What kind of reach should we really be concerned about?
What is the value of reach in numbers compared to reach in activity? What are the advantages of exposing millions of cocooned TV-viewers to your message compared to engaging a few thousand ambassadors in a conversation?
Strolling through one of the Flickr Creative Commons archives searching for images for the slide above it surprised and fascinated me to see the difference in “aliveness” and energy from the audience in the two channels, tv and phone.
The TV-images were mainly of people staring blankly at the box. Adults where lying back, disengaging from the world, wanting a break.
The Phone-images were of people engaged in conversation (and engaging in conversations is my point, not the phone in itself). There where people having fun, laughing, crying. But almost all the way through they looked alive, engaged, concentrated and interested – very different from their TV-counterparts.
If flickr can represent some kind, any kind, of ethnographic quantity, then the question is, to whom / where would I want to invest my marketing dollars? And what kind of reach should we really be concerned about?
2 Comments, Comment or Ping
Rob @ Cynic
Excellent post …
Our job is to motivate action, not wallpaper people’s minds – which is why ‘sacrifice’ is one of the most important decisions in a companies business plan.
Jan 21st, 2009
helgetenno
Thanks again Rob :o)
Brilliant response. Sacrificing “everything” (because the only thing “everything” does is make the brief look good at the next client meeting), in order to find THE ONE THING the ad can do, and make sure it does it well.
Jan 21st, 2009
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