I think ‘fragmentization’ and ‘snacking’ are the two pivotal elements that really need to be considered when one talks about the trends that are shaping media consumption across the globe. In fact, I would say it’s not just about consumption, but there’s way too much to consume as well.
Though the whole world is constantly creating more and more media content for the consumer to consume everyday, it is the consumer with whom the ultimate power rests of what to consume and what not, and it all depends on his interests. Moreover, the consumer prefers everything to be shorter today so that he can actually consume more of it as that way he can cram in ten different experiences versus a long one. Not that he can’t choose a longer experience; but only that there’s too much to choose from and he doesn’t really want to miss any one of them.
Having said that, I think that media is finding you as a consumer; so today, you don’t really have to search for it any more. In fact, it’s interesting to see how somebody passes something interesting to someone and how that person alerts you on it. So there’s evidently a word-of-mouth behind the scene that goes in telling what to consume from various media. This means that the creator of a particular experience has to be really, really good at it if he or she wants to influence others. Apart from that, you have to also find the right people. In fact, if you look at the last 10 years, a few of the major brands, especially American, and those in the rest of the world, they don’t really advertise any more!
For instance, Apple hasn’t really done much of advertising for a while. Starbucks too never advertised as a matter of fact. And yet, they grew really well. That’s because if you do something well, people will find it. Those are the few things that we are observing now. I think the curation of media is going on well, but ‘consumers creating the media’ is a bit of an over-hyped statement. But then, what is media? I think five years ago, we all were saying that we are going to produce our own movies. That’s not really doable, you also have to have talent. If you look at media from the business point of view, then everything becomes information created by consumers. In fact, that is the way the 100 million people on Twitter are creating media. They are writing, sharing insights, interesting links for people to catch up on things; so it becomes quite a challenging but fun environment.
But what would be the most interesting medium that will drive the trends henceforth? Like everybody else, I would rest my case with mobile. It might not necessarily mean your phone, but the fact that if you want something at a certain point, you’ll get it, wherever you are. The networks will get better, the technology will improve. So that’s the way things are going. Data traffic from mobile is sky-rocketing. At the same time, we don’t expect that you are going to watch your television on mobile, it’s just the availability that is driven now by mobile. We really don’t know where that ends. But the original vision about 15-17 years ago was that one day, wherever you would be, you’ll have a personalised connection, a device, a stream or anything to utilise that ubiquitous online access, to access media. And the way I see it, that’s just coming through right now.
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2011.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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