Alex Churchill

Surprising piece in the NY Times today on the results of a study from the Kaiser Family Foundation that indicate that the average young American spends every waking minute outside of school using a smart phone, television, computer or other electronic device. Without examining the veracity of the study, the numbers seem surprising – even more surprising was a point that came up outside the study. Near the end of the piece:
Even during the survey, media use was changing.

“One of the hot topics today is Twitter, but when we first went into the field and began interviewing, Twitter didn’t exist,” Ms. Rideout said.

Clearly, real time research simply isn’t enough anymore. Research has to be “always on”. And conclusions have to be stream of conscience. Of course, for real scientists, this isn’t a method at all. But for marketers, not bound by the strictures of scientific rigor, this represents a great opportunity.

Back at my last job, there was a much ridiculed set of professional “steps” that we practitioners were to follow. The most ridiculed of all was “wiki to learn”. Now, despite not really understanding what that meant, we all got the gist. And I think the point was a good one – or at least contained the kernel of good pointedness – a kernel I would modify to “Wiki as research”. Because the only way to draw a map of the constantly shifting sands of media usage is to have it drawn in the sand itself.

But back to the Kaiser study – how would we get kids to engage? And stay engaged? Would there be any point at all in trying to keep them engaged?

1. A week or so into this, there is talk that Jeff Zucker is threatening to freeze Conan out for years if he doesn’t go along with the plan and meekly sidle into the 12:05 slot after a half hour of Leno.

2. In addition, given Conan’s geek cred, it’s not surprising that there has been some fanitorial generated asking if Conan could succeed in an online only format with the nerds asking if you would watch/pay for the privilege or pay attention to the advertisers.

3. Many are comparing the Conan as a web-only proposition to Stern jumping to Sirius. Only in this case, 1+2+3 does not equal five, or whatever. The blogosphere is correct in thinking there is a precedent for this sort of thing, only it’s not with Stern leaving, it’s with who replaced Stern – the above mentioned Caca – Adam Carolla (Man Show etc…). In 2005, Carolla took over from the satellite-bound Stern (with Stern’s blessing) on selected radio markets in the West. In February 2009, the CBS affiliate in LA that produced the show switched formats leaving Carolla out in the cold. Three days after his final show, Carolla started The Adam Carolla Podcast – downloaded 1.6 million times in the first week and continuing on to the present at or near the top of the iTunes charts. Carolla continued to draw a salary from CBS radio for the duration of his contract – resulting in The Adam Carolla Podcast being sponsor-free for the first six months of existence.This grace period let Carolla fuck around with the format, get a regular roster of guests and build up his bank of ideas and contacts to roll right into what he is now calling The Ace Broadcasting Network – a whole bunch of man-related talk online – and a deal with CBS radio to provide streaming content. In short, Carolla’s venture capital came out of back pay.

Now, assuming Zucker would have to continue paying Conan his $10mm per over the course of three plus years in what would be essentially the largest holding deal in history. Conan would have over three years to find a groove and build on what one would assume would be the largest audience on the web to begin with. All on NBCU’s dime. Carolla estimated in May that bandwidth for his daily, audio-only show was running at roughly 9K a month. Say it cost Conan ten times that. 10% of Conan’s yearly gross is a small price to pay were he to build a whole new model in late-night talk. Again, venture capital coming out of back pay. It’s the power of what happens when slow, expensive and bloated rubs up against fast, cheap and lean – and if Conan’s quick, he can be there to sweep up the gold dust that falls from that friction point.

I’m not at all sure Zucker understands the forces he’s fucking with here. If Conan jumps ship right now, pulls a Carolla to the power of ten over the next three years and keeps building audience right into the widespread adoption of web-enabled TV, he’ll bring about the end of network television as we know it – or maybe that happened the minute Zucker tried to move Leno up an hour. Or maybe it was bound to happen sometime. But just like everything else that was “bound to happen” – the pioneers were the ones who bridged the gap between “bound to” and “happen” – and this time around (sorry Adam) I think it’s Conan.

“With two agencies, and fewer than 10 years under my belt, I’m still a fledgling in this industry.”

- A real LinkedIn profile from a real copywriter
Is it possible to have almost a decade’s experience in something, anything, and still consider yourself a beginner? Under Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule (which I think is preposterous by the way – google 10,000 hours and read some of the critiques, I agree with literally all of them – and would formulate my own, but I’ve only notched up 8500 hours of literary criticism) it would only require a part time job (20 hours a week) for a decade to be achieve greatness. Not competence, not advanced skills, greatness. If you’ve been at something for a decade, and still consider yourself a beginner, then you’re either full of shit (you consider yourself at least an expert and think that feigning modesty is more appropriate) or just shit.

And yet, the above quoted copywriter, a high school classmate and former co-worker of mine two times over (well, one and a half times, but that’s another story) said just that on his LinkedIn profile – “With two agencies, and fewer than 10 years under my belt, I’m still a fledgling in this industry.” And this is in the ad industry. Really? 10 years on and you are a rank beginner? Just getting your legs underneath you? Will you be a “good club player” after a quarter century? This is a good guy. A nice guy. A smart guy. But let’s be honest: advertising ain’t rocket science and once you’ve been at it for almost a decade, if you’re a smart guy, you ain’t no fledgling.

Here’s the problem: The big ad business wants its people to believe they still know nothing after 5 or 10 years in the business. That way, the rather arbitrary constraints they have set up in regards to seniority, compensation and impact don’t seem so bullshit-y. That, and 90% of ad people wouldn’t know a good idea if it walked up and bashed them over the head with a Lion D’Or – all they have to go on when weighting the relative merits of ideas is how long said person has been in the industry or whatever dartboard the hack du jour is using that week to make up their minds. The result is an enforced, extended adolescence that anyone who wants to get into (or stay in) the industry must suffer through in order to make any impact on so much as a single account.
In fact, I think anytime someone has 10 years experience in something and considers himself a fledgling, that’s a systemic problem for whatever that something is. And keep in mind, this is advertising, not quantum physics or movie trailer voice overs. So, what to do about that? Hmmmm, how about instead of giving everyone the obligatory “senior” in front of whatever bullshit title they currently hold, we figure out a way to give them some responsibility and a clearly delineated path towards getting compensated for taking that responsibility and beating some money out of it.

Yes, I know, rewarding people with money rather than gift certificates to the oxygen bar is crass, but money is fantastic. There is a reason smart people changed their post graduation address from Madison Avenue to Wall Street – it starts with a M and ends in a Y, and while the judges would also accept “Muffy” as an answer, what I’m thinking of is money! Yes, that’s right money. It’s amazing how motivated art college grads would become with even a sniff of a little more of it (spot the pun!).

I know, I know the profit motive was long ago discarded in ad firms – right around the same time they started losing business to glorified accountants. But if we brought it back, little by little, in clearly defined ways (and I’ve got some ideas for that), we might even convince someone with 10 years, or 10 months or 10 minutes experience that they’ve earned the right to consider themselves more than a rank amateur. How will they know they’ve arrived at “experience”? The same way everyone else does – by looking at their bank account.