Introduction

Online media—a category including social networks, blogs and microblogs, and streaming video—have exploded in popularity.  Facebook has more than 300 million users worldwide, LinkedIn passed 50 million global users, and YouTube streamed nearly 10 billion online videos in August in the U.S. alone.  The average person now surfs the Internet for roughly the same amount of time she spends watching TV in a given month.[i]

The rapid growth of Internet-enabled media mirrors the consumer adoption of TV—284 million U.S. residents watch TV at least once a month and average nearly 3.5 hours of viewing per day.[ii]  While the audience sizes are similar, the mediums are quite distinct.  Old rules that worked for TV simply must be adjusted to match the new realities of how people communicate in an online, “always-on” world.   TV tactics that successfully built brands, produced customer loyalty, and delivered electoral wins, therefore, should be considered carefully for their value in the emerging media landscape. 

The Television Era 
On July 1, 1941, the television era began in earnest—the U.S. Federal Communications Commission gave non-experimental call letters to two stations and allowed commercial TV advertising for the first time.[iii]  The first television commercial aired in 1941 and cost $9 to run.[iv]  Household television uptake was slow in the decade after the first commercial stations were established, as only 9 percent of U.S. households had a television in 1950.[v] 

By 1960, however, 87 percent of U.S households had a television, and the medium quickly became a central part of consumers’ lives and advertisers’ strategies.[vi]  Today, on average, there are 2.86 televisions in U.S. homes; homes which on average house 2.5 people.[vii]  Some 98 percent of U.S. homes have at least one television.  Despite its meager beginnings, television quickly became the leading medium for marketing messaging. In 2008 alone, advertisers spent roughly $65 billion on television spots.[viii] 


Internet connectivity is expanding at a similarly rapid rate as household TV usage did in the 1950s, and Internet advertising revenues are increasing at an even faster rate than TV advertising did in that period.[ix]  About 12 percent of U.S. adults were using the Internet at least once a month in 1995.  Fourteen years later, 79 percent of the U.S. adult population uses the Internet regularly.[x]  Internet advertising generated roughly $50 million in revenues in 1995; based on first-half results, Internet advertising is on pace to generate around $22 billion in revenue in 2009.[xi] 

The Internet Age
As the Internet’s reach in the U.S. has increased, the activities and behaviors of the audience have changed due to rapid advancements in computer processing, broadband performance, and Web page design. The variety and scope of Internet activities has increased in lockstep with the audience expansion. The first phase of the Internet produced an unprecedented increase in connectivity. The era was defined by the rise of email, e-commerce and online search. The original Internet giants—companies like Amazon, eBay, Craigslist and Google— found new ways to connect buyers and sellers directly, removing intermediaries and changing trade forever.

The second wave of Internet success stories, however, altered a far more fundamental process than trade; the giants of “Web 2.0” changed the way people connect and communicate. Skype, Facebook, and YouTube have all gained hundreds of millions of users by offering easier, cheaper, and faster ways to share personal information.

These giant communities offer ripe opportunities to target large swaths of selected consumers with messaging about products, services, and political candidates.

 

Compared to TV, which is a “one-directed-at-many” medium whose performance has always been difficult to measure accurately, Internet-based marketing efforts have the added advantage of quantifiable metrics.  The Social Web, with its additional information on preferences and habits, provides an even richer layer of value to marketers and communicators who can tune out the noise to find actionable insight in usage trends and user behaviors.   A successful transition from the linear broadcast model to the fluid nature of the Social Web requires evaluation of proven TV communication methods to learn which practices retain value, and which need to be unlearned to communicate successfully in the new world of emerging media.

 

[i] Charles S. Golvin, “North American Technographics Benchmark Study,” Forrester Research, September 2, 2009.
[ii] The Nielsen Company, “A/2 M/2 Three Screen Report: Volume 5, 2nd Quarter 2009,” September 2, 2009, http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/3ScreenQ209_USRpt_final.pdf, accessed October 2009.
[iii] Tom Genova, “Television History: The first 75 years,” http://www.tvhistory.tv/First%20Day%20of%20TV.htm, accessed October 2009.
[iv] The Museum of Broadcast Communications, “Encyclopedia of Television: Advertising,” http://museum.tv/archives/etv/A/htmlA/advertising/advertising.htm, accessed October 2009.
[v] Genova, “Television History: The first 75 years,” http://www.tvhistory.tv/Annual_TV_Households_50-78.JPG, accessed 2009.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] The Nielsen Company, “Television Audience Report: 2008,” July 20, 2009, http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/tva_2008_071709.pdf, accessed October 2009.
[viii] Advertising Age Group, “U.S. Ad Spend Trends: 2008,” June 22, 2009, http://adage.com/images/random/datacenter/2009/spendtrends09.pdf, accessed October 2009.
[ix] Internet Advertising Bureau, “IAB Internet Advertising Report: 2001,” June 2002, http://www.iab.net/media/file/resources_adrevenue_pdf_IAB_PWC_2001Q4.pdf, accessed October 2009.
[x] Pew Internet and American Life Project Surveys, March 2000-April 2008.
[xi] Internet Advertising Bureau, “IAB Internet Advertising Report: 1H09,” October 5, 2009, http://www.iab.net/media/file/IAB-Ad-Revenue-Six-month-2009.pdf, accessed October 2009.