The Great American Monoculture of the mid-20th century also gave birth to another marker of that period: the megabrand.
Only now, the collapse of the former would seem to be a harbinger of the collapse of the latter, leaving us with a collection of niche brands to match our niche “feudal” media.
Allow me to explain.
Why It Matters
The rise of megabrands—think McDonald’s, Nike or Coke—brands that everyone knew and had likely bought at some point, regardless of age, gender, location or socioeconomic status, was made possible by the firm grip the monoculture had on American consumers.
Meaning that advertising from these brands was ubiquitous and unavoidable.
It’s why, for most Americans over the age of 30, TV commercials still serve as a cultural touchpoint, as beloved and well-remembered as any popular sitcom.
With a limited number of media outlets, brands could swamp the airwaves with their messaging, usually highly produced branding messages designed to make the consumer feel good about belonging to the club.
Pepsi’s “The Choice Of A New Generation” is a classic example of this sort of messaging in that it invited everyone in that generation—as well as anyone who wanted to think of themselves as young and hip—to the party.
That made sense at a time when there was, for all intents and purposes, a single youth culture as well as a single national culture.
Pepsi could target their messaging to all young people (or young-thinking people) in one fell swoop, knowing that blanketing prime time TV meant that they would be able to hit almost the entire US population with the exact same message at the exact same time.
The underlying cultural gestalt of midcentury America helped make that possible too.
We were a decidedly middle class country whose beliefs are best summed up by the first stanza of this instantly recognizable Disney song:
When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you
That second line, of course, being the key there.
Fast-forward a half-century or so, and it very much matters who you are.
Or, to be more exact, how much money you have. Where you live. What you drive. What party you vote for. What media you consume.
Brands In The Time Of Feudal Media
As a practical matter, the collapse of the monoculture and the rise of small, often unconnected bubbles of media consumption, spread out across platforms as diverse as YouTube, TikTok, Spotify, Twitch, streaming and traditional TV, e.g., feudal media, makes it difficult for megabrands to get their messaging out to a mass audience.
On a more meta level, it’s difficult too because the common cultural touchpoints that defined the monoculture no longer exist.
Each feudal media bubble has its own lingo, its own celebrities, its own set of touchpoints.
And they decidedly do not want to be part of any sort of mass cultural movement.
At least not yet.
So how then does this play out?
Initially, it means that niche, DTC-style brands will rise in importance. Every bubble will have its own Pepsis and Burger Kings, brands that define who members of that bubble are, brands that they and their celebrities believe in.
This is often not an active decision—few 18-year-olds back in 1970 thought to themselves “I am going to drink this Pepsi because doing so shows that I am young and groovy.” (They used words like that back then.)
They did it without thinking, because everyone they knew was drinking Pepsi, because at some level the ads had penetrated their psyche (as branding ads are wont to do) and they didn’t realize why they were making that decision. (And to be clear, Coke still had a huge fan base in the under-30 market. We’re talking persuasion, not brainwashing.)
Roll-Ups and Breakdowns
There are several ways this all may play out and they are not mutually exclusive.
The most obvious one is that the megabrands will spot this trend in time—have likely already spotted it—and will simply buy up a portfolio of these small niche brands, using the economies of scale their backend operations can offer (e.g. lower shipping costs) to ensure profitability while still allowing the brand to maintain its niche.
The RX bar, a protein bar that was initially developed for the CrossFit community, is an example of how that might play out.
The brand was purchased by Kellogg in 2017, but unless you’re deep into fitness, you’re unlikely to realize it—the marketing and branding hasn’t changed much, if at all. And while it’s available in far more places these days, it’s unclear how much of that is due to Kellogg and how much is due to shifting tastes for protein and protein bars.
The second possibility is that megabrands will try and create niche brands of their own. The notion is that they would spot a nascent trend and jump in with a variation of their own—say Pepsi rolling out something Pepsi-branded that competed with “health sodas” like Olipop.
While that play makes sense on paper, it discounts the authenticity factor—that the early adopter types niche brands rely on are unlikely to jump on board something rolled out by a megabrand and so the barrier to adoption is much higher.
Which is not to say it’s impossible.
Megabrands can also adapt by using their existing flagship names inside specific bubbles where those names still have some rizz. Take Nike’s collaboration with sneakerhead micro-influencers or McDonald’s regional menus.
So it’s possible. It’s just not that easy to pull off.
