The challenge of engaging with a fragmented audience
Cultural fragmentation and the challenge it poses to marketing.
I had a great conversation with Ryan Alford on his popular podcast The Radcast last week. In this clip I talk about cultural fragmentation and its effects on marketing. I could have said, we just have too much choice now. With everything at our fingertips — for example, almost all the music ever recorded for a small monthly subscription, and countless thousands of out-of-copyright free books — no wonder that as consumers we find our niches and stick to them.
There was a time everybody watched the same TV shows at the same time, and saw the same billboards driving down the street. There were a limited number of channels to deliver a big message to a big audience. Of course, it’s great to have more channels and a choice in when and where we consume content, but there’s now such a multiplicity that, for marketers, capturing an audience is like herding cats — thousands and thousands of them.
Watch the full episode here.
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About the author
Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.