Long before computers were personal and the Internet got its name, a relatively unknown Canadian researcher came up with a media perspective that advertisers ignored. Marshall McLuhan, at that time, was not the kind of flamboyant motivational speaker associated with marketing or technology. But some thirty years after his observation that ‘the medium is the message’, every marketer has to revisit that aphorism –if he is considering digital delivery of content.

Despite the attention it gets, the Internet is not the only change agent. Digital formats are being layered on every aspect of life. In August, clothing marketer Levi's (in a joint venture with Philips electronics) announced a line of ‘wearable computers’. In the early manifestation of the medium being the message, clothing would have been regarded a primitive medium because the only content space they allowed for was occupied by a logo. But when pocket flaps, buttons, and the very stitching offer to be channels of content, it won’t be long before advertisers move in. Their next frontier: hardware. Five years ago, when this column predicted that the old channels of Print-TV-Radio would be overshadowed by more efficient ones for distributing content, the hottest thing about hand-held computers was handwriting recognition, not product customization. Ecommerce was not known. Today it’s impossible to think of these communications devices without instant messaging or a Web link. Then supermarkets were sprouting ATM’s. Today these ATM’s are becoming distribution outlets themselves for stamps, lottery and concert tickets. The architecture for the shift towards content, commerce and community is now in place, and advertising agencies –that understandably now call themselves communication companies—are trying to catch up.

But advertising cannot survive by being a reactive discipline, filling the spaces that any innovation brings along. A marketer’s biggest challenge to an ad agency is not so much "how creative can you get?" but "how creatively can you fine tune my reach?" It’s not enough to look to the old media for answers. They are already sliced into enough segments. Newspapers, rather than arriving in one big bundle, come in well-designed sections, not just to be convenient, but to be efficient. There is the TV guide (for couch potatoes), the home and garden pullout (for the housewife), the business section (for the busy executive), the gadget section (for the gizmo freak), the political section (for the people who still care about such things) and, of course the sports section (for those who care less about all of the above. This was the first step that changed the way we accessed content. Was it focused? Of course. Was it efficient? Not in today’s context. From the customer’s perspective, it is content redundancy, at a price. A reader still has to buy the whole edition, when all she is interested in is the cooking section. In this one-way communication channel, customers have no control over the content. But what if the newspaper reader could only open the spigot that delivers the cooking section? What if our hardware could do that? In any digital delivery mechanism, the sender can tweak its code, transferring control to the recipient. If it is subsidized by a marketer –just like old media-- even better.

Take mobile phones. Very soon devices known as WAP phones will enable a user to access content and commerce be it news, weather, sports, recipes, movies, and even special interest areas like photography, cars, and finance. These phones, equipped with micro-browsers, will access specially adapted Web sites set up by advertisers in collaboration with content providers. The Web sites need not even be part of the global Internet, but part of an Extranet that is cheaper, local, and with faster access. This is not to say that advertising will have to shift from mainstream media into special-interest channels. There will always be a reason for ‘blanketing’ the media with certain marketing communication. (The recent recall of over 6 million tires by Firestone in the US, for example). However marketers will have to respond to the demand for ‘media’ that is local, and content that can quickly adapt to the user’s needs. The opportunity, of course, is to micro-target customers based on their demographics, present location or their specific needs.

Let’s say a schoolteacher on a train wants to introduce a new topic in class that day, based on an pain-reliever advertisement he tears off a wall on his way to the station. What if he (while on the train) can call up a database and download a timeline of medical breakthroughs, an audio file of a competitor’s radio commercial, and an article on pain management? When he gets to class, he can print out these stored files, and feed the audio track through the class sound system. It’s not so unthinkable. Ten years ago, a marketing person suggesting to an airline that passengers may want to place calls or send email from their seats, would have looked way out of his league. Today with air-phones, are as common as headphones, it’s reasonable to expect wireless technology in busses and trains.