The third possibility is that the growth of niche brands will erode the strength of megabrands, making them seem less desirable, more like a generic store brand. They will likely have a price advantage but not the “this is the brand everyone in our bubble uses” advantage.
The newly emergent niche brands will then need to plant their flags in as many different bubbles as possible, proving they can be, if not all things to all people, then at least many things to many people.
The goal will be to build scale, which in the coming media environment will require much more skill, strategy, nimbleness and, above all, data, than ever before.
Difficult, but not impossible.
So where do things net out?
My strong suspicion is that the future will see a combination of all three.
Much will depend on the category. Areas like food, clothing and auto, where people view their choices as being very reflective of who they are, will go completely niche and we’re likely to see the first or third options—the first (rollups) will happen in categories where megabrands see megaprofits and the third (niche brands take over) where they don’t think there will be enough juice for the proverbial squeeze.
Categories where purchase is driven more on the basis of price, will see megabrands rolling out their own variants that are customized somewhat to meet the needs of people in a specific bubble.
The key here is that while these predictions will by and large be true, unique market circumstances and unique new products can easily turn them on their head.
Messaging and Measuring
How brands—mega or otherwise—message in this new era will, as always, be largely dependent on what bucket they fall into.
Brands with strong cultural affinity—food, clothing, cars, media—the sorts of things people feel define them—will need to focus on branding and image advertising. Which, in the era of feudal media will involve connecting with each niche community, enlisting its influencers and understanding its culture.
It’s a far more tribal play than many American marketers are familiar with, one that takes cues from luxury brands to create a sense of exclusivity and badging, rather than a broader movement.
For brands where purchase decisions are more price-driven, some form of performance marketing play will likely take precedence, though given the small size of many of these bubbles, branding will also be important, given the need to even make it into the consumer’s consideration set.
As an easy example of how this works, look at how B2B brands are currently using LinkedIn to target very narrow audiences on CTV—say 150 people in total—because they understand the value of having an emotional connection with the buyer can help to seal the deal in what for many is a year-long sales cycle.
Contextual targeting will play a huge role in this new future where advertising is less about reaching a certain demo than about reaching a certain media bubble.
Meaning people’s media habits will be among the key factors they are targeted on. So if Alo knows that they are the go-to brand for certain content communities popular with female Zoomers, they are going to target that content to solidify their status.
Versus targeting women who see themselves as part of those content bubbles wherever they might find them.
One good outcome is that this will greatly reduce marketers’ concern around the inability to measure co-viewing: who is actually watching will matter far less than what they are watching.
Problem solved.
Mass Media Goes Niche
Much like those towns in every dystopian movie ever where some semblance of Life Before The Catastrophe continues, mass media will continue to live on.
It will be limited to tentpole events like the Super Bowl, the Olympics and award shows like the Oscars, but it will not fade away.
These events will be the one place that megabrands and aspiring megabrands can show off, secure in the knowledge that their ads will hit something close to a majority of the population all at the same time.
The messaging will need to be focused on image as it offers brands a chance to tell consumers who they are, to create an emotional bond that cuts across all of the various bubbles and allows these brands to potentially launch forays into new communities.
Prime candidates will be those broad categories where the target is essentially “anyone with a mouth” or “anyone with a car”—brands where mass reach is the goal.
As such, the metric for these tentpoles will just be “how many?”
Meaning how many people did I just reach with my one commercial, since my goal is to reach as many eyeballs as possible.
What You Need To Do About It
If you are in marketing or media you need to brace yourself for this new world.
Because it is here now and we’re not going backwards.
Realize that old rules don’t work in a world where there is no “mass media.” Just thousands of tiny bubbles.
If you are a megabrand, you need to prepare for the world to come. You won’t survive unscathed but you can survive. You just need to be nimble and prepared for constant change, two things that are rarely strengths.
Identify your strengths. Understand what drives people to buy your product. Become a cultural marker for as many niche communities as possible. Befriend influencers. Reevaluate often.
But most of all, remember the power of creating an emotional connection. And why it’s the most important tool in any media era.
Alan Wolk is co-founder and lead analyst at the consulting firm TV[R]EV. He is the author of the best-selling industry primer, Over The Top: How The Internet Is (Slowly But Surely) Changing The Television Industry. Wolk frequently speaks about changes in the television industry, both at conferences and to anyone who’ll listen.
Week in Review is an opinion column. It does not necessarily represent the opinions of StreamTV Insider.