The New Normal of Advertising & Marketing Options

40 years ago, when I was ten years old, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted newsman in America. Uncle Walter delivered the news to millions of people 5 nights a week and his network, CBS, was one of three television channels that most households relied on. ABC was the youngest and was a spin-off of NBC.

1970 was also the year that PBS was launched although it took years for it to become a national network.

We had 5 local AM Radio Stations and 3 or 4 FM Radio Stations to listen to. And a morning and afternoon newspaper.

That's what was normal for media in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Advertising options included all of the above along with Billboards, Phone Books and Direct Mail.

A friend of mine worked for the dominant radio station in the 1970's and the morning show was listened to by 60% of all radio listeners. Now we have around 20 radio stations, 16 of them are FM, and the most popular morning show is listened to by less than 15% of all radio listeners.

We have Cable TV reaching 8 out of 10 homes, and then there's the internet.

Advertising options have exploded. If you are running your advertising and marketing the way your parents or grandparents did 40 years ago without recognizing these changes, you are destined to fail. Sorry about that, but it's true.

The changes are also happening faster than ever before. So if you added a website to your marketing plan 5 years ago, it looks dated, and less trustworthy.

I know, I know... it's hard enough to keep up with the changes going on in your industry, let alone the changes in marketing and advertising.

So how do know what to change? What to drop? What to add?

Those questions are premature.

First you need to know about the heart and soul of your business. Your business has a personality that is unique. You need to know and understand this part of your business so that which ever advertising options you use, you are being true to your business and your customers.

Very few businesses are able to transform themselves from one niche to another. We'll explore that in the future. And we'll also look at the New Normal from a consumers viewpoint.

This is one of the latest in a series of video's that demonstrate some of these changes: