Bill Gates has predicted that in five years all reading will be online. The scary truth is Bill might just be right. As digital media revenues have increased the biggest loss has come from newspapers and magazines. In 2002, internet accounted for under 2% of media revenue, in 2008 its share is expected to be almost 25% of total revenue. In the same period magazines and newspapers share of the market has dropped from 57% to just over 38%. These days we search the web not the Yellow Pages and we write e-mails, not letters.

We are already seeing the traditional media landscape creak and change, the national broadcasters are increasingly reliant on selling across their portfolio of channels, and desperately trying to formulate media packages across TV, Online and live events. Press is having to give itself away, today the world’s largest men’s glossy is a weekly freebie called Shortlist, less than a year old and given out on the streets and distributed through gyms. When, the British Television Advertising Award for Best Overall ad. went to Cadbury’s Gorilla an ad that was created for a viral digital audience… not TV, you can only question the health of the old order.
Not so long ago mass-media audiences meant television. Today, mass media audiences means Google. By the middle of this year Google’s advertising revenue is expected to overtake ITV1. There’s a new mass media in town, and its digital. Not only is digital becoming more mass market than traditional mass market media, its smarter too. It knows what you’re interested in at that moment and more generally. Not only does it know that but it can act on it and tailor what it talks to you about. Not only that, but you can talk back too.

Its mass market with the measurability of a direct mail campaign, think about it… why would you use traditional broadcast when you can now reach mass audiences who are predisposed to your message, and with a mechanism that enables them to respond directly to you and open up a dialogue? Advertising agencies took a big blow when Direct Marketing offered a measurable alternative. Are we going to see the next killer below with the marriage of DM and digital skills to create a new generation of Direct Response Agencies?

Fifty years ago, when Lester Wunderman set up his agency he was also in the middle technological revolution. Back then, Wunderman pioneered direct mail. Wunderman has continued to challenge traditional thinking and now it is a leading integrated digital and direct mail agency keeping abreast of the times and redefining the sector.

But not only is it agencies that needs to change – brands need to change the way they create manage and use their identities. The need to live now at every touch point. They need to be more than just an identity, they have to be an ambassador for the brand too – they can now tale on the Reithian roles to ‘educate, inform and entertain’ that has driven the BBC since it was formed. Brand identities now have the possibility to be content as well as identifiers… Nickelodeon was one of the first to realise this with its splat of orange, I guess TV channels had a greater licence to do this but who would have thought that this approach would reach the land of professional services?

Well it has, and it’s no surprise that it’s Wunderman that has taken this step first, and it was no pleasing that they turned to us at Lambie-Nairn, with our heritage in TV branding to help them create a brand that lives their philosophy and works as heard on screen as it does on a business card. For a glimpse of the future you would be advised on keeping an eye on Wunderman.