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Time for brands to have a marketing re-think?

Posted in Media, Oliver Milman, Latest reporters' blogs August 23rd, 2007 by Oliver Milman

While Ofcom’s communications market report provides us with a fascinating insight into how the UK consumes its media, it has also taken a sledgehammer to some fairly entrenched marketing assumptions.

Kids – they spend more and more of their time playing computer games and watching television and DVDs don’t they? Er, well, no, all these practices have fallen sharply in the past two years, with youngsters switching their shrivelling attention spans to mobile phones and MP3 players.

Well, what about older people? Surely the only media they can manage is a freshly-ironed copy of the Telegraph, or maybe a bit of wireless listening?

Again, the truth has shifted away from conception – people over 65 spend more time online every month than any other age group, with a quarter of all internet users qualifying for a free bus pass.

One enthusiastically embraced concept by marketers, that of increased internet usage, is correct, with the average time spent online soaring by 158 per cent since 2002. However, in the key 25 to 34-year-old demographic, female users have overtaken men in the amount of time they surf the web, a dramatic turnaround from just five years ago.

All of this will cause some intensive pondering by marketers across the UK. Of course, brands regularly check on what consumers are doing, but such a large-scale illumination of media trends is rare.

It will be interesting to see which youth-focussed brands continue with vanity-drenched cinematic TV advertising campaigns when their audience is shifting elsewhere. Mobile and podcast advertising is still in its infancy, so it will take some foresight, and quite a bit of effort, to effectively follow where young people are now looking at and listening to.

Similarly, the idea that older people somehow do not consume media and are impervious to advertising is increasingly absurd. Brands will have to find new ways to engage with older people in a non-patronising way, but also without resorting to the deathly dull ads that often crop up when aiming slightly greyer.

So, which brands will be quick to react to these changes and ensure that they remain fresh and in consumers’ consciousness? And what will happen to those that refuse to move on from the outdated marketing consensus?

To read the news story related to this blog, go to mad.co.uk