a phone and a computer. Incast is ridiculously inexpensive and almost totally efficient. It is the first one-to-one marketing model in the history of media. Broadcast is so expensive that not many people become broadcasters. Incast is so cheap that practically anyone can go into the media business. The result is an enormous democratizing effect. The Fourth Revolution is the reason that a publication like Voice of San Diego can exist.
We are now on the crest of the Fourth Revolution, headed at global high speed toward an unseen destination. One result we do know is that eventually, print and television will merge. They already have, sort of. When you watch television news, at the end of a story you are told, “For more on this story, go to our Website at www.msnbc.com.” Very soon, the merger will be complete, and your television set will work like a computer, and your remote control will also be a mouse. When you watch a news story on this new television, there will be a link right on the screen. Click on it, and you go to the in-depth, “print” version of the story. Media students already are aware that in the new journalism, they are going to have to write for both print and television: the 90-second version (about 210 words) for television, and the 4,000-word version for print.
The TV version, meanwhile, will “wait,” since it is only a file in a computer, for you to go read the in-depth story, and then click back to the TV news, which will resume where you left it. It is difficult to imagine what that simple change will mean to the media-public relationship. Right now, we are in a primitive stage of the new relationship, like people in the 1890s who suddenly had a telephone they could use. To use it effectively, they almost had to understand how to build one. Same with the Web, that has caused enough hair-pulling to fill a billion pillows. But the Incast business model is strong, only the fourth revolution in media history, and it won’t be long before we know more than we do now.
May 01, 2005
Crying Wolf
This is Saturday, the day Jennifer Wilbanks of the Atlanta area was supposed to be married.
A big wedding, too. They expected like 600 people, with 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen.
But then Jennifer went missing. Huge manhunt, national headlines. Criminal action suggested, cold feet a theory but then dismissed because it was totally out of Jennifer’s character.
Today, Saturday, Jennifer showed up in Albuquerque, N.M. She contacted law enforcement there, identified herself, and said she got cold feet and needed some time alone.
My first thought when I heard that report: she’s going to write a book.
That is a dangerous first thought to have, but it has been coming for some time. The media is caught up in the old story of “Cry Wolf.” A kid cries “Wolf!” but there is no wolf. He’s having fun, kidding everyone, watching their reactions. He does it again and the authorities fall out to save him.
He does it a third time, and they don’t fall out. They are now convinced he is kidding again. This time, he isn’t. There is in fact a wolf, who eats the kid up.
Five years ago, when Jennifer showed up in Albuquerque, I would have thought hooray, sweet dear girl, all is forgiven, now there will be heroic efforts to fly her home in time for the wedding.
This morning I thought: she’s going to write a book.
Maybe she is, and maybe she isn’t. Jennifer may have simply been a confused, sweet girl who needed some time alone. It could very well be a true story.
But my reaction isn’t about her. I hope her story is true and that she is forgiven (in a reasonable amount of time) and lives happily ever after.
It’s the perception that worries me. Perceptions are as real as people. People have figured out they can use the media in many ways, including a way that might make them rich and famous. In our media-saturated age, particularly with television ready to pay big bucks for a “reality” story, who could put it past a young bride to set up a story, write the book (this is a perfect Oprah story), and walk down the aisle a millionaire?
The truth about Jennifer will probably be known as soon as tomorrow. Among those truths: I will bet there are at least 50 media producers and publishers with messages on Jennifer’s answering machine. I hope she doesn’t talk to any of them. If she does, it will be another story toward the time when the media cries “Wolf!” and nobody listens, and there is a wolf.
A big wedding, too. They expected like 600 people, with 14 bridesmaids and 14 groomsmen.
But then Jennifer went missing. Huge manhunt, national headlines. Criminal action suggested, cold feet a theory but then dismissed because it was totally out of Jennifer’s character.
Today, Saturday, Jennifer showed up in Albuquerque, N.M. She contacted law enforcement there, identified herself, and said she got cold feet and needed some time alone.
My first thought when I heard that report: she’s going to write a book.
That is a dangerous first thought to have, but it has been coming for some time. The media is caught up in the old story of “Cry Wolf.” A kid cries “Wolf!” but there is no wolf. He’s having fun, kidding everyone, watching their reactions. He does it again and the authorities fall out to save him.
He does it a third time, and they don’t fall out. They are now convinced he is kidding again. This time, he isn’t. There is in fact a wolf, who eats the kid up.
Five years ago, when Jennifer showed up in Albuquerque, I would have thought hooray, sweet dear girl, all is forgiven, now there will be heroic efforts to fly her home in time for the wedding.
This morning I thought: she’s going to write a book.
Maybe she is, and maybe she isn’t. Jennifer may have simply been a confused, sweet girl who needed some time alone. It could very well be a true story.
But my reaction isn’t about her. I hope her story is true and that she is forgiven (in a reasonable amount of time) and lives happily ever after.
It’s the perception that worries me. Perceptions are as real as people. People have figured out they can use the media in many ways, including a way that might make them rich and famous. In our media-saturated age, particularly with television ready to pay big bucks for a “reality” story, who could put it past a young bride to set up a story, write the book (this is a perfect Oprah story), and walk down the aisle a millionaire?
The truth about Jennifer will probably be known as soon as tomorrow. Among those truths: I will bet there are at least 50 media producers and publishers with messages on Jennifer’s answering machine. I hope she doesn’t talk to any of them. If she does, it will be another story toward the time when the media cries “Wolf!” and nobody listens, and there is a wolf.
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