shifting context: evolution in digital media

SHIFTING CONTEXT: EVOLUTION IN DIGITAL MEDIA

Sarah Kotlova

A JWT COMPANY COPYRIGHT 2013

Hi.

@sarahkotlova


What’s media? What’s digital?

(For that matter, what’s advertising?)


Media: Tools used to store and deliver information.

Nowdays, we usually mean it to refer to both forms and function (and, profession).


Fish don’t have a word for water.


Hello, digital natives.


•Fluid multi-channel communication styles• Intuitive learners, rather than linear•Non-sequential in acquisition and use of information •Learn via - and expect - participation•May not always understand rhetorical questions•Expect great transparency and equality•Very value-driven•Believe - and expect - there is more than one way to achieve a goal•Have defined ‘private’ and ‘public’ zones•Expect to collaborate • Innovative

a few generalizations


So let’s talk about this here future.


The history of media is the history of technology.

Phonograph1890ish

Photograhy1820ish

Cinema1900ish

Television1950ish

Mobile1990ish

Internet1990ish

Technology

Media

Social Media2000ish

Guttenberg Press1450ish

IconographyUm, 1000BCE plus?

Open Source1998ish

Arguably the first ‘mass media’1780ish

Industrial revolution1820ish

Arguably the first mass advertising1860ish

OED: Crowdsourced 1884

email1993ish


So yes, it is a bit like what you’ve suspected.


Image credit: here


But ... that’s not really where most things come from.


BIG THINGS AND

LARGE MONEY

Strange little useful or funny things. In short:

pet projects and random stuff.

<

Not all the time of course. But pretty darn often.

Highly commercial ventures from someone’s wierd Tumblr hobby.

Making People Like Things

Making Things People Like<

The first new (?) rule of advertising.


Maybe why that’s why this is all still so much fun*

*Never, ever, undervalue the power of fun.


And now,for something completelyoverwhelming.


Americans spend approx 15 1/2 hours a day with media*

*Believe it or not, that does not include work. (“Work”?)


Americans are awake approx 16 hours a day.


Our world is increasingly defined by the screens we watch or interact with.

You may grow nostalgic for the day when it was only Siri who talked to you.

Image credit: HERE


Your digital choices are transforming the media market.


What’s changed (or really, evolved):

• Almost every media channel.• Information delivery and exchange: Where, when and with what protocol.• Authority: who gets to say what, and if it gets reach.• The expectation of media in consumer’s lives: On-demand culture.• Convergence of ... well, everything. • Trend towards the humanization of companies.• Expectations of authenticity & transparency.• What, exactly, we are willing to pay for.


Inflection Point: Monetization of Traditional Media(s).

Nearly everything about media publishing, form, delivery and expectation has seen significant levels of change in the last 20 years... of course expect changes in it’s methods of monetization.

Monetization* drives art, journalism, popular culture and innovation. Increasingly, these things go together, and new technologies drive new forms drive new creations, new creations mash up to invent new forms.

*Well, that and fun.


So let’s follow the money. (And yes some fun too)


The very model of the entertainment and publishing industries have been built on the ine!ciency of creation & distribution.

* In other words: historically, you were paying for the scarce, di!cult to produce or replicate, form.


The biggest transformation in media is the ability to separate content from it’s means of distribution.


DISINTERMEDIATION*

* loose the middle man


Publishing is moving from a product to a process.


The new context(s) for media:

Where are you?Who are you?What are you doing?What device to you have?What are you looking for?


The new context(s) for media:

Where are you?Who are you?What are you doing?What device to you have?What are you looking for?

LocationInterestBehaviorDeviceIntent ... data you are choosing to

provide, constantly


DIGITAL SHIFT: FROM FOCUSING ONLY ON COMMUNICATIONS TO CRAFTING INTERACTIONS & DEVELOPING EXPERIENCES


Data (used respectfully) is service, in the online world.

Privacy Personalized (Relationship-based)

trust

Anticipatory

For those dependent making money still via mostly production and distribution control: Evolve or su"er*.

*And probably become pretty unpopular

The power of the ultimate aggregators.


Digital delivery enables shifts in context.

Which enables a re-imagination of nearly every every form of media.


There is nothing automatic or inevitable about digital media ‘dumbing down’ creative or journalistic expression.

People are JUST. SO. DIFFICULT.

People want di!erent things at di!erent times, potentially with elements of the same content.

Bigger Smaller

Broadcast Personalized

Iconic Participatory

Independent Connected

Bigscreen Handheld

Creator Aggregator

Long form Short form

It’s not the structure it’s the content.

Albums Songs

Newspapers Articles

Books Kindle

Encylopedia Wikipedia

The new success: Win the minutes

(should probably look into this ;-)


Paper isn’t dead, it’s on demand.

Newer media seldom completely replace ‘old’ media, but it tends to rarify it. And in some cases, makes it more prestigious.


The ‘atomic units’ of traditional media is no longer fixed in either space or time - it necessarily becomes something that can evolve over time and flow over space.

YouTube: Johnny Cash Project

It’s never done, it’s never final, it’s never fixed, and it’s delivered on demand.It’s not just the form, it’s the flow.

A JWT COMPANY COPYRIGHT 2013 With debt to: David Campbell

A few predictions:

• The future is networked, portable and fluid. • Digital connectivity links physical and interest points: What we wear,

what we use, what we expect will continue to converge.• Everything will become even more collaborative. • Multi-dimensonal storytelling: Multi-narrative ability means content

flows, is edited and updated.• We will create monetization models around community and events rather

than content.• Increasingly we are all media producers as the ‘hardware barrier’ continues

to lower.• Overwhelm is the new normal; e"ective curation become more and more

necessary.• ‘Old’ media isn’t dead: it’s on demand.

•


Bonus Question:

So what’s the ‘media professional’ of the future?


Appendix

http://www.findingbetteragencies.com/wp-content/uploads/Internet-Advertising-Infographic1.jpg

Source: Digitalmarketing.edu

shifting context: evolution in digital media

Marketing

whats digital

whats media

history of media

digital natives

whats advertising

digital mediasarah kotlova

history of technology

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