A New Kind of Teamwork The Changing Face of Media

Do you remember the Seinfeld episode where Jerry, George and Elaine are waiting for a table in a Chinese restaurant? The plot revolves around the fact that George is desperate to make a phone call but the other guy won't get off the pay phone. That was 1991. The fact that somebody might have a phone in their pocket was unthinkable.

How about the Bubble Boy episode where Jerry and Elaine's car gets separated from George and Susan's car on the highway? Again the plot revolves around the fact that there's no possible way for them to reach each other. That was 1993.

Not many years ago I bought a new Mercedes with a factory telephone mounted in the console. The handset was corded like a standard desk phone. No one thought it looked ridiculous. That car was a 1999 model.

180 million Americans now carry cell phones in their purses or pockets and many of these are able to receive full-motion video. Newspaper, radio and television are no longer the new kids on the block. Even Ted Turner's cable and Japan's VHS tapes – once the bold new voices of a brave tomorrow – have become weary, bleary and stale.

Like it or not, we're entering an age of non-traditional media.

As I warned you 14 months ago, media is losing its mass. Each moment we're online is a moment we're not reading the newspaper or watching TV. Each minute we spend listening to a CD or an iPod is a minute we're not listening to the radio. None of these technologies will deal a deathblow to traditional mass media, but only a fool would contend they're not collectively shrinking it.

Please hear me right: Mass media isn't going to go away or “quit working.” It's merely going to become less effective than it has been in the past. This is why the 41 worldwide Wizard of Ads partners are aggressively investigating NTM, or “non-traditional media,” including product placement in video games and news shows, localized ads on satellite radio, hyperlinks from blogs, streaming video-on-demand to cell phones, and other new voices in the information avalanche.

Six years ago, the Monday Memo you're reading right now was distributed only by FAX. Email wasn't really viable as a replacement. Six. Short. Years.

You and I are surrounded by glittering new technologies. Our attitudes about advertising are evolving as well. In short, we're no longer entirely a “me” generation. Our kids are teaching us to become an interconnected “we,” saying, “Your advertising may fool one of us, but that one will tell the rest of us.”

The most powerful of today's non-traditional media are also the most overlooked:

1: Word of Mouth. It can be bought. But do you know how?

2: Your Sales Staff. Are they winning converts, or merely making sales?

3: Your Website. Would you like to see it finally start working?

A few weeks ago I told you to set aside October 15 to attend the Wizard Academy reunion and open house and promised that details would be announced “in a few weeks.”

Here are those promised details.

I'll be making virgin presentations on 3 new topics:

1. Direct Marketing: the equal-but-opposite corollary to Branding.

2. Non-Traditional Media: what's coming, what's already here, and how to use it NOW.

3. Word of Mouth: How to plan it and buy it like any other media.

Space limitations at the new campus dictate that we accept only the first 200 registrants. Sorry, but if your name isn't on the master list, you won't get past the security guard. We deeply regret that it has to be this way, but the Monday Memo subscriber list has grown too large for us to not put limitations on our invitations.

Robert Frost and Ponyboy were right; nothing gold can stay.

Come to Austin October 15 and see the treasure map that reveals where tomorrow's gold is buried.

Roy H. Williams