From Gutenberg to Google
A passing of the torch and a final wake-up call
Unless you are Mike Lindell peddling My Pillow products to octogenarians or pharmaceutical companies hocking overpriced, Medicare-insured products to the over-medicated baby boomer generation, television marketing is dead. Celestial marketing has given way to the digital, and there is no going back. Yet there are too many business leaders holding on to the notion that the "bring out your dead" cart waddling through town is not for their advertising campaigns.
From the advent of the printing press, leaders of both the political and business varieties have mastered mass media de jour to get their messages in front of the people. Johannas Gutenberg's movable type printing press (1436) is given credit for Martin Luther's inspired reformation of the church expanding beyond the borders of Wittenberg. And that singular event kicked off five hundred years of print media dominating the branding sphere. The golden age of printing occurred just prior to the advent of radio. And as with all golden ages, the power brokers, like William Randolph Hearst, used their control of the medium to make the "news" instead of merely reporting the events of the day.
The same pattern played out with radio, which at its zenith, was on hand to report the crashes of both the '29 stock market as well as the '37 Hindenburg. The public relations and propaganda genius, Edward Bernays, must have realized the power of radio after witnessing how Orson Wells' 1938 radio play, War of the Worlds scared a nation into believing they were truly being invaded by aliens. Radio was the medium Winston Churchill used to reassure Brittan's that he had their back in WWII while at the same time warn Hitler that they would never surrender. FDR followed suit with using radio to describe "The Day That Will Live in Infamy." And, after the United States entered the war, FDR used broadcast Fireside Chats to reassure American citizens that their sons were not dying in vain because the Allies were on the right side of history.
Just as the radio networks were perfecting the broadcasts and distribution of the Benny Goodman Orchestra, Vaudevillian acts such as Jack Benny and The Burns and Allen Show, and Lil Orphan Annie, RCA started selling the first mass-produced televisions. Television became so popular that by 1955, half of all American households owed a TV. The boom of the newest broadcast medium did not go unnoticed by advertisers. The "idiot box" made geniuses out of Madison Avenue agencies selling sponsorships to weekly shows like I Love Lucy and Gunsmoke.
The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson made him a king maker to the stars as those invited to take a seat next to Johnny on his late-night show made or broke their careers. Proving the power television had to capture American's collective attention, the last episode of M*A*S*H nearly broke the sewer systems of NYC as millions "skipped to the loo" after the show ended. As television reached its pinnacle in the 1990's, NBC raked in the ratings and billions of dollars with "Must See TV" on Thursday nights. But as Seinfeld captured our attention with "a show about nothing" and six friends regaled us of their unmarried, latte-soaked lives in Manhattan, another small, wired box invaded our homes.
In the dawn of the 1990's, as we watched the Berlin Wall crumble, the Soviet Union fall and a real live-action prime-time war known as Desert Storm on television, the internet was making its appearance into our lives. Like the inter-regional rivals of the Packers and the Vikings, people in the early years of the internet signed up for email accounts with either AOL or YAHOO. For the "One Ring," forged in darkness in the fires of Menlo Park, CA, was yet to be crafted.
The internet continued to grow throughout the '90s as technology advanced from analogue dial-up to broadband digital service. With increased speed and reliability came a boom in dot.com startup companies. One such start up in the rapidly expanding field was a search engine company called Google. Launched in 1998, Google survived the dot.com crash of '99 and is now listed among the top four most influential tech companies among the likes of Apple, IBM, and Microsoft.
The progression of six hundred years of mass media has culminated into one tiny digital wireless handheld device. Apple's release of the iPhone in 2007 changed advertising once again. Although the iPhone was not the first smart phone (remember Blackberry?) its features and ease of use for social media made it the darling if the digital age. As we approach 20 years of smartphone dominance, under 60-year-old eyeballs are on the phone, not our monster flat screens mounted to the walls in our living rooms.
When we watch the big screen now, the show content is curated from a selection of subscription-based streaming services and are commercial-free. For me, the only time I watch scheduled programming is live sporting events. And there is no shortage of advertising during those contests. But here is why television marketing to anyone under seventy is a waste of money. Even during the live sporting events, when they cut to commercials, we ignore the big screen in favor of the small screen. My guess is, if my followers on Substack are in the sub-baby boomer classes, you are reading (or listening) to this post on your phone. So, for business advertising, if you are not producing digital content for the small screen, you are not getting your customer's attention.
I do not know what the replacement for the little black phone in our hands will be, but it will involve an approach to singularity. It will be a melding of man and machine. I know I have great reservations about this next iteration of media invading my space. Mostly, I am afraid that the futuristic machine feeding information to me will go on the fritz and I will suddenly be struck like a deer in the headlights in front of my audience like Kamala Harris when her teleprompter malfunctions. Mostly I fear singularity because I still have the power to set my phone down and find space in my brain to contemplate individual thoughts. As man and machine merge, the race to dominate that brain space will make the that 20 years of technological advancements look like a walk in the park.
Google's motto, up to 2015 when they restructured under their parent company Alphabet was, "Don't be evil." Since 2015, Google's moniker has been, "Do the right thing." This subtle distinction is worlds apart. "Evil" is a black or white term. There is no gradation of evil. An act is either evil or it is not. On the other hand, doing the "right" thing is entirely subjective. Who is the judge of what is right? Since Google primarily is a search engine for information, who determines what is “information” versus what is “disinformation?” With "Don't be evil" off the table, Google is susceptible to the dark lord's wishes.
In Middle Earth, Saruman attempted to use the Othanc Stone to gain knowledge but was deceived by Sauron. The seven Palentiri stones brought to Middle Earth were held by a select few so invading and poisoning the minds of all the people was not possible. What happens to humanity, as we approach singularity, when billions of people not only have access to the digital Palentiri in their hand, but have it hard-wired into their brain? When "doing the right thing" is susceptible to political winds, what will stop Google from using their power to read the minds through their digital attached Orthanc Stone, to perpetrate evil? I see no evidence throughout all history where access to mass-manipulative power like this was not usurped by evil forces. And the evilest among them all were the individuals that told us they were using this great power “for our own good.”