Hitviews Pro: Memo to CMO: It's Over. It's All Media - Part 3 - Walter Sabo - MediaBizBloggers

We were trying to envision the marriage of print, radio and the internet. Finally Jack, who is particularly skilled at cutting to the truth said, "It's all media."

Advertising economics were established at the dawn of television: The media gives agencies a cut of the buy. Clients pay a mark-up for creative and "production." How does that work when some days the most watched video show is made for free and distributed for free?

Selling products through new media channels requires that the toll booth be moved.

First, some key background:

THE GENIUS OF WAL MART. The clerk on the floor can order more inventory to be shipped to the store by using a hand held computer. The 11 dollar an hour clerk, Wal-Mart believes, knows her local customer better than a division head just 5 miles away. The clerk can order an 18 wheeler full of product from her handheld, without permission

Centralizing media and creative decisions for entire corporations to a single "chief something" dampens initiative, originality and agility. Usually if a company has a "chief something" that company won't be seeing its breath on the mirror.

DEATH OF THE GATEKEEPERS: THE DATE EVERYTHING CHANGED: September 2003.

Dave Winer, in September 2003 created a special RSS-with-enclosures feed for his Harvard Berkman Center colleague Christopher Lydon's weblog. The podcast was born. The ability to send video from your computer to the world was born. Everything changed.

At that moment, your 8 year old could make a video and distribute it to the world without your permission.

The need for a gatekeeper has been eliminated because there is no longer a gate.

Media gatekeepers were economicallyessential. Printing presses and publications are expensive to operate. The stories that go on those pages had better be appealing.

Through your computer, you can distribute entertainment to the entire world while reading this article for free. Try it. Send your picture to mediabizbloggers right now. A few months ago if you wanted to broadcast funny videos or popular songs, you needed A FEDERAL LICENSE.

THE BIRTH OF THE PERSONAL MEDIA ENTREPRENEUR.

Never underestimate the power of the mirror. Since Major Bowes radio amateur hour, audiences have loved programs featuring their neighbors placed in extraordinary situations.

INTERACTIVITY. THE STEP BEYOND ENGAGEMENT.

It should therefore come as no surprise that the proven entertainment form of viewers making their own shows is the second most watched video category on the Internet. (After porn of course.) These videos are not "the wild west" of media, they are not scary or uncontrollable. They are simply the evolution of home movies distributed to the entire world rather than to your family room.

The numbers are staggering but should not be surprising. Your laptop is the perfect stage to watch candid, personal shows. These shows are not made for the TV or the big screen. These shows EXIST for interactivity.

Many of these personal media stars have had over 100,000,000 lifetime views. (Figure three years is a lifetime.) They have hundreds of thousands of registered fans who are alerted every time they create a new video. Why wouldn't a brand want to be part of that? It's chosen media, viewers have searched it, sought it and put it on their lap. They don't skip through it.

Five Steps to Selling Products in the New Environment:

Guidance: The channels are new, customers are the same. They buy from sources they trust. Tenure builds trust. Media that captures a lot of a customer's time, through any means, is trusted.

1. ERASE THE SPREADSHEET. No medium is a "must buy." No medium is "experimental" if it sells. Brands don't have time to experiment. Brands can't afford to waste money in depreciating media just because it's on the spreadsheet.

It is shocking how many times I've heard, "We will try this because we have to spend the money before the end of the year." That means the budget was allocated incorrectly 18 months earlier.

The fix: No spreadsheet budget. The budget goes to any medium that is capable of selling product at a given moment in time.

Who decides that?

2. MEDIA ENTREPRENEURS. "ME". Make each person who works for you a media entrepreneur. Their job is to acquire (I didn't say 'buy') media channels that will sell product

Burn the spreadsheet. Currently there are lines on a spreadsheet that must be served, formulas in a computer. You can't imagine how many geniuses have come to HITVIEWS and told us that we have to invent a formula for "getting into the media buyer's computer."

The goal of any business is to sell its product. It is not to buy "points", "CPMS", "CPPS".

If a primetime :30 stuck in the middle of ten other :30's will do that effectively, do it. If a weekly suburban newspaper ad will work, buy it. If giving an online video webstar the product to promote in their next video will sell the product, engage the webstar.

Take apart the "media" department and make every executive a media buyer capable of acting instantly to deploy their budget or approval for whatever is necessary to move product. I didn't say fire the media department, I said burn the spreadsheet and the formulas that were created before Don Draper was born.

3. STAFF NOW WITH PEOPLE WHO LIVE IT. Too much time is spent training people to remove the borders in their minds that separate each medium. There are people of all ages who grasp that and get it already. Hire them to teach you how to take advantage of empires without borders.

DOCTORS CAN'T SELL DRUGS THEY PRESCRIBE…creative ad agencies shouldn't buy media.

Agencies make their money from buying media. When that cash flow is put at risk, there is fear. I was at the Boston Ad Club last week and heard a top marketer calm the fears of the room by saying,

"Don't worry, online videos get much more views when they are supported with paid-for media."

The fact is that, properly done, free distribution of an online video campaign will get more views than 99% of all videos posted.

The bulk of media budgets go to network TV because that's where agencies make the easiest, highest margins. It's not wrong, it's just not fair.

Agencies should not have to make their money from buying media and small markups on creative. They should be paid a flat monthly fee and not profit from buying media.

Allow agencies to economically explore all channels to sell product by paying them a flat monthly retainer---not on hours---a flat fee. No percentages, no mark ups.

4. LIBERATE THE PHYSICAL PLANT. There are companies that have cool open space. Cool unless working in an open space is a nightmare to your sensory wiring. There are companies, like GE, that have elegant offices, hushed hallways and formal executive scheduling. Efficient! Unless you are intimidated by that structure.

Companies attract a broader ranger of thinkers and doers as their workplace options increase. Don't force "coolness" on employees---I've personally noticed that this usually makes for a pretty brittle workforce. Don't force formality on them, this usually intimidates the creative soul. Instead, enforce measures of success and let them sit where they want.

5. INVEST IN PERSONAL MEDIA. Smart businesses have, for years, rewarded their best customers. Now it's time to go to the next level. Reward your consumer evangelists with a budget. It's all media.

NEXT COLUMN: Rewarding the Personal Media Evangelist.

Walter Sabo is the Founder and Creator of the business concept. He is an experienced leader of new organizations and is currently CEO of Hitviews. Walter can be reached at walter@hitviews.com.