Convergent media – communication for the future
“The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate”, wrote scientist and philosopher Joseph Priestley long before the invention of the Penny Post, let alone telephone, radio, TV, or the World Wide Web. Although it would be churlish of me to dwell on how wrong Priestley’s comments have proved (bearing in mind he was writing in the mid-18th Century), it is fascinating to note with the 20th and 21st centuries’ explosion in media and technology, just how much more information we are able to devour, assimilate and transfer today, as technical innovation has increased the method, the speed and the volume of our communication with one another. Richard Webster, commercial director, DLG, explains more.
The next giant leap in communications which will alter forever our capacity to receive information at speed, with ease and through our preferred contact channel, is digital media convergence. Digital media convergence is the term applied to the merging of media channels, made possible by internet technology and the hardware through which it is accessed. As TV, radio, telephony and the World Wide Web become accessible through a single digital device – potentially the size of a mobile phone – our reliance on communication through multiple devices will diminish.
Banner Ad
For businesses, virtually all of which rely in some way on media to communicate to their customers or their potential customers, this affords the previously unattainable opportunity to effectively create a direct one-to-one contact stream with each and every consumer, delivering the right advertising message to the right person at the right time. Direct marketing - advertising to named individuals that allows for much greater targeting and therefore less wastage - has up to now been the preserve of inserts, mailing and more recently emailing. Now with electronic media converging, the prospect of delivering personalized moving pictures or dynamic messages directly to the TV screen, pc monitor or mobile phone of a known individual will soon become a reality.
As in all direct advertising, the key to success lies in the availability and application of accurate and keenly targeted data. Although common wisdom states that it costs at least 5 times as much to recruit a new customer than it does to retain an existing one, recruitment is the absolute life-blood of any business. If a company is not growing its client-base, it is not just standing still, but is going backwards – because its competitors will always be moving forward. And the key to unlocking the real potential for customer recruitment, lies is in understanding more about them, and being able to direct an appropriate message to them. The availability of multi-channel data, and the intelligent application of it, is absolutely critical to any campaign’s success. Analysis and careful selection can be carried out before broadcast, and afterwards with detailed responder profiling. Over time, companies can build profiles of their customers and subsequently target them for highly specific campaigns, and subsequently generate real and significant lifetime value.
But far from such sophistication leading to a reduction in the desire to communicate (as feared by Priestley), convergence will streamline the communication flow, cut out the unwanted and filter the irrelevant. Our perception of communication in the brave new digitally converged world, should certainly prove to be positive.
