What is the role of TV in the new media environment? Most brands continue to see TV as a one-way broadcast medium — a platform by which we can deliver marketing messages that consumers should simply absorb and remember. In this world view, digital is an add-on — a means of overlaying an interactive element onto what is primarily an old-school sledgehammer-to-consumer-skull effort. Little more than checking a box. You know the drill. Or perhaps I should say mallet. The brand blasts away a nice “strategic ad” over the airwaves, but spends 7 percent of the budget pushing some “viral” or “social” effort that essentially asks consumers to spit back the broadcast message.
Fortunately, a few brands are leading a transition. They understand that TV is no longer a broadcast medium so much as it is a mass distribution channel — one that establishes awareness for a larger campaign effort that gives consumers a real role in shaping and communicating the brand essence. These are “digital-first” brands. That doesn’t mean they necessarily spend a larger proportion of dollars on digital. Not at all. Rather, they use all media — traditional and digital — to seek out consumer participation. Participation that is channeled through digital platforms.
