Mark Ritson on branding: New media are redefining marketing

In recent years, many marketers have spoken of the media mix or media

neutrality, implying that they no longer prioritise any one channel over
the others in their campaigns. Most marketers have added interactive,
too, because that is the modern thing to do. But, generally speaking,
their definition of media fits nicely with the one the dictionaries have
offered us for the past 100 years.

Now go back to the dictionary and look up 'medium'. Again, there will be
several entries, but the one that applies to the world of marketing is
likely to read something like this - medium, n. : An intermediate
agency, instrument, or channel; a means or channel of communication or
expression.

This is a very different definition from that for 'media'. There is no
reassuring emphasis on the 'main' means of communication, and this time
there is no guidance in the form of a list of the 'especially' relevant
channels. The definition of 'medium' is much more open and wild than its
pluralised form. It is a definition that challenges us to think broadly
and idiosyncratically, predicated as it is on a tabula rasa, rather than
the status quo. And it is a definition much better suited to the
challenges of marketing in 2006.

Radical new mediums spring up on an almost daily basis, leaving
marketers struggling to even understand them, let alone plan or measure
them. Fashion brand American Apparel recently opted for an role-playing
game-based medium when it opened its first virtual store in the online
alternative reality playground known as Second Life. Nike has adopted
open video-sharing service YouTube as a medium, recently releasing a
three-minute clip of Brazilian star Ronaldinho trying out his latest
Nike football boots. Meanwhile, 20th Century Fox opted to spend 8% of
its launch budget for X-Men: the Last Stand by creating and promoting a
profile for the movie on networking site MySpace.

There have always been wacky alternative advertising media, be it
dogvertising or forehead sponsorships, usually as the humorous 'and
finally ...' to the evening news. But what makes these latest media so
different and important are the numbers attached to them. Second Life
has about 350,000 regular users and brands such as Coca-Cola are using
it as a marketing medium. Myspace has 75m users and 240,000 new ones
join each day - the X-Men page currently has 3m 'friends'. Meanwhile,
over at YouTube, users will view more than 2.4bn videos this month: that
Nike Ronaldinho clip has been watched more than 6m times in the past
month alone.

Aside from their vast audiences, these three mediums have one other
thing in common: none of them existed three years ago.

Marketers have become lazy in their definition of media. They pay lip
service to the idea of media fragmentation and interactivity, but then
continue to fall back on dilapidated, 20th-century channels such as ITV
and the Daily Mail. They have forgotten that anything can and will be a
medium. The target audiences of 2006 are about to remind them.

30 SECONDS ON ... SECOND LIFE

- Second Life is a 3-D virtual world, owned by San Francisco company
Linden Lab, and opened to the public in 2003. It claims more than
300,000 residents and a 12%-a-month growth rate with no marketing.
Users' average age is 33; half are women.

- Residents can buy land to store virtual creations, run businesses and
host events for $9.95 (£5.35) a month plus a Land Use Fee
proportional to the amount of land owned.

- Groups are also allowed ownership of land and resources, which allows
businesses to present, promote, and sell their content and
applications.

- Commerce is carried out in The Marketplace using the in-world
currency, the Linden dollar, which can be converted to US dollars at
online currency exchanges.

- The BBC has staged a concert on a Second Life Island and more than 50
universities own space to trial virtual teaching tools.