2019 The Year of Humanity

During my Holiday time, I caught up on some reading and spent time with family and friends. These two events of reading and visits one theme, which my last two blogs covered, was prevalent – humanity. Not once did I read or hear the words "disruptive" or "game-changer." Yet I saw several television commercials using these words. If people don’t really talk this way, why are they so common in the workplace and marketing? As readers of my blog know, buzzwords are one of my pet peeves. 

Truthfully, if I hear the words "game-changer" one more time, I will throw up. "Disruptive" on the other hand, is a very accurate definition of 21st Century marketing. I find all marketing disruptive, from the constant borage of spam emails and social media ‘sponsored" ads in the post feeds. Regarding television, thank God for DVR, the mute button, Amazon Video and Netflix. My ADD rarely lets me finish a broadcast show, as the last 15 minutes of the show are more commercials than content.

If you’re still reading this post, I admit, buzzwords have existed in all decades and generations, probably for millennia. We just have more media channels to inundate our receptors. Thank the Lord we don’t talk to each other personally or in the workplace with colleagues using them.

Let’s make 2019 about people wherever you interact, with humanity, and not let the business world dictate your vocabulary.

Happy New Year,

Jack

Do Things Really Change

As a strong advocate for change, there seems to be a cosmic force that just repurposes certain mechanisms, adapted to the current time, that we can’t deny. I read where Facebook is losing the tween and teen demographic. This makes sense, as the article explained this group doesn’t want Mom, Aunt, Grandma to see private posts to their friends. My mind immediately jumped to why this will not be a loss for Facebook.

Once this demographic jumps to whatever they find suits their social network desires, Facebook will just buy it. After all, that’s what you do when you have more money than god. You buy the competition. It’s analogous to when the big three Detroit auto makers predominated the car industry. They would buy their competition and either absorb them or shut them down (possibly this still occurs, but I have no proof; just think GM Evo). 

More closely related to our industry,  some of you may remember when a media buy consisted of several independent newspapers, radio and television stations. Then, conglomerates started buying them up and you could place your ads from one source and selecting the “media group” from the rate card. Today, this situation is now applicable to web marketing. Only the medium has changed, from print/broadcast to digital. Your ad purchase will select web or social media properties from Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Twitter or whoever else appears with a group of digital channels.

The media procurement process has not changed, only the channels. The old adage, “the more things change, the more they stay the same,” applies here.

Note: I know media buying groups have never faded away and still exist for all current marketing channels. My Blog comparative is directed to direct buys.