Can Media Products Ever Actually Deliver What Consumers Want?
The question may sound excessively controversial, but perhaps less so when worded in another way:
Where should the product development balance be struck between consumer wants and business imperatives?
Throughout the peak years traditional media companies didn’t have to worry too much about product innovation. They focused on their core competencies of developing great content, and then marketing and programming it. In the age of the Media Meltdown though those assets alone just aren’t enough. The fundamentals of many media products need wholesale review (see my previous post for some specific analysis from the music perspective.) But most media companies will find themselves needing to take a much more proactive role in this process.
Historically technology companies have driven the format evolution of media consumption e.g. record player, the Compact Cassette, the CD, VHS, the DVD, High Definition TV etc. Typically the media companies had to play a hasty game of catch up as they worked out what business models they could build around them (and they didn’t always do so willingly cf cassettes, VHS) but the outcome was almost always a new premium media product. Which in turn normally drove unprecedented revenue growth. Now though, a major change has occurred.
Now that all content is (or can be) digitized for, and by, consumers the focus of technology companies is on creating devices that enable convenient consumption and management of that digital content.
The subtle but crucial difference is that this technology is no longer dependent on a centrally controlled, formal source of content supplied by the media companies. A record player and a CD player were both close to useless unless you bought some prerecorded music to play on them. An iPod works just fine as a music player even if you've never spent a penny on music in your life – it's just as great an experience whether you download from UseNet or buy CDs from Amazon. New technology innovation doesn’t any longer create obvious product opportunities for media companies.
To this end Forrester is kicking off a series of Music Product Innovation reports that will put forward some very specific concepts of what future media products should look like. The first one will be published soon and is entitled ‘Music Product Manifesto: The Product Features That Will Save Recorded Music From Its Impending Demise’. (Watch this space for more details).
As we embark on this programme of research we’re engaging with the marketplace and digging deep into our consumer survey data to help us plot out future scenarios. As part of this process we’d love to hear your thoughts. So let us know what you think, whether you’re a media company, a technology vendor, a device manufacturer or you’re simply interested in the topic. Either way we want to hear from you!