The Power Of Choice.

Choices. It’s all about choices. What we’re seeing take place in the media landscape today is consumers having, and taking advantage of, the power of choice.

For years our industry took a combative stance with traditional media, proclaiming that the Internet would signal the death of all other media, but what the Internet really signified is evolution and the ability for content to be delivered in an on-demand format across multiple vehicles–and the resolution that the consumer has a choice for how, when and where they interact with content.

Isn’t it nice to have choices?

Where would you be without choices? You’d probably be at home trying to set your Betamax machine (not a VHS or DVR) to record your favorite show. You’d probably be sitting there, plopped down on your new couch, drinking a can of Pepsi (not a Coke or a Hanson’s Grapefruit Soda) and ordering an ordinary cheese pizza from Pizza Hut (not Pizza 33 or Papa John’s) because those are the only options you have in your quaint little town (which you never left because you had no choice but to stay and take over the family business).

Instead, consumers today have the power of choice at their beck and call. You can decide what pizza and what soda and what device to use to record your favorite shows. The choices that consumer face today are exponentially more complex, with more options than we could ever have imagined previously. For proof, just check out local cable on a Saturday afternoon and take note of the 800+ stations at your disposal. Choice is what makes us who we are. It’s an integral part of being a consumer in today’s world.

We used to take a conflict-oriented approach to the evolution of media. It all started with Buggles and their hit song “Video Killed the Radio Star,” which was used to debut that auspicious little pop culture nugget we call MTV. Even then we proclaimed that video would defeat radio and make it obsolete. Then the Internet came along and everyone started to chant, “The death of television is near!” What we didn’t realize is that no new technology truly replaces the old one. New technology simply layers on top of the old formats and provides consumers with more choices for how, where and when to interact with the media they find so integral to their daily lives.

See, the Internet doesn’t make TV go away, nor does TV make radio obsolete. The DVR doesn’t make traditional prime-time television unwatchable, and video-on-demand never completely erases the need for a DVR. Nope; all of these are opportunities for publishers to get their content into the hands and eyes and ears of consumers who might have been unreachable before. Some consumers want their programming when they want it, while others are willing to take it when they can get it. The simple truth is that technology, though it segments the audience and fragments when the audience will view content, has the potential to increase the overall audience for that content. When “M*A*S*H” went off the air, its final episode was watched by an enormous audience. Everyone agreed that we’ll never see an audience share that size at one time again, but in cumulative you’ll certainly see an audience that large, if not larger. Witness the audience who’s seen “Lazy Sunday” from “Saturday Night Live” as it flitters from computer to iPod to everywhere in between. Yet how many of you actually watch “SNL” anymore?

Choice is a beautiful thing, and the development of the next technology just provides the consumer with more options to choose from. Of course, there’s the old adage in direct response advertising that says, “ff you provide consumers with too many choices, they’ll choose not to choose one.” That may be true of direct response, but this is a different beast altogether and one that the consumer fundamentally understands and appreciates.

Choice is good and choice is what drives us to understand how the consumer thinks. After all, it’s our choice to get up in the morning and go to work, right?

By Cory Treffiletti
Courtesy of http://www.mediapot.com

Cory Treffiletti is SVP, Engagement Architect at Carat Fusion.