The New Media Chasm: Examining the Efficiencies of Aggregating Emerging Media
For many people involved in the Internet industry during the first heyday, Geoffrey Moore’s 1991 best-selling technology marketing book, Crossing the Chasm, was the go-to resource for marketing high-tech products and services. Most marketers already recognized five distinct customer segments in technology marketing — innovators, early adopters, the early majority, the late majority, and the laggards. The life cycle formed a bell curve, with the early and late majority forming the hump in the middle.
According to Moore, the life cycle contained gaps between these phases, attributable to dissociations between adjacent groups. The gap between the “early adopters” and the “early majority” was so significant that it was labeled a “chasm.” If a marketer loses momentum trying to cross the chasm, it can mean the difference between success and failure for the product.
Innovation and Media Adoption
Because technology innovation underlies many of today’s emerging interactive media, it follows that the technology adoption life cycle applies to media adoption as well. An important difference, however, lies in the value proposition to the end user. Technology products and services often result in productivity benefits for the end user. While interactive media can provide productivity benefits, the value proposition is multi-dimensional.
Consider, for example the vast amount of online information at our fingertips. Search engines help us gain access to this content in an efficient manner. But the Internet, and other media segments built on its infrastructure - blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds, short videos, and music downloads - provide entertainment and communication as well.
With technology products, marketers receive some assistance from change agents standing at the edge of the chasm. They are drawn there by economic opportunity, and they are willing to place a bet that a product is worthy of mass adoption. With software, this can be value-added resellers and consultants, who promote the product to clients and become experts in implementation. With hardware, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) leverage a component’s benefits and package it into new and improved products of their own.
If an emerging media succeeds at crossing the chasm, advertisers know the “majority” by a different name. We call it “audience.” And sometimes we’re willing to place a bet on a successful chasm-crossing in advance, so that we’re well positioned to scale our advertising programs when mass adoption hits.
New Media Change Agents
Just like there are change agents that help technology marketers cross the chasm, the economic opportunity draws individuals and companies to the banks of the new media chasm. These are the early adopters who are willing to place a bet that a media will be successful. They adopt it themselves, learn all about the key benefits, understand barriers to adoption, and help shape the media for advertiser adoption. As advertisers peer across the chasm at emerging media, these new media evangelists assist in several ways by:
• Defining the type of messaging that’s appropriate for the media
• Determining how the messaging will be delivered
• Aggregating the media to create scale sooner, rather than later
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