When CEO's speak, it's at everyone's advantage that they listen. You can gain valuable information
on what to do, what's coming up, and advice on current trends in a given industry. If you are a
business owner, entrepreneur or thinking of becoming any of these it's wise to take cues from those
who are already doing it and have success. Keep it mind that you can acquire knowledge on strategic
moves you should not make. Here's a look into the digital world from Bob Pittman who runs Clear
Channel Communications a mass media company specializing in radio broadcasting, outdoor
advertising and online media via iHeartRadio.
For my entire 40-plus years in the media business, the buzz was all about “the connected home” as
the way of the future. We were all going to stay at home and technology was going to make it possible
for us to do everything we needed. Remember Walter Cronkite’s “Home of the Future,” where we
wouldn’t have to go to work—it would come to us? Movies like Smart House, with a computerized
home and a cyborg maid? Or even Bill Gates’ house in Medina, Wash., with 64 kilometers of
fiber-optic cable? That’s the kind of Wall-E future we were told to expect.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the future: With the advent of wireless, it became about
the mobile connected individual, not “the connected home.” As William Webb, former head of R&D
and senior technologist of the U.K.’s Ofcom, put it, “Users actually want a dumb home and smart
devices.”
Today, Americans spend 80 percent of their waking hours outside the home. And while they’re out
of the home, they want the products and services they enjoy to be with them nonstop. Fifty-two
percent of consumers’ time is now spent on mobile devices, up from 37 percent six months ago.
I can’t remember anything happening as quickly as this shift. And of course, it redefines how
advertising works. Advertising isn’t a 30-second spot, a display ad or a search term—advertising
is media companies renting their consumer relationships to unaffiliated third parties. This broad
definition allows us to rethink how we want to use those relationships in ways that reflect both the
technology and how consumers can continue their relationships with their favorite products, services
and personalities.
As marketers, we need to lean into this trend by leveraging media platforms like social and audio that
fit seamlessly into consumers’ mobile habits. Marketers need to better understand this mass-market
consumer behavior if they want their campaigns to succeed in this new mobile world.And understand
the winning plan is always a mix of media—each taking care of a specific piece of the puzzle and the
whole mix delivering greater results than any one single piece. As the consumer shifts his or her usage
of devices, the mix will continue to shift. And given the pace of change, the winners will be the ones
who watch the consumer the closest and respond the quickest.
Source: Adweek