Comcastic
In the worst of times, advertising and PR people are rivals fighting for coveted marketing dollars. In the best of times, we collaborate on integrated campaigns that deliver real results.
Most times, we’re somewhere in between.
When I sat down at the hipster cafe/bar Shuga’s with Judith Moak, an ad sales executive with Comcast in Colorado Springs, I was reminded that PR isn’t the only marketing discipline looking into creative ways to use new media to meet clients’ needs.
Talking with her about the challenges they face in penetration with cable advertising, I couldn’t help but think just how much I haven’t missed TV during this summer adventure. That’s not to say that I haven’t stayed on top of my favorite shows or rooted for my favorite chefs on “The Next Food Network Star” or watched the Phillies destroy the Mets on MLB.com. I’ve watched plenty of TV shows. It’s just been on my laptop.
The morphing of television and computers is a strange phenomenon. Strange because simultaniously our computers are gaining TV capabilities while our TVs are seeking ways to be more like computers.
“In the LA and NY DMA,” Moak explained, “they are already including “click here for more information” elements in TV advertising as more households have integrated computing and TV systems.”
But looking for new ways to market to TV viewers isn’t the only problem. It’s capturing them to begin with that’s getting tricky.
“Sports and news is our biggest ad channel,” Moak added. “Those are the programs that people don’t want to record on their DVR.”
And what about that DVR? How long will it be before market researchers are looking into those little black boxes to find out what we record and watch to target seemingly from inside our own heads? And is that a place we really want to go as a society?
Ethics of marketing is always an interesting arena that traditionally seems to be relegated almost exclusively to kids marketing. But these days, the “big brother-ism” of technology adds a whole new dimension to ethical marketing and the growing need for transparency. I can’t imaging buying a DVR and then finding out months later that the company was selling my recording preferences to some market research firm to better understand consumer behavior. But if that same company came to me when I signed my contract and provided me an option of anonymously making my DVR selections available to marketers in exchange for discounted service, I might consider it.
It will be interesting to see how this battle unfolds. As ad dollars continue to shrink and desperate marketers are looking for new ways to measure their impact and take a pulse on consumer trends.
Hopefully, we’ll have both the advertising and PR people at the same table for this one. It’s going to take high levels of expertise in both disciplines to manage this one.
