Thursday, July 31, 2008

Stupid, inefficient, over-priced. Hooray!

Hi,

Following a 40-year pattern, at the recent broadcast up-fronts, the major TV networks raked in record dollars from marketers - to the tune of $9.3 billion! Oh, and all at higher than ever pricing. Truly more for less. Now, I really do not want to focus on something as clunky as the up-fronts in this blog. There are plenty of places where people can drone on about C3, CPM and CBS. However, there is a larger, more positive story that is worth mentioning.

The exorbitant pricing of traditional media has been a major contributing factor in driving innovation for the rest of us. If the networks had not over-loaded their shows with seemingly never ending ad breaks, so driving people into the arms of Tivo, and at the same time gouged advertisers who fund the whole thing, we would likely be in a different world.

Truth be told, my job has never been more interesting or challenging. The work our agency creates is infinitely more creative and evolved than from just a few years ago. And there is more to come. There is a comparable analogy to the oil crisis currently going on. Sure, at lot of people are complaining and suffering. At the same time, the lack of cheap oil is spurring innovation and creativity. People are being forced, and incentivized to think and approach problems differently.

So hooray for the up-fronts, they are driving innovation in marketing - and that is something to celebrate.

Josh.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

#2: Why

Hi,

I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while now. Truth be told, being the proud Dad to a 21-month year old was a convenient excuse as to why I never got around to starting. Now that the sleep deprivation stage of being a parent is long gone, I realized if this was ever going to happen, I just needed to get on with it.

Why do I want to bother and why does anyone need yet another blog?

The first part of this question is easy. I find stuff interesting. Or rather, in a very illogical piece of circular logic, the stuff I find interesting is really interesting - to me. So starting a blog is about catching my thoughts and ideas on what I stumble across. I hope that others find what I find interesting, but whatever the case, I want to see if I can articulate some analysis and insights about the world we live in. And keep it interesting.

As to why does anyone need another blog? They don't. All I will say is that while I like a lot of other marketing blogs out there, I think there is a gap as far thinking about media/coms strategy. This may simply be because the majority of blogs I follow are written by technologists and/or brand planners. I think my career and experiences, from the get go in pure media, gives me something different. I hope so anyway.

Josh

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Hi

This is my first post. They say the first time is always the hardest. If this is true, writing and updating this blog is going to be easy. 

Josh.