Z.E.R.O.: Zero Paid Media as the New Marketing Model

CHAPTER5

The Media Case

The author of Life after the 30-Second Spot (John Wiley & Sons, 2005) has a particular affection for the 30-second spot (a sadistic one), but it is important to note that the assertion always was a metaphor for a particular way of doing business: command-and-control, spray-and-pray, hit-and-hope, carpet bomb, shock-and-awe—pick your poison in terms of describing a paid media model built on scarcity and building in an unknown, acceptable level of wastage.

I have planned, bought, and negotiated media all my life. I helped Leo Burnett Amsterdam enter the commercial TV era in the Netherlands in 1989. I managed significant media budgets for clients at JWT, Leo Burnett, and McCann-Erickson, and then for the Coca-Cola Company and AB InBev. Over the years, my belief was that it was certainly worth it to pay attention to new, innovative ways of dissecting TV schedules (using any and all of the new ways that agencies, researchers, and occasionally media owners came up with).

With all this historic perspective and understanding of today, we'll explain in this chapter why we believe Armageddon is upon TV land. We will not tell you anything new with the following data points.

Data Point 1: More TVs and More Channels, But Not More Viewing

TV viewing has not significantly increased, despite an enormous increase in channels and the fact that TV sets have become hugely more affordable, which resulted in a set being added to almost every room in homes from New York to New ...