20110703 fairplay

I propose that we create the context for consultancy based in the broad changes in media, which reflect the broader changes in:

-- globalism (global business economics and international relations

-- consumer media consumption behavior (social media, search-based Web, granfalloons, local retail vs. delivery)

-- changes in media business models (media as insitutions and consumers and content creators), and changes in the legal environments surrounding these issues.

Each of these three areas of great change present opportunities and potential crises for developers of media-related or delivered internet content, business services, or products.

ECONOMIC BACKGROUND

Capitalism's production-based economy favors entities that maximize profits through controlling costs and promoting consumption. Profit is maximized by minimizing the cost of materials and labor. Consumption is promoted by various media techniques to create consumer demand.

Within this historical context, media have leveraged their distribution systems and specialized content to attract readers and viewers, and profited by exposing marketing content to them.

The addition of Internet and Web technologies changes these balanced relationships. Media content distribution is shifting away from traditional print and broadcast distribution to Web delivery, which is distancing it from it's traditional advertising relationships, often based on geographical relationships.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Consumer behavior is the bedrock of capitalism, for a production economy requires consumption to prosper. There is a high premium for matching production of goods, services, or content to consumer tastes at the time and the place that the consumer wants. Simiarly, there is a high premium for molding consumer demand to match the output of production.

Both approaches exist, because there is a pre-determined demand for bread (and marketing can ifluence brand and product selection), but the demand for the Hulu Hoop (or the iPhone) was created by media messages.

The tension in this system is that the existengencies of production and consumption create the employment infrastructure for the population, and simultaneously determine the cost structures within which the population operates, but the necessieties and wants of the population and the supply of employment and support are not strongly connected with a feedback mechanism.

Similarly, deeper and more significant cultural messages can be disseminated into a population to meet pre-existing preferences and tastes, and marketing can create receptivity for messages that "sell" demand for particular ideological, theological, political, or economic messages.

Which side of the process dominates: production meeting demand, or stimulating demand to meet production? In one sense, it does not matter, as they are the two sides of a coin. What is important is understanding the changes in consumer behavior that result from the changes in our cultural, economic, technological and media landscapes.

And it's not just the static list of changes that is important: it is the direction of those changes that chart the path to the future, and affects your planning and design.