Traditional Media vs. Digital Media in Marketing

Duke and Kyle talk about how the VMA's had 3.9 million viewers this year and how that number of viewers is being aggregated across social media creators every day. 

The difference is that traditional media is driving these viewers all at one time, as we see in sports games like the Super Bowl, and World Cup, but many people are not watching traditional media like they used to thanks to the rise in social. 

Creators have the power to aggregate audiences and we believe over the next few years creators will be able to drive millions of people all at one time to watch their live events.

The creator economy will be the future of everything. 

Duke McKenzie
LinkedIn - Duke McKenzie

Kyle Kaplanis
LinkedIn - Kyle Kaplanis
TikTok - @theweb3guy
IG - @kyle_kaplanis
YT - The Web3 Guy

Transcript

Duke McKenzie: 0:00

All right everybody. Welcome to Tomorrow Today. You got your host, myself, Duke McKenzie, and my co-host,

Kyle Kaplanis: 0:08

Kyle Kaplanis what's going on everyone?

Duke McKenzie: 0:11

How you doing, Kyle?

Kyle Kaplanis: 0:12

Doing well.

Duke McKenzie: 0:13

How you been?

Kyle Kaplanis: 0:14

I'm doing great.

Duke McKenzie: 0:15

It's been busy. It's been busy. You know what's interesting? I like these podcasts that are sparked by conversations that we're having, right. I find them very insightful and they actually turn out to be, I love when we have guests cuz we learn and all that type of stuff. But these podcasts, when we have, when we go back and forth on a couple things we're talking about, whether it's in the office or whatever it is, are really, I think really insight. But we've been getting a lot of really good feedback on that. You and I were having a conversation cuz a couple of our creators were involved about viewership and about the VMAs. What was the insight? What were your thoughts on that? Let's kick that off.

Kyle Kaplanis: 0:49

Yeah, so the VMAs were on August 28th and I always get interested in saying okay, it's a traditional show that's on traditional network tv. And I'm very curious to pull up statistics and saying how many people were actually viewing that on regular TV nowadays. And I looked it up and there was 3.9 million viewers across 14 networks that it's streamed to. And to me that got me interested because how many social media creators out there are getting 3.9 million views per day easily. And so I wanted to talk about that with you and just seeing like, where is traditional media going and is digital media affected are we seeing more reach on that side versus traditional television? Dive in and talk about that.

Duke McKenzie: 1:34

That's interesting. Now here's the thing, right? What television still is able to do. Television is funny. I've been incorrect. I've been predicting the death of television since I got into online, since 1998. When I graduated. I've over exaggerated. it hasn't been the death of television. The importance of television has diminished somewhat, and it has changed, but what's interesting is that even though the importance of television has diminished, there's less people watching and the audiences are smaller, and all of that type of stuff. What is interesting is that it almost makes it more important because television is still one of the few ways where you could aggregate 3.7 million people to watch one thing at one. Right. Like, you know what I mean? Like, like I bet you the ratings for the VMAs were higher in the past.

Kyle Kaplanis: 2:22

Yep.

Duke McKenzie: 2:22

They were higher in the past that we could look up. Right. But. The thing is, even though with a smaller audience as the fragmentation, social media keeps on going as audience's attention is fragmented everywhere. It's getting harder and harder and harder to aggregate large numbers all at one time.

Kyle Kaplanis: 2:38

No, exactly. I looked this up, but the VMAs largest viewer year was in 2011, and they had their max and they still have never come close to this, but it was 12.4 million viewers at one time in 2011. It's interesting to see,

Duke McKenzie: 2:54

Sorry, how many viewers, how many viewers did they have?

Kyle Kaplanis: 2:56

So 12.4 million,

Duke McKenzie: 2:58

12.4. So they peaked about 11 years ago at, 12.4 million. This one was how many?

Kyle Kaplanis: 3:08

This one was 3.9, which is a huge increase because in 2021, which was very interesting, you would think that this would be one of the top ones. Cuz it was during pandemic 2021 and it actually had the lowest rating of all times at only 900,000 viewers. Interesting.

Duke McKenzie: 3:25

That is fascinating. That is fascinating.

Kyle Kaplanis: 3:28

But what I did read, Is that the VMAs had the biggest social media buzz of all time with 38 million interactions beating out the Super Bowl that year, in top interactions.

Duke McKenzie: 3:41

Oh really?

Kyle Kaplanis: 3:42

Yeah. That was very interesting to me is that it had its lower viewers on the traditional side, but on the digital side had the biggest impact of the internet of that year.

Duke McKenzie: 3:52

So you know what's interesting is that like these events, even though the TV viewership is lower, that's what I mean by, I've been wrong with predicting the death of television for a very long time. Even though less people are watching on, like watching it live, which again, TV is still able to aggregate large numbers, even though it's decreased, large numbers of live audiences. The VMAs, the question is when you see that social activity, is it culture? It seems like it's extremely culturally relevant. Right? Like they're able to have cultural relevancy. And this is where I go back and forth cuz we have been talking about, as you know, I am very bullish on digital creators, right?

Kyle Kaplanis: 4:30

Mm-hmm.

Duke McKenzie: 4:30

So are you, right? I believe that digital creators, most entertainment products, all consumer facing products, all of that type of stuff will be influenced by creators as we move and expanded into the world, right? And the interesting thing with that belief is that the only challenge with creators, especially as they're getting new, is they're very relevant to the audience that they reach, but they have a harder time breaking through to be culturally relevant where, yeah, you have things like the VMAs, you have live sports, you have certain live events that are aired on television, that have been able to break through and create cultural relevancy that keep them extremely important.

Kyle Kaplanis: 5:07

No, for sure. It is interesting to see some of these traditional stars as well, because of their history of having these bigger communities that are able to drive traditional television, whereas I believe digital media creators have not, like you mentioned, they're just not there yet. They're going to be though. That's the thing is that we're seeing an uptake every single year and the media, the marketing budgets and in influencer marketing increase every single year. And I think it's because there's a direct correlation here between the viewers of these traditional programs declining and the digital media reach increasing. I think we're still gonna continually see that. I think we're gonna see creators being able to run their own programs soon. Maybe a Creator Award program will be the next thing. Where there's going to be, you know, like Teen Choice Awards does a lot of creator focus stuff.

Duke McKenzie: 5:57

Mm-hmm.. Mm-hmm.

Kyle Kaplanis: 5:58

But I really do believe that there's going to be a whole creator Award program at some point. That's going to only feature digital creators.

Duke McKenzie: 6:05

That's a good point. You bring up a good point there. I was looking up a stat, TV became invented as a crude experiment in the 1920s. So TV is about a hundred years old. Right. And it took off in the fifties and sixties. So you are right that, a lot of these traditional celebrities and the VMAs and all of that type of stuff, they've had decades and decades and decades of time to build their place in the public imagination. They've had time to build up their brands and many of the creators that, that are happening there now. We think that just because we've been in the business for a long time, it's, everyone's still relatively new. Even the biggest stars are still relatively new. You don't see a creator that's been doing it for more than 15 years. If you've been doing creation for more than 15 years, you're a grandpa or grandma. You know what I mean? It doesn't happen. Especially with more swart form creators, like the TikTok and all of those things. You had the invented musically and everything, but the creators that are dominating the platform now have been doing it for less than two and a half years. Two maybe three.

Kyle Kaplanis: 6:59

Exactly. Another issue with it is, yeah, there are some creators have been doing it for a decade, but the people who took it seriously before, it was kind of like a joke. Like they almost looked at these craters as like a joke or whatever. