TIDE SOAP AND THE DECLINE OF MASS MARKETING

Bianco, Anthony (2004) “The Vanishing Mass Market” BUSINESS WEEK, July 12, 61-72.

Old days. Some remember the big old brown wood cabinet radio. There were a few radio stations and soap operas sponsored by advertisers were heard simultaneously by housewives all over the country at the same time. The message in California was the same as the one in Vermont. The soap called “Tide” worked. “Tide” the clothes detergent has been #1 since 1949.

Throughout the 50’s and 60’s black & white and then color televisions may have had 4 channels. That included the big three and the public channel. The most important year was 1977. At that time, what was vaguely called “niche marketing’ (targeted audiences) began to expand with the onset or tipping point toward niche and then micro-niche markets. To get the message to the consumer, hundreds of different ads needed to be created for all the various forms of audio messages and visual ones. Every avenue is a new challenge. The audience has moved from mass to mush. One needs to know exactly what are the demographics and psychographics of the target. To further complicate matters, Generation Y automatically multi-tasks or splinters into observing or listening to 2 or more electronics at the same time. Can you get their attention? Can you keep their attention? Can you get them to buy? By the way, you also have to know what language they speak. Further, they have a very short attention span.

Then there is a special issue of the remote. The power of the consumer is that they can quickly turn you off, or change the channel or whatever, or they can cancel you emotionally.

In the new market, cable and internet win, network and general print media lose. The biggest loser is the news division. Numerous media feed off a few prime sources and quickly place the new news in fluffy happy talk or shout shows. It also has to be dumbed down.

To fill time, cable floods the air with short news spurts surrounded by opinion shows.
Lots of material is repositioned, recycled, or made into new compilations. The 365 24/7 formula gobbles quickly the main source of the news.

MTV is probably the biggest winner of all. Its main channel is essentially inexpensive reality shows with 22 minutes of entertainment in a half hour program. Then there are spin off stations for over the premiere target of teens to 35, with VH-1 and MTV classics (an oldies is something from the early 80’s) There also 2 channels for videos of hits and new material.

The internet is the other big winner. Nearly every media source also has a website.
With it comes pop ups and other product placements. The website may also be interactive so that the consumer can ask or answer questions or play games while on the web. You can also in some instances purchase a 24 hour streaming video feed of a cable/network reality show.

It is not unlikely that a consumer has a headset on, a laptop in front of them and a cable program on the television. That is splintering or multitasking. The mass media is now hyper segmented and both consumers and marketers will have to find their way home.

It appears that the news division has taken the last train out of town. Tide soap is everywhere and in some instance nowhere depending on time, place, market, demographic, psychographic, language spoken and other criteria to numerous to discuss.
Two or three sources are on at once and they are not playing in perfect harmony.