These days I get asked at least a half dozen times per week questions about emerging media opportunities. Most folks want a straight answer on what should they care about, and what should they ignore. I’d like to share my mental filter for evaluating every new media opportunity.
I look for these two attributes; “Media Value”, and “Engagement Value”
Media Value is a fairly straightforward concept, simply evaluate what it cost you to reach your specific target audience at scale compared to all other media channels. A recent example would be MySpace. I got this question a lot. Frankly if you are trying to reach that younger audience it is a great buying opportunity given the fact so many advertisers cant get their heads (AKA legal department) over the idea of placing ads anywhere near user generated content. You can simply reach many more of your target for less. Don’t be a wimp, and get in there while it’s still a bargain. On the flip side if reach is what your looking for Second Life has like 5,000 active users at any given time of which no one is likely to fly near your freaking island. Second life is not media this is an experiment. Brace yourself… TV (actually what I mean is national cable) can be a buying opportunity as well. This coming from an online guy.
Now to engagement value, as the cost of online media impressions continue to rise the effectiveness of each one of those impressions must improve. TV as a mass medium has only been around for a little over 40 years, and the first ads were very cheesy (think lady in a Camel cigarette box costume singing (it happened), and now the production value is akin to cinema. The first banner ads were not much better than the first TV ads, and although there has been some improvement on the banner ad front it’s far from where it will end up. My advice is to jump on any opportunity to elevate the production value of your online experiences.
So at the end of the day decide based on cost per reach, factoring the engagement value.
