Given the popularity of books like The Fall of Advertising and Rise of PR and The End of Marketing As We Know It warning of the coming end of advertising, gadgets like TiVo which allow viewers to skip TV ads altogether, and a continued decline in ROI for TV campaigns, we're—tongue-in-cheek, of course—beginning to wonder if the U.S. TV networks and advertisers have decided, either in concert or independently, to just let the genre die.

How else to explain why TV networks seem to have done their best to select the worst, most disappointing line-up of shows? Before this year's fall TV season began, Rino Scanzoni, chief investment officer at Mediaedge:cia predicted, "The list of casualties will far exceed the list of hits." Once the season had started, even President of NBC Entertainment Jeff Zucker admitted, "some of the programming just sucked."

The networks have also aired similar shows in the same time slots—Rob Lowe's courtroom drama the "Lyon's Den," on Sunday nights opposite another courtroom drama on another network, "The Practice," for example—limiting the variety of programming choices for viewers; squeezed the living day lights out of once popular series (e.g., "Friends," "Frazier," "The West Wing," and "The Bachelor"); and extended other series into oblivion. "Law and Order," for example, has two line extensions in addition to its core show, and a rumored third is on the way. That would make four "Law and Orders." Not surprisingly, viewership of new shows is down 7% compared to last year's fledgling crop, and ratings overall are off, particularly among the coveted young male viewer, according to Nielsen. [To be fair, we should note the networks dispute Nielsen's report on the extent of the ratings. Yet they do acknowledge viewership is down and admitted they offerend very little in the way of programming that appeals to young men.]

How else to explain why advertisers are making a mockery of TV advertising as a credible communications vehicle? Take the recent campaign by Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) which touted the health benefits of its fried chicken. Yes, that's right. Health benefits.

One spot shows a woman asking her male companion, "Remember how we talked about eating better? Well, it starts today." With that, she plunks down, as Advertising Age's ad critic Bob Garfield explains, not "a pile of alfalfa sprouts or a bowl of kidney beans or a salmon steak, but a bucket of greasy wads of KFC chicken." The husband hungrily grabs up a breast from the 12-piece bucket as a voice-over exclaims, "The secret is out! Two Original Recipe breasts have less fat than a BK Whopper….For a fresh way to eat better, you gotta KFC what's cookin'!"

Another spot shows a man asking his friend what he's been doing to lose weight and his friend, with a big hunk of fried chicken already jammed in his mouth, replies, "Eatin' chicken." "If you're watching carbs and going high protein, go KFC!" urges the voice-over.

Never mind the illegible print at the bottom of the screen that warns KFC is "not a low fat, low sodium, low cholesterol food." Never mind that while technically true, a serving size of two KFC breasts has less fat than a Whopper, we're talking five grams less—38 for KFC and 43 for a Whopper. Never mind that the people in the ads are all eating a bucket of chicken, not the serving size of two pieces. Eating fried chicken can still part of a healthy life, KFC claims. Yet as an Advertising Age editorial commented, "In the long history of absurd, misleading and ludicrous ad claims, the campaign's positioning of KFC's breaded, fried chicken as part of a healthy diet merits special derision. It damages the credibility not just of KFC but of the entire marketing industry."

If networks and advertisers aren't intentionally trying to kill TV advertising, then, with many leading advertisers committing to spending less on the networks and TV in general and the FTC investigating KFC, they aren't doing much to save it either.

According to IFPI, an organization that represents the international recording industry, the music industry worldwide has lost 35% of its value in just two years, shrinking from a $40 billion business in 2000 to a $26 billion industry in 2002. While those in the industry blame illegal downloading and file-sharing of music for poor performance, at the same time, they also don't disagree with independent estimates that downloading accounts for only 40% of the industry's sales decline.

That leaves 60% ascribable to other causes.

The economy certainly has impacted sales, and others point to a dearth of talent, corporate radio, and the rise of powerful retailers which may or may not have had some minor effects. From where we stand, however, the downward spiral began with a series of classic marketing mistakes committed by the five major record labels—EMI, BMG, Sony, Universal, and Warner—that account for 70% of worldwide sales.

First came strategy mistake #1, the targeting decision. The big five took a look at who was spending the most and, bingo, they had a target market: younger buyers. Teens and young twenty-somethings as a group spend more on music per capita than other age groups. Not only are they everybody's favorite target, but, as our readers know, heavy buyers as a group are more heterogeneous than homogenous. The record companies did not account for that. Nor did they account for the fact that the over-30 crowd represents more than 60% of the music-buying audience, and spending among this target is on the rise.

Now for strategy mistake #2, the positioning decision. The big five seemed to care very little about differentiating its portfolio of bands from those of competitors. There was no reason to buy offered other than, "Hey, here is the artist with the hit song and isn't it cool?" Little to no research guided the positioning decisions for all the young pop divas, skater-punk bands, rap superstars, and angst-riddled metallish bands which every company seems to have in their portfolio. Most of the marketing dollars went to support the promotion of the similar, not to explain how a band was different, hoping the music would speak for itself.

And finally, strategy mistake #3, the product and pricing decision. The big five scrapped the decades-old industry practices of putting out EPs with one or two good songs by new bands to build a fan base (sort of like a real world test market) and releasing a full album only when the new act had enough good material. To quickly grab cash from music-hungry teens, the companies put out full albums with the one, maybe two, good songs, with the rest more or less forgettable. Yet as the quality of albums produced by the major labels decreased, prices didn't, so tech-savvy younger audiences started looking for alternatives (i.e., free downloads) to spending $15 for one good song.

