Online Marketing and Offline Media Fragmentation
"Advertise your company's logo on my baby's onesie/hat."
This recent eBay auction, in which a mother auctioned off advertising space on her baby's clothes, has now been followed by an ongoing auction for the same on his brother's clothing.
Sure, it can be written off as just another nutty, bad taste publicity stunt online.
But someone paid $1050 for the privilege of branding the "cute as a button" toddler. This kind of "prosumer" behaviour - where consumers are acting more like professionals - shows how fundamentally society is changing.
Moreover, this kind of 24/7 marketing mentality demonstrates the pincer movement affecting traditional media: new communication channels such as eBay are increasingly used to advertise new ways to ... advertise!
Meanwhile, offline media continues to splinter and fragment: you are almost as likely to see an ad on a baby's hat as you walk down the street, or on the nozzle of a petrol pump as you are to see it on "prime-time" TV. That is because you are much less likely to be watching prime-time TV, since you're probably busy on the Internet or watching a niche TV channel.
Or you might indeed be watching prime-time TV but on a (video recorder) TiVo without the commercials or on one of the new-generation mpeg4 video players / recorders such as the Archos AV400 or Apple's latest iPod - again, sans ads.
This recent eBay auction, in which a mother auctioned off advertising space on her baby's clothes, has now been followed by an ongoing auction for the same on his brother's clothing.
Sure, it can be written off as just another nutty, bad taste publicity stunt online.
But someone paid $1050 for the privilege of branding the "cute as a button" toddler. This kind of "prosumer" behaviour - where consumers are acting more like professionals - shows how fundamentally society is changing.
Moreover, this kind of 24/7 marketing mentality demonstrates the pincer movement affecting traditional media: new communication channels such as eBay are increasingly used to advertise new ways to ... advertise!
Meanwhile, offline media continues to splinter and fragment: you are almost as likely to see an ad on a baby's hat as you walk down the street, or on the nozzle of a petrol pump as you are to see it on "prime-time" TV. That is because you are much less likely to be watching prime-time TV, since you're probably busy on the Internet or watching a niche TV channel.
Or you might indeed be watching prime-time TV but on a (video recorder) TiVo without the commercials or on one of the new-generation mpeg4 video players / recorders such as the Archos AV400 or Apple's latest iPod - again, sans ads.
posted by Rob at 9:19 PM
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