Are you ready?

Fifteen years ago I spoke at a conference about how the fragmentation of media would affect the conversations between brands and consumers while changing the economics of the advertising and entertainment industries.

Now to be honest, calling that one was like predicting that the sun will set in the West this evening. But it appears the message has finally taken hold with the behemoths of packaged goods marketing.

According to Ad Age, Unilever, P&G and others are using new media as leverage this year against the networks to lower costs, expand their reach and interact more with potential customers.

By expanding beyond traditional media to online video, social networks and mobile marketing, however, the marketer needs to create a relevant message for each contact point, or else what's the point?

So now instead of producing one 30-second commercial and running it thousands of times, P&G and the others need to create thousands of messages that may just run a few times. This completely changes the economics of production because you can't justify spending half a million dollars on a spot meant for a very specific and potentially narrow target.

It also changes the conversation. Messaging is now context dependent. Your viewer is no longer sitting on the couch waiting for your message to waft over him. You have to actively engage people or click, they're gone. TIVO, interactive cable, web-based viewing, mobile video don't just change where and when we see the message, they change how we see it and what we can do with it.

This change has been happening slowly over the past 15 years, but I expect it to accelerate rapidly now that the big boys are on board. And the old models for advertising and entertainment will look like relics in the very near future.