AdAge has their annual list of the top 100 media companies (here) and I was surprise by a couple things. The growth in 2007 was the slowest since the last recession in 2001 at 4.6% and almost 300 billion in revenue. I thought it would have been flatter then that and I was shocked to see that when they started the list in 1981 the top 100 had revenue of 30 billion. That’s some serious growth in the last 26 years.

The only significant movment came from who else but “Google — whose leap to 12th from 19th last year was the only big gain in the top 20…” “‘This is a changing of the guard,’ said Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO of Denuo Group and chief innovation officer for Publicis Groupe Media. ‘If you look back 20, 30 years ago, the major companies would probably be print-based. Then they move to basically be broadcast based. Now we’re looking at companies that have basically digital or technology underpinnings.'”

Jeff Jarvis, author of “What Would Google Do?” and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York levels a little criticism at the list by saying that “There are new paths to big-ness. And those paths are not necessarily through ownership and corporate control.” He goes on to say, “The mass market is dead, replaced by the mass of niches,” Mr. Jarvis said. “Advertising people roll their eyes at me and say, ‘No, no, no.'” They cite big draws such as “American Idol,” he said. “But we all know how inefficient that’s been. And what’s artificially propping it up has been the advertising industry, because they like one-stop shopping. They’re not built to find these highly targeted networks.”

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2 Comments

  1. I def. agree with the mass of niches comment. Targeting the nation as a whole seems to only be done by organizations that started this many eyars ago when their companies where just starting to grow. I def. see more and more niche business cropping. Prime example is the social networking sites.

  2. Saying that mass marketing is dead makes a nice sound bite but it misses the mark. It only looks like it’s dying because it used to be the only game in town. Now niche online marketing is available and it has some very compelling features, such as the ability to more precisely track effectiveness and the ability to support a “pay for performance” revenue structure.

    While the kind of niche marketing that takes place on social networking sites has a lot of advantages over mass-marketing and is going to be increasingly important, there’s still a limit to its effectiveness. And there are some products that are truly mass market (think supermarket items, electronics, restaurant chains, departments stores, home improvement, travel) that need mass marketing and broad brand building.

    The real story behind mass marketing is not that it’s dying but that its increasing moving towards product placements, advertorials, single sponsor programming, cross-promotions and the like.


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