When –before-- such media become available advertisers will have to participate in content creation/integration and message delivery/reach. This is a shift from the old media model of passive sandwiching of ads with content (or the other way around). The future lies in providing content on demand. The content subsidizer must become the content provider –or at least facilitator – with focused or (in adspeak, ‘targeted’) intent. From a marketer’s perspective, there is no content redundancy. If you’re selling a heart-smart polyunsaturate, no more will it be necessary to buy the entire universe of cake-baking housewives, just to talk to the ones with husbands over 50, looking for a cholesterol-free option. Entertainment venues, cars, even supermarket shopping carts and toys will all have content beamed at them.

Consider entertainment, a highly consumer-driven environment. At a football stadium in California, an interesting experiment is underway. 3Com, the company known for their Palm hand-held computers, is equipping the seats with wireless PDA’s (Personal digital assistants). Seats! Fans will be able to access content related to the game they are watching, in the same way that some fans still come armed with a pocket radio to sweep up more information from the commentators. Advertisers always used sports arenas to target captive audiences, but now they can segment that audience even further. Why should an insurance company sponsor the commentary, when it can micro-target one set of prospects for say Life insurance, another for children’s insurance and another for car insurance?

Or consider gadgets and ‘toys’, with their limitless boundaries in electronics. Just rolled out by a company called Cybiko, is a model of phones for teenagers with the ability for wireless communicate among similar users –a cross between a pager and a mobile phone. Nintendo's latest GameBoy has a large screen and Internet access, while Sony's Playstation will soon be able to access entertainment and interactive content off the Net. If this is the future media of teenagers, it’s time to shape the message to fit these formats. Why waste money trying to reach them through a press ad, when all they read are on screens?

In Japan, where wireless devices are staking big ground, Disney is providing content to subscribers of the so-called iMode phones. A daily screen-saver (now there’s an ad medium in itself when applied to a portable device!), games, songs and streaming video, are just the start to what might be a complete transformation of how people think of phones –and how advertisers adapt to them. Bandwidth no longer limits what content providers can offer. These phones, exploiting a new protocol called W-CDMA, have the capacity to deliver even mini-movies (yes, and even TV commercials). Already, a company called Vast Video, with a library of instructional videos for wireless devices will make them available as wireless downloads on personal digital assistants. Wait till the third generation –also known as 3G -- hand-held devices roll in. Before the end of this decade, marketers will have access to newer channels, in a variety of formats that will make TV look like billboards –the ‘wallpaper’ of our lives.

Already, Ad agencies such as J. Walter Thompson and DDB Worldwide are planning campaigns for a new generation of consumer, using a new generation of media for B2B and B2C communication. To JWT Worldwide, there is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ in brand communication. They seem to echo McLuhan, recognizing that sender and receiver, medium and message are melding into one. The agency has partnered with a ‘smart messenger’ service called Vflash, which can deliver targeted information to loyal customers via the Web, to desktops, PDA’s and phones. The downloadable Vflash icon sits dormant, but begins to blink when the user is messaged. This opens the possibilities for greater one-to-one relationships between an advertiser and the consumer. Say you’re a marketer who wants to roll out a loyalty program to a mobile phone user. A Vflash messenger could be dispatched to (or instructed to blink on) the hand held devices of the top 500 customers, with an offer, a free upgrade on a service they are already using, or a password to a web page where they can print a coupon.

Exploiting the interactive media was not something a lot of agencies founded in the old economy were hardwired for. The Internet was a reality check, "a four-bell alarm", says Bob Schmetterer, chairman of ad agency, Euro RSCG, the merged entity of Young and Rubicam and EuroCom. But it’s easy to mistake the revolution to be all about software or the hardware devices that will make people interact with marketers. The ‘code’ that has to be worked on is the one that resides in the minds of marketers, and in the creative people they deploy. This code –the mental shift—will allow the medium (and the media consumer) to determine the message. For better or for worse, consumers are sidestepping intermediaries such as editors, brokers, and other middleman to quickly become their own gatekeepers, and their own peer-to-peer media outlets. They now have more powerful tools to do it. They own the medium. What makes you think you own the message?