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New Media in the Refined Market Place |
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THE MORE THINGS CHANGE: OLD BOTTLES NEW WINE
While watching the 2007 edition of that great American excuse for a
food-fest, the Super Bowl, I was reminded of a bowl telecast moment
from twenty three years ago. During the 1984 SuperBowl broadcast, a
landmark TV commercial aired for Apple Computer to announce their
newest paradigm altering creation, the McIntosh line of computers. In
the intervening years that spot which spoofed the “big brother” aspects
of George Orwell’s novel “1984” has been hailed as one of the most
brilliant commercials ever. Many people remember the imagery but I find
the words interesting. “Today we celebrate the first glorious
anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have
created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology
where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and
confusing truths.” I’d call that amusing and confusing double speak.
Seeing those words on paper now reminds me that they were just as
confusing as a lot of what we hear today regarding “new media”, “legacy
operations” and “the shifting business landscape.” To most of this I
say that it is a case of talking enthusiastically about the shiny new
bottles but what they must hold is old wine. Sure, people are getting
their news in different ways, websites are proliferating like mushrooms after the rain and many of us feel we
are drowning in new technical device overload. One hundred and twenty
five years ago the transformative technology was the telephone and
fifty-five years ago, it was television. In fact many pundits predicted
that TV would kill off radio and the movies.
Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one
that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.
George Orwell
New media really means new ways of delivering information and sales
messages but the fundamental paradigm hasn’t changed, it is still the
“old wine” of investment, revenue, profits and losses. Yes you do need
to be digital and your messages have to fascinate, inspire and educate
those who you want to influence, the same requirements for success as
in 1907. They have to make an emotional connection with a consumer who
is free to purchase your offering. Though the very first ad-marketing
messages may have been painted on cave walls, we can easily track the
more recent timeline for newspaper, telephone, radio, TV and now the
internet. It is true that the popular pathway for your message to reach
its target seems to be reinvented about every fifty years! Most likely
the Internet is the new standard that will be supported by all the
other forms of traditional media.
There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.
George Orwell
So, don’t be intimidated by the new jargon that you don’t yet fully
understand or by the young guru that tells you that everything about
the way you do business must change before the end of the year if you
are to survive! Yes, your content must be well thought out and match
the new delivery systems. Of course clever ideas, showmanship and
creativity will help separate you from the plodding crowd. The human
yearning for having dreams fueled, for tribal inclusiveness, and
survival haven’t really changed since flint was a high tech tool. No
matter what the bottle looks like, the rules for making great wine
haven’t changed.
Nelson Davis
Multi-Emmy Award Winning Executive Producer, Making It!
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