Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

It's an eye-opening report that looks beyond the hype surrounding these companies. Some of them are profitable (or at least claim to be), some aren't, but all of them have raised serious cash from starry-eyed investors (e.g., $96.3 million for BuzzFeed, $110 million for Vox).

The business press tends to regard such hefty sums as implicit evidence of success and/or promise -- why would venture capitalists risk so much scratch if there was no there there? -- but Michael reminds us that all of these companies rely, somewhat harrowingly, on advertising for revenue....

From time to time, media reports on the latest tectonic shift in digital devices and the associated increase in time we spend online are a prophesy - the death of all TV viewing is imminent. Statements like this one recently, "the steady increase in online traffic is cannibalizing TV viewing and effectiveness," have been uttered by pundits periodically over the past decade or more, driving hysteria throughout the industry with marketers left to wonder if it is truly and finally the end of TV advertising as we know it. Isn't it inevitable?

Turns out the answer is 'yes' and 'no'. TV viewing behavior has been permanently altered, and the change (while glacial vs. 'shock and awe') has been sweeping. That said, the net real effect on TV's pivotal role as THE video medium has been minimal – indeed, online viewing has been growing in tandem with not at the expense of overall TV viewing. BOTH online and TV platforms are witnessing record engagement numbers, with television still very much at the helm. Indeed, traditional, living room, TV consumption has grown year-over-year in the U.S., and continues to dominate as consumers seek out appealing entertainment and information[1]. W

ith growing consumer appetite for content and increasing dexterity with mobile devices, adoption of smartphones and tablets will continue to rise, but ALL indications are that television will remain the glowing centerpiece in the living room for the foreseeable future....

The writing has been on the wall for some time. Back in 2004, for example, studies indicated that television viewing would be one of the first leisure activities to be hit by Internet use and online socializing. (Other activities supposedly affected were sleeping and real-world socializing.)

Though today, TV continues to remain the dominant medium, the emerging generation of so-called “digital natives” – the first to have been born into a world where consumer adoption of the web was already mainstream – seem to prefer other behaviors. And it’s more than just splitting time between TV and video games, or TV and mobile apps, or TV and online video. That’s why it’s funny that the general assumption is that services like Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu and YouTube will eventually claim users’ time and eyeballs in the way that the “boob tube” once did.

That may not be the case. We just don’t know yet. For a generation who grew up on the web, can we say for sure that watching TV-like content through other devices will be their preferred downtime activity?

TUMBLR AS THE NEW “TV”

Tumblr founder David Karp doesn’t seem to think so. Having built up an online community that Yahoo just acquired for $1.1 billion, he told Charlie Rose in an interview this week that Tumblr is part of a larger transition in consumer behavior.....

The arrival of the web knocked the news industry's relationships — with advertisers and with readers — out of alignment. But there are signs a few small repairs are working....

Misalignment grew, with readers and advertisers, as both themselves went increasingly digital. Think about it. In the old print world, advertisers paid up but really got a huge — and effective — audience, which moved goods and services. In this new digital world, they could buy online display that has never approached the results of print. Clickthrough rates tumbled toward the miniscule, tangible evidence of the growing disconnection. Shoppers found little usefulness in the advertising. Online advertising may have brought in a few billions, but publishers came nowhere close to creating the kind of local marketplace the newspaper had created.

Cultural misalignment. Reader misalignment. Merchant misalignment. Shopper misalignment....