The article about CW’s mobile marketing strategy blew my mind.  Not entirely because I think it’s kind of silly to be sending texts simultaneously as they appear on the screen, but more because it very much seemed to me like these executives had NO idea what they were talking about, what they were actually doing, or why they were doing it.  I will also add that I found the 50+ year old executive saying things like “WTF is jus the way we talk to each other, so let’s talk to the audience like that too” totally creepy.  Making huge decisions about the way your company will advertise its product based on a study in St. Louis where teens texted each other while in the same room?!  That just seems so crazy and not realistic.  I don’t want this post to be a bunch of generic comments with me calling them “crazy” so I will attempt to do some better analysis now…

I think that this article represents this still very young and transitional period that broadcasters and advertisers are in with the coming of digital media.  Much like the still occurring shakiness around Hulu and Hulu-like sites with the best ways to advertise and/or get subscribers, this mobile universe is another way in which media is expanding its reach to an extent that big executives like Mr. Haskins are trying to wrap their heads around.

I suppose that while my gut reaction to this article was to think that their methods are crazy and could not possibly work, my guess would be that they have invested a lot of money in researching and implementing this marketing strategy and the typically large corporations would not do that unless they thought it would work.  I guess time will tell, and we will have to see what fails and what sticks when the dust settles (but how long will that take?).