Lets QUALIFY quality media! This is def worth a read. An excellent and timely piece by Omar Oakes Editor in Chief of The Media Leader UK. Omar references Cal Newport's ‘quality pyramid’ in which minimally processed media — which he terms as “linguistic media” (books) — as placed at the bottom, TV and other mass/broadcast media are in the middle, and social media (the most ‘processed’ of all media types) is at the top to signify lowest quality. He uses two main criteria for what is ‘high quality’ versus ‘low quality’: >> The curation of media: How much skill and craft has been deployed to create content? >> The delivery of media: How much work a human has to do to consume media versus how much work is done for them by a machine to serve it to them? #BrandsDeserveBetterMedia #MediaForGrowth https://lnkd.in/g6WMYufW
Reuben Halper
4mo
The other point to make is that when we ask users why they watch what they watch...production quality is not a top driver. It tends to be whether the content is relevant to them or aligns with their interests. Not saying production quality doesn't matter, but we shouldn't mistake 'skill and craft' for production quality as skill and craft can be something that shows up in the content itself in terms of the analysis, storytelling, creativity, etc. Not sure if that makes sense...perhaps the analogy is a high budget CGI-laden film vs scrappy low-budget art-house film. Just because the CGI film looks great doesn't mean it's good, it comes down to the story, actors, script, etc.
Reuben Halper
4mo
Not sure sin of omission or commission but Faris Yakob wrote about this many moons ago https://faris.medium.com/you-are-what-you-eat-7881b962ed3b
RAUS Global
4mo
Good article to read!
Omar Oakes
4mo
Thanks, Tom!
Marketing Director - Direct To Consumer (International) at Zoetis 🐕🐈
4moThanks for the share Tom, interesting piece and metaphor. If the main criteria for high versus low quality is based on skill/craft and how much work a human has to do to consume it, then I'm not sure bucketing whole media channels into one part of the 'pyramid' makes sense though. That's way too simplistic. Within each media type there would be a huge spectrum right? Like the difference between a 5000 word Economist article and a piece of clickbait on the Daily Mail, or like a 90 minute high quality podcast/movie on YouTube versus a 6 second reel of a meme. Also to call Mr Beast 'ultra processed' and therefore 'low quality' is a bit arbitrary. I'd argue some of his content is far higher 'quality' than a lot of what passes for daytime TV! There's a LOT of 'low quality' content crafted with little skill served by a machine in traditional/mass/broadcast media too. So basically - a useful metaphor but it strikes me that the Media Leader seems to want to communicate a message on behalf of its own advertisers/stakeholders - traditional broadcasters and publishers.