Pivot Point: Call & Response

May the old media rest in peace.

Some people say that there’s no such thing as new media or old media, that it’s all just media. We now know that this just isn’t so.

Old media were just channels through which messages were communicated in hopes of influencing attitudes or, even better, changing behavior.

Those media can still pack a punch sometimes. But they are starting to look rather primitive compared to new media, which are more than just vehicles for our advertisements and promotions.

These new media — which are usually (but not necessarily) digital media — are different because they’re all about call and response. Sometimes it’s the brand calling and the shopper responding, while other times it’s just the opposite.

These new media are also different because, while they’re still about the delivery of messages, they are not the neat and tidy messages of marketing’s ever-present past. These new media messages can be upbeat, positive and cheerful, but they can also be angry, negative and mean.

In other words, these new-media messages are about real people living their lives in the real world, and that’s the real beauty of new-media.

Marketing has a problem, and it is precisely this disconnect between what happens in marketing and what happens in real life. It is a gap that new media bridge with astonishing efficiency and effectiveness.

Can we measure that? Maybe, maybe not — certainly not in the traditional sense. But we can count on it to connect with our shoppers in ways we have only begun to imagine. This issue of the Hub is about those possibilities. What do you think?

Tim Manners, Editor