“The TV Industrial Complex” is a term coined by marketing genius Seth Godin. The term describes the global economy being driven by industry leveraging sales, marketing, production and almost everything around using the TV to mass promote to consumers. TV through advertising essentially drove demand for their products and services with manufacturing and distribution used to fulfill orders on the backend. Thus the TV Industrial Complex was an economy largely based on demand creation through TV with order fulfilment based on manufacturing. This model became adopted in the early 1950’s and reigned supreme until just recently and is in fact still an important aspect of many businesses. However, the adoption of the internet as the preferred social media of choice has moved the TV Industrial Complex from the mature portion of the economic life cycle to a model in decline.

.

With the “TV Industrial Complex” in decline the economy had begun to shift to slowly to the “Knowledge Based Society”. The transition from “Complex” to “Knowledge” is one that began in the mid 1990’s as the Internet became more readily available and accessible to the early adopters and toward the turn of the century to the early majority. The initial uptake was largely geek based (as expected) and did not pose a significant threat to the existing “TV Industrial Complex”. However after the turn of the millennium the adoption rate of the Internet as the social media of choice exploded until we reach today, where I expect more of the economic stimulus is related to Internet driven sales than the “TV Industrial Complex”. Today the Internet is pervasive with almost everyone in the industrialized world having easy access.

.

I do not claim to be a social media expert; however, my observations are that the Internet has evolved from a conveyor of information to a purveyor of knowledge. The bland one dimension websites are being replaced with rich user centric experiences. Web sites no longer convey information they help users absorb knowledge. The next phase of Internet evolution is one where the ability to store, convey and present knowledge will be the most valuable asset. The way companies connect with consumers and businesses has significantly changed. The TV Industrial Complex used a shot gun like blast to bombard consumers with their message. The Knowledge based society uses surgeon like precision to highly target potential customers.

.

The transition in economic life cycle from “TV Industrial Complex” to “Knowledge based Society” is one of the most, if not the most significant, forces of change affecting the world’s economy today.

Ian Graham

Filed under: Commercialization, Innovation by Ian
No Comments »