The Digital Divide Is Now Closed

I went to the Cannes mega-bash this week and noticed something quite new.  Everyone was in agreement.  For some years there has been a deep divide in the marketing world between digital early-adopters and those who 'don't get it'.  But that divide is now closing fast.  In my view, the stalemate broke last year when MySpace TV started commissioning original drama with the involvement of Big Brands like Ford.  And, for the most part, it was well received.  Then Bebo followed suit offering Kate Modern to its huge following and creating a bidding war among brands looking to be featured in the popular plot.  The media world had turned full circle it seemed.  Even if the technical kit underlying it all would be unrecognisable to an engineer from the Eric & Ernie era - it's still commercial entertainment on a grand scale.  Since then, the launch of the BBC's  iPlayer (P2P!) has gone some way to giving people what they had been accessing illegally via Limewire or footy feeds.  And, Hulu, the iPlayer's US cousin run by NBC and Fox gained momentum by mixing a very groovy Ruby + Flash set up with a *shock horror* legal business model.  Meanwhile, iTV slowly builds its partnership with Microsoft to broadcast its content over the MS mega-web-structures.  And as 2008 is the year that the UK analogue signal begins to run down, the choices of viewing platforms is set to explode.  Hey, even Napster is back in its original form - but this time it's legal!  Clearly, the nature of new entertainment is different when it comes to levels of participation.  However, no one expects all TV viewing to become a participative experience.  And as Shirky points out, it only takes a small shift in the vast oceans of time spent glued to global re-runs of Friends for people to be freed up for the raising of experimental new global barns like Wikipedia.  So, is there really any point in talking traditional vs digital any more?  Even the purists are on board.  As the ever articulate Adliterate points out: "Never before has the primary determinant of consumer reach been consumer engagement rather than simply ratings. Only a few weeks into the launch of the Gorilla ad, the number of people that had seen the film was almost double the number that Cadbury’s had actually paid to see it."  Yes, the digital divide is now closed.  And this is where the story begins.

Comments

[Interactive Marketing]

Farther steps are being taken to cross the broadband digital divide in Wales, following the announcement that the initiative is to receive EU funding. http://www.moniker.co.za/

[Rory]

James this seems like a drastic change of heart from some of your recent posts. Are you sure that all the sun and leggy blondes in Cannes didn't go to your head?

Do you really think that WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, etc. have somehow re-engineered their legacy business structure and creative director/campaign lead attitude to online and that they now get it?

[James Cherkoff]

Hi IM, thanks for the comment but I think you are talking about a different (more important) digital divide.

Hey Rory. Legacy business structure - no. Campaign lead attitude - sort of.

Strange that your thinking should be changing so radically I would be _extremely_ interested to know why?
I quoted you recently (hope you got a few hits from it) on another blog discussing much the same thing - The future of WPP, Omnicom, etc in the digital world:

"These holding groups are racked up to deliver in a totally different media paradigm. They are designed to buy and deliver asymmetric push marketing. And even in this "old world" of the madmen creative directors, there are no real economies of scale. Scale has always crushed creativity (hence why they all needed to buy in fresh new agencies in on a monthly basis to feed the machine). They were formed out of economies of scale in media buying.

As James Cherkoff recently wrote on his (excellent) blog. Online marketing is about throwing tiny pebbles and watching the ripples very closely to observe the subtleties in the patterns. An understanding of these patterns can then be used to facilitate your community to create a tidal wave.

The approach of the trad-ad brigade to online marketing is to try and hurl the biggest bolder they can into the pond in order to produce their own wave."

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Anon - very kind. My thinking hasn't changed, but they are catching up. Inevitable, don't you think? Watching four executives from the major networks debating the pros and cons of open source was the moment I realised the market had moved on. But as Rory pointed out, maybe the sun and leggy blondes had gone to my head? Or maybe to theirs?

[Rory]

Sorry James for the "Anon" bit. It was me just forgot to put my name on the post. I think it is far from inevitable. Ask those execs what they think about the FSF and then you can see if they really get it. Microsoft are getting into Open Source, I'm sure that they spend an inordinate amount of time debating its pros and cons, I doubt if they get it. Its destructive destruction, neither MS nor WPP have any interest in getting free culture.

[Rory]

Perhaps "reductive destruction" is a better way of phrasing it. But only in pure (cash) economic terms: the customer gets more for less. Utility is increased. But that is some esoteric rubbish for people who don't understand economics. Right?

[James Cherkoff]

I'm not suggesting that the ad agencies are now au fait with the finer nuances of free culture and open source. However, they are certainly interested. Really , I was referring more to the debate about digital vs traditional being over. The Big Networks now see it on a par with ATL. Which is a big change in their mindset.

[Colin Donald]

James, I agree about the Web shows being a key factor.

I think one of the reasons it works well is that the shows give advertisers and agencies a means of entering the social networking sites that has a high comfort level.

They like that the shows are professionally produced and that they can have some say in the product integration.

I was at the Media Futures conference yesterday, where there was a short presentation from Philip Slade, creative director at The 7th Floor Consultancy on their work integrating the urban fashion label Golddigga into Sofia’s Diary on Bebo.

He said that it was highly successful and in fact they had to ask the writers to tone down the first draft of their scripting for the product placement, because the teens would find the brand by themselves just from seeing it on screen. It didn’t need to be pushed at them.

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Colin, the world turns full circle don't you think?

[Dug Falby]

Hey James, it's true, it definitely feels like we've come around a corner...

In my day-to-day consultancy I've gone from folk saying "show me" and "let's see some metrics" to "yeah, we know that".

I'm currently working with the MD of an insurance company and he's pushing transparency and collaboration harder than I am...

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Dug, yes sounds familiar.

I used to spend time helping people understand what networked media could do. Now I spend time helping people understand what it can't do.

So what's next? ;-)