Where Are All the Addicts? - Jeff Einstein - MediaBizBloggers

Lots of talk recently about media as addiction. And why not? The dealers are in every room and on every street corner, equipped with a pharmacopeia of high-tech drugs: the Internet, smart phones, video games, iPads, and -- of course -- HDTV, history's most perfect narcotic. It's not for nothing that just about every digital device on the planet now comes equipped with an LCD. Let's face it: the media are reliable, ubiquitous, loyal, legal, don't talk back, and are -- in comparison to other controlled substances -- still pretty cheap. The isolating succor and narcissistic narcosis that ride shotgun with media addiction are the exact same basic rewards offered up by heroin and crack cocaine. In short, the media are perfectly addicting, and we're perfectly complicit in our addictions to them.

How complicit? On average we spend about half our adult lives and at least two thirds of our waking lives consuming media. Try that with any other drug. With other narcotics we typically only pay for what we consume. With media, however, we're more than willing to pay for a month's supply at a time, regardless of how much we consume. Seems were eager to pay for more than we can ever consume just for the peace of mind that comes with the knowledge that our next fix is forever at our fingertips at home and on the road. Only with the media do we actually pay for access to the drugs we don't consume. Now that's an addiction.

So where the hell are all the addicts? How can we all be addicted to media if no one is an addict? Where have all the addicts gone, and why is it so hard for marketers to track them down, especially when the narcotics they crave are so compellingly powerful and so utterly ubiquitous?

Let's try to inject (pardon the pun) some common sense. In observing our behavior as media addicts what practical conclusions can marketers draw? Apparently...

·...everyone is addicted to video, both on and offline.

·...no one is addicted to the ads.

·...everyone and no one are the same exact addicts

Translation #1 No self-respecting media addict will go anywhere just for the ads (except of course for advertising and marketing executives -- who will go anywhere as long as there's a free buffet and/or a paid bar). As media narcotics go, advertising is to programming what aspirin is to methamphetamine.

Translation #2

Media addiction, like all addictions, is a demand-side phenomenon, not supply-side. So don't scale or otherwise try to tamper with the supply. Look instead for opportunities to scale and exploit the demand -- because addiction is all about the demand, and the demand side is precisely where all the brand reach that disappeared in recent years is hiding out in plain sight.

Translation #3

Now that media addiction is the legitimate rule rather than the illegitimate exception, the traditional advertising-as-intermediary model can no longer satisfy and sustain the massive industry infrastructure -- the legions of intermediary producers, distributors and dealers -- required to traffic the actual narcotics and otherwise service the addiction. Likewise the same advertising-as-intermediary model can only fail to deliver effective reach in scale large enough to satisfy the demands of big brand advertisers -- because while everyone wants their next media fix right away all the time, no one wants the ads that pay the freight. This is precisely why the out-of-pocket costs of media (although still low in relation to other Class A, Schedule I substances) are rising so rapidly: the parasitic presence of far too many intermediaries in the production and distribution sides of the business.

Again, the demand-side nature of all addiction tells us everything we need to know about how and where to reach media addicts -- and with what. Stands to reason that of all the potential audiences addicts would seem the easiest to attract, not the hardest. In fact, we don't really need to reach the addicts at all because they reach us instead. They always do, but as media professionals (and the biggest media addicts by default) we're apparently too addicted to our own media Kool-Aid to notice. Bottom line: if you want to attract media addicts, cater to their addictions. Just don't expect them to do anything else except a) devour the media narcotics you put in front of them, and b) move on right away to the very next fix, served up by you or someone else. Never try to insert yourself or your ad message between a media addict and a media addict's drug of choice, not when the only thing that matters to the media addict is the very next media fix. Everything else just gets in the way -- especially the ads and causes resentment.

There is of course a better way to put the media addiction of others to work for you and your clients. If you want to know the solution to scalable brand reach in the age of pandemic media addiction, drop me a line and we'll talk -- addict to addict.

About Jeff Einstein
Digital media pioneer Jeff Einstein is one-half of the Brothers Einstein, a contrarian brand strategy and communications boutique. The Brothers Einstein have just announced the release of their Just BE Workshop,a full-day, hands-on seminar designed to help senior marketing executives lower the barriers to innovation and restore common sense to its rightful place atop the hierarchy of modern management tools.

Read all the Einstein Brothers' MediaBizBloggers commentaries at the Brothers Einstein - MediaBizBloggers.

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