The Media Marketplace

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Media and the Manila Hostage Crisis

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The perfect case study

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Media buying: Print up close (Part 2)

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Media buying: Print up close

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Media in the news

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When Marshall McLuhan wrote, “the medium is the message” some 40 or so years ago, he was describing a concept so alien that people thought he was out of his mind. That’s really not so surprising. History is full of crazy personalities who were deemed so because their ideas were just a little bit ahead of their time. Some of them even suffered for it. Galileo Galilei comes to mind. Nicolas Copernicus was another.

Today of course, we know better. In fact, McLuhan’s concept has evolved. From the medium being the message, as best exemplified by both cave paintings and MTV, we’ve seen the media become the environment. We’ve seen generations of Filipinos, whose tastes, mindsets, brand preferences, fashion senses, etc. have been influenced to a very large extent by the environment that they grew up in. And in most instances, these “environments” have increasingly come to mean the media environment.    

I recall having separate sets of nephews and nieces of more or less the same age that grew up in two different regions of the country. And these cousins, apart from their surnames, had nothing in common. Those that grew up in Cagayan de Oro were all fans of the top rating English programs at the time: “Charlie’s Angels,” and then later, “Knight Rider,”“The A-Team,” and so on. Those that grew up in Iloilo never heard of those programs. They were, instead, avid fans of Chito Arceo, Nova Villa, and Maria Theresa Carlson of “Chicks to Chicks,” and the gang from “Iskul Bukol.”  

It was only years later, when I was already working for J Walter Thompson did I understand why this was so. Cagayan de Oro was a strong area for the GMA-7 network. It showed all the English programs that were being replayed from Manila. Ilolio, on the other hand, only had one station, and it happened to be a replay station for IBC-13, which at the time, had all the top-rating Tagalog programs, such as “PPP” (Piling-piling Pelikulang Pilipino) and “T.O.D.A.S.”  

I also had this lesson validated on the business front. On the occasion of the launch of Pepsi’s new 12-ounce bottles in Davao, we brought the cast of “Chicks to Chicks” and had a motorcade and a “roadshow” with them. As you might have guessed, it wasn’t so successful. I should have known! IBC-13 did not have a replay station in Davao at the time, or if it did, then it must have had a very poor signal. The “stars” that we thought we were bringing to town were nobodies to the crowd. Fortunately for us our stars had also appeared in a few Tagalog movies, so they were not exactly unknowns.  

There are those who have tried to be witty and claimed that the new dictum is, “the message is the medium.”I can believe this, but it is far too trifle: the only valid example is the evolution, or should I say, the advent of the emoticon – you know, those smiley faces that teenagers put into their text messages -- J ;-) L  

It has its place in linguistic evolutionary history, I guess. Besides, it is supported by technology. In fact, most software programs recognize the symbols and already interpret the keystrokes into the more graphic images that you now see here. When I press the number “1” key on my mobile phone to send a text message, it automatically displays a smiley: J-- and it’s the same on my computer keyboard.  

In its latest evolutionary phase, the media has evolved yet again, to become the marketplace. This is best illustrated by the Internet and “dot.com” companies like Yahoo!, eBay, Google, and Amazon.com. In today’s wired world, the same facility by which communications takes place, i.e., by which a message is transmitted and received, has also become the same facility by which a sale can be consummated. In other words, the communications channel or medium has also now become the distribution channel.  

Where before one used one channel (or medium, such as TV, radio, or print) to send a message that ultimately aims to make a sale, and used another channel to consummate that sale (such as a supermarket or a sari-sari store), we now have one channel that handles both functions. It handles both functions so efficiently and quickly, in fact, that it could ultimately revolutionize the way goods and services are distributed.  

We will not need supermarkets or department stores anymore in the future. We will not need record bars or book stores. Hardware stores, gift shops, furniture shops, appliance centers, etc. – these will all soon go the way of the dinosaur. In another generation or less, they shall all become extinct. Among the first to go will be video stores. With the coming of cable video-on-demand, you will soon be requesting for the movie that you want to watch thru your cable box remote control. Your interactive cable service provider will send you the movie at the precise time you want to watch it. No more trips to ACA Video or Video City. You might still want to go out, but possibly only to buy popcorn. And even that can be ordered and delivered to your doorstep. Right now, you would do that by phone – landline voice call (how backward!). Later on, you will do that by typing in codes onto your remote control, or your cellphone, or your computer keyboard. Or if you already have an “intelligent” refrigerator, then it would have already ordered it for you.  

From distribution channels, retailers will evolve into “fulfillment” facilities. The difference is that the consumer will henceforth make a purchase online, as opposed to “on the ground” (the present-day shopping mode), but the fulfillment of his purchase will still be handled by real “brick-and-mortar” companies (as opposed to “click-thru-portal” companies). The question is, will these companies -- the likes of SM Shoemart, Rustan’s Landmark, Shopwise, etc. -- be in a better position to handle this function versus, say companies like Fedex, DHL, UPS, or even JRS Express? Amazon.com and e-bay are the best examples for now, and soon enough, I suppose, we shall have local equivalents in the Philippines.  

That’s just for the usual consumer goods. Think of other businesses… will we still need travel agencies? Airlines are already selling more and more of their seats online.Or insurance agents?What about stock brokerage companies? When companies like Ameritrade come upon our shores, who will need stockbrokers? Take a close look at citiseconline.com – it is an online stock market buying and selling facility that makes the stockbroker’s job redundant.  

And what will become of the “true” media companies? – TV and radio networks like ABS-CBN and GMA? Or your daily morning newspaper? Who knows? Maybe they will reinvent themselves? Maybe we will subscribe to online editions instead of today’s hard copy versions? I suspect there are already more readers online vs. hard copy readers for some newspapers, or at least for some newspaper sections. I know for example, that www.cocktales.com.ph has more readers than the hard copy version. And if you are reading this column, then you have just proven my thesis right. That fact has just demonstrated our point: an online paper can already replace the hard copy edition. The Lobbyist has no hard copy edition (not yet anyway).  

Going back to McLuhan, he actually foretold the demise of the print medium. I’m beginning to believe he will be proven right… within my lifetime.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions advanced in this article is the author’s own, and may not necessarily represent the views and opinions of THE LOBBYiST, its editors, or its publishers.

Factual Errors? Email us at editorial@thelobbyist.biz.

Copyright 2007 The LOBBYiST. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without the expressed permission of The LOBBYiST.