"The record business is looking more and more like Hollywood," says Danny Goldberg, previously an executive for one of the major labels and now the president and CEO of Artemis Records, ranked Billboard's #1 independent label based on sales. "A handful of big public companies are chasing a younger audience with blockbuster releases." We'd add, and like Hollywood, failing more often than not.

While the legal wrangling to protect the work of artists is certainly justified, it won't increase sales by itself. Price cuts and consolidation haven't helped other companies in similar situations—the six major U.S. airlines and the big three American automakers, for instance—so it's unlikely to turnaround the record business either. Only by making significant changes to their current marketing habits can record company executives revive sales. Look to Edgar Bronfman Jr., one of the most customer-focused, marketing-savvy CEOs in America to correct these mistakes at Warner when he takes over.

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"One's vocabulary," wrote Evelyn Waugh, the author of Brideshead Revisited, "needs constant fertilizing or it will die." With Waugh's caution in mind, we started keeping a running list of new marketing and business terms we've come across to share with our readers so next time one of these words comes up in a client, staff, or executive meeting, you can thank us for keeping you abreast of the latest in marketing terminology.

Ambient Marketing
Definition: Events sponsored by brands that unfold in real time in real life and are intended to surround or enfold prospective customers.
Example: To introduce its Nutri-Grain granola snacks, the Kellogg Company launched an ad campaign that analogized getting to work in the morning with running a marathon. To drive home the point, the cereal maker staged mock marathons like the ones featured in commercials in high-traffic locations in eight big cities. The fake marathons were examples of "ambient marketing."

Corporate Nakedness
Definition: "Guru-speak" for making a company far more transparent to customers, employees, and society in general.
Example: This latest term from business author and self-described futurist Don Tapscott, who also popularized the terms "digital divide" and "the net generation," comes from his book, The Naked Corporation. Mr. Tapscott argues, that the growing demand from company stakeholders and technological advances have made it far easier to supply information and much more difficult to hide it. Greater transparency will lead to more accountability and improved corporate behavior, Tapscott predicts. He urges firms to embrace transparency and shape up because, "If you're going to be naked, you'd better be buff."

Marketing Dashboards
Definition: A coordinated system that enables a marketing executive to measure the levels of different marketing mix elements—advertising GRPs for example—to see the effects on outputs such as awareness and sales and pinpoint where the problem areas are.
Example: With all the emphasis on marketing accountability and ROI measurement, the idea of marketing dashboards has become a very hot concept. Picture the cockpit of an airplane with its control panel, levers, and gauges, and imagine a marketing executive as the pilot. The idea that with a symbolic flip of the switch—say the advertising switch—a marketer could tell what the impact on sales is, understand whether to increase power or decrease power, and how other elements are working all through one system is a powerful one in marketing today.

Quantilative
Definition: Doing quantitative research using focus groups.
Example: You need to know what this concept means if only to recognize its inanity and howl with laughter the next time it's proposed at a meeting. Honestly, folks, we have no idea how this works exactly. Maybe companies believe if they hold enough focus groups with enough people, this some how will make the results projectable to a broader audience. Perhaps they believe there is a way to scientifically recruit participants to be truly representative and somehow eliminate the biases of the moderator and whomever else might be observing the groups. Or maybe the participants complete a survey before or during the group discussion. Regardless, we have recently heard companies saying with gravitas they are testing new products and campaigns quantilatively.

Sneezers
Definition: People who tell their friends, family, colleagues, and any one who'll listen about a new product, service or brand, and whom other people respect enough to listen to and believe.
Example: We don't think this is a brand new term—we're pretty sure it's been out there awhile à la author Seth Godin and his ideavirus concept—but sneezers, the people "who spread the germ," has come up more and more in conversation with ad agencies and clients. It's the latest in targeting buzzwords (i.e., early adopters, influentials) that new product and service marketers in particular are talking about.

For more insightful marketing discoveries, visit http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/discover/index.htm

Have a hot discovery for our next release? Contact us at info@copernicusmarketing.com

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"Deciding to go is the first step on the journey to becoming a Category of One. Unfortunately, it's also the step usually not taken. Most companies never decide to go. They never make the decision to become extraordinary. The decision they make is to talk about becoming extraordinary or to have meetings about becoming extraordinary or to write mission statements about becoming extraordinary. But they never "decide to go," that is, make the commitment that takes hold, becomes real, and creates a new level of success." Joe Calloway, Category of One

This book builds the case for the importance of giving customers a reason to buy your product or service and doing business with your brand and not another—in other words making your brand stand for something meaningful and compelling with a strong positioning. We couldn't agree more with the sentiments or the passion with which Calloway tells companies to embrace and pursue a positioning. The case studies are also excellent and insightful.

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Mark your calendars for what will be one of the most insightful, informative, and important conferences of 2004. On May 10-12, at the Westin River North, Chicago, Illinois, the American Marketing Association will present the Strategic Marketing Conference, featuring a powerful line-up of speakers—most authors of top marketing books—including positioning guru Jack Trout, expert on "Influentials" RoperASW's Ed Keller, customer relationship authority Chris Hart, trend-spotter Sam Hill, and Copernicus' very own Kevin Clancy, talking about cutting-edge concepts including customer equity and marketing ROI measurement.

More details to come. In the meantime, save May 10-12 now!

And in closing, happy holidays to all and best wishes for a prosperous new year!

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