AdNews
21 Feb 2012, AdNews
MOUTH OFF: Is the mainstream dead?
In a recent issue of AdNews, columnist David Dale argued that audience fragmentation had crowned niche the new mainstream. But not everyone agrees.
Mindshare chief executive James Greet
"Mainstream still exists and will always exist - there just won’t be much of it.
Technology has made it easier to create entertainment for smaller and smaller interest groups, the quality of which continues to improve. This in turn will fragment audiences further.
However, the potential to reach audiences en masse will always be there for certain causes and brands on certain occasions. The only problem is there are fewer opportunities, and their rarity makes them increasingly expensive. So at one end of the spectrum you have increasing opportunity to communicate to niche, focused communities via content and experiences, and at the other end you will still have ‘mainstream’ opportunities that continue to unify and engage mass audiences. Globally.
Trouble is there’s a lot of crap in the middle (the ‘dangerous middle ground’) that no audience really gives a toss about and simply exists to generate disengaged advertising impressions as a currency for media owners to flog. Never has the need to know who your consumer is and what really matters to them mattered so much."
ZenithOptimedia chief strategy officer Nicole Milward
"The mainstream still has a faint heartbeat. It’s not in the same health as it once was but it’s surviving nonetheless.
Its staying power lies in its ability to bring people together around a common experience; something that can be broadly socialised.
Big, live event programming continues to capture the imagination of ‘the mainstream’ because it unites an audience around a shared passion or engages people in a topical conversation. The fact that mums are still being asked when they are going to ‘plate up’ speaks volumes.
But the cracks are there and they are growing. The ‘popular’ is being rapidly replaced by the ‘personal’. Back in the day, popularity was as much about limited supply as anything else. The pie could only be divided in so many ways.
Not anymore. It’s a lot more fluid than fixed. The spill is into things that cater for ‘me’, not the masses. There are still lots of solid crowd-pleasers, but they are playing to smaller audiences. The big-hitters are now, at best, biggish.
The mainstream isn’t dead. That said, I wouldn’t want to be its health insurance provider either."
MCN / Multiview insights & analytics director Murray Love
"Mass is dead, long live the new mass.
The classic debate in our industry for years has been around the merits of ‘mass’ (mainstream) versus ‘niche’ (targeted), but the truth is it’s no longer an ‘either/or’ equation.
Five years ago a mass audience on free-to-air TV was two million people. That number has declined dramatically, to the point where we regularly see the same programs delivering 500-600 thousand people.
The good news is whilst audiences are fragmenting, the ability to deliver mass exists through multiplatform and multichannel campaigns. But unlike the mass buying sprees of old, the ‘new mass’ comes with the ability to target, and new interactive advertising models allow us to create far deeper audience engagement.
So, for the savvy marketer, there is now a happy triumvirate of possibilities - mass, plus targeted, plus engaged."
SBS chief operating officer Richard Finlayson
"In his argument that real men don’t do niche, David Dale forgot a key premise of the Bruce Fernstein book he refers to - while real men may have eschewed the quiche lorraine, they were open lovers of the bacon and egg pie.
Our culinary thresholds have changed and so too has the art of programming for the masses, but it is far from dead.
Two enduring factors drive the longevity of mass communal viewing: one, that humans still like to spend most of their time watching TV together; and two, marketers will help fund the creation of compelling entertainment to push their products.
But the mainstream, too, has been rebranded with a sexy foreign moniker: zeitgeist.
It’s about the massive currents of interests, chatter, issues and politics that sweep through communities.
Program-makers artfully trawl in these waters, anticipating the tides, to serve up content to us that we simply prefer to eat together.
Watch out for the recipe on this season of MasterChef."
This article first appeared in the February 10 edition of AdNews. Click here to subscribe for more news, features and opinion.