Advertising Week: The Future of Media

Yesterday, we got to hear from a pretty distinguished group of panelists at an Advertising Week event. The panel was a solid mix of media and advertising industry heavyweights, and we were really inspired by Mark Cuban (HDNET) and Paul Woolmington (Naked Communications). The future of media is both wildly exciting and somewhat frightening.

Woolmington rightly pointed out the disintermediation that is taking place between brands and audiences as witnessed by the Nike + Apple collaboration. They created a branded experience using their own online audience as the platform – there was no media company involvement in the interaction between brand and audience. This clearly suggests that media companies better provide value to advertisers, or they will be replaced with alternate audience solutions.

Cuban took a futurist’s approach to seeing around the corner – his approach to follow the bits & bytes made for some enlightening discussion. The technology advancements that are driving down today’s HD TV prices are also driving down the prices of larger screens for use in public areas. He foresees a shift from the current online community model to more real world community events as gatherings like the Olympics bring people out to public viewing areas to witness and share in the community aspect of events – both large and small. Further to this, the rich viewing experience available to most homes with large screen TV’s + high speed cable when combined with an exponentially larger selection of channels from online sources will create opportunities for large shifts in our content sources and the proliferation of new, niche media players in the online world. When you also consider the application of mobile devices as more screens to view this rich content, you can see that the flow of bits and bytes is changing – and the winners will be those that provide the path of least resistance. While it is too early to pick any winners in this media revolution the precursors to success will include:

· A solution that makes the flow of bits and bytes more efficient – the path of least resistance

· A solution that is optimized to the viewing platform (mobile device, at home screen or public viewing screen)

· A solution that provides clear value to advertisers – context, targeting, engagement and measurement

· A solution that is aware of the broader context of the internet – things such as location and other internet “machinery” (e.g. fridge, car, signage etc.)

· A solution that utilizes the network effect