The Exponential Growth of Media Choices – Where are your Customers?

Today’s marketers have infinitely more media choices than their predecessors to have a dialog with their customers.  Technology such as broadband, wireless, mobile, IPODs, satellite and TIVO has put the customer in control of what they see and when they see it.  This technology is a bonanza for marketers because now they have dozens of measurable choices, but on the flip side it is harder than ever to get the attention of a consumer with traditional media.  Here is a personal example of how things have changed:

When I moved from NY to Boston in 1986, I lost track of my beloved New York Mets.  I would have to hope for a chance to see them on a network game of the week, or drive to Harvard Square to get an “out of town” newspaper such as the NY Post or Daily News which would be on racks next to Pravda, The London Times and the Daily Worker.   In fact, I watched game six of the 86 World Series in a Boston apartment full of Sox fans.  I imagine it felt the same way as being a prisoner in an East German jail when the Berlin Wall fell.  I was ecstatic, but somewhat outwardly restrained in my joy. 

I moved back to NY in 1996, and became addicted to non stop coverage of NY sports, then, only to move back to Boston this year.   Contrast my media choices from 20 years ago to today.

I can read any New York newspaper 24/7 on the web in addition to dozens of Mets related sites and blogs.  I have personalized my sportsillustrated.com page with Mets news.  I listen to Mike and the Mad Dog on WFAN sports radio from NY streaming on the net.  I get Met games via the On Demand Season Ticket package from Comcast AND local radio broadcast on my XM satellite radio.  I could also watch them streaming on MLB.com, and get updates on my Treo, but that would just be overkill. 

From a media consumption sense I have not physically moved, I am still “virtually” in NY, so local NY advertisers are reaching me for products and services I do not want to buy, and the local Boston ads for baseball fans are not reaching me at all.  I have created my own Mets private media network that is not constrained by any platform or owned by any major media company.  The next time you use traditional media planning methods to reach your customers, think about this example and how your customers are now consuming media.  Are you still reaching them?  Are they where you think they are?  Is there a better way? Let me know what you think.