or Scarcity Part two
Hollywood, like many industries (newspapers, radio, video games), has problems. How do you get people to pay for their product? Their product is something that people enjoy, but these days, anything Hollywood makes is available, essentially for free the minute it becomes available anywhere. It’s hard to compete with free. Old media gadfly Chris Anderson wrote a whole book about it (that retails for 29.95).
Most business models are built around the idea of scarcity. That is, people will pay for what is not readily available. This not only explains why Scotty’s North Canadian Shaved Ice Delivery company never took off, but also why the media business is in such an uproar. They used to control scarce resources such as newspaper space, television air time and expensive movie making equipment like film, cameras, and celebrities.
Online ad space is infinite and therefore not scarce. Film-making gear gets cheaper and better every month. And Hollywood has bitten its own tail by elevating the virtually talentless to positions of such high celebrity that they’ve dropped the value of their actual talent.
So the old scarcities of production resources, ad space, screentime et al have bottomed out, and the internet has opened floodgates to new talent and a brand new scarcity. Somewhere in Los Angeles there’s a group of executives wondering why their remake of Robin Hood starring Russell Crowe tanked so hard. Down the hall there’s another group of suits wondering why there weren’t more people clammoring to see Marmaduke on the big screen. Meanwhile, in tiny apartments and dorm rooms, Amir Blumenfeld, Fred Figglehorn and (a personal favorite) Natalie Tran are enjoying a brand new kind of celebrity, and reaping the rewards of the attention of millions of people.
Those millions of people are your new scarcity: the new resource that must be guarded, nurtured and coveted like ear plugs at a World Cup match. The new finite resource is the limited attention of the billion or so people with high speed internet connections around them at all times. This attention can be, to some extent, bought, but for the most part it must be earned.
Sorry…I just got distracted there for a minute while I was writing trying to IMDB Russell Crowe to find out how he got so famous in the first place`. But 45 minutes down the World Wide Rabbit Hole did provide me with some interesting numbers that kind of back up my theory:
The finale for the TV show Lost landed about 13.5 million viewers. 30 seconds of ad time was about 90,000 (u.s. About $102,214 AUS). If you figure 16 minutes of commercials for an hour long show, that puts us at around 2.9 million dollars worth of advertising. Advertisers spent a little more than 2 bucks (U.S.)per viewer to peddle their wares. In web terms that’s a CPM of $2080. Perez Hilton (per a 2008 article) was pulling in about $5 CPM.
And keep in mind, those Perez Hilton readers are an audience that seek him out daily. hey don’t have his site on in the background while they’re making dinner.
So your new scarce resource represents an entirely new gatekeeper. No longer is it journalists, television executives or glossy magazine editors. The new gate keeper is audience. Working with this new gatekeeper is delicate, but somewhat more simple: Make. Good. Stuff. I know, I know…no one ever really sets out to make crap. and it’s not so easy to snap your fingers and create something brilliant. But likability, sharability are essential in a world where David After Dentist competes with Toy Story 3.
That’s why it’s heartening to see Marmaduke crash and burn at the box office: the idea that if you shout loud enough through advertising you can create successful awareness is gone; because nothing shouts louder than something that is awesome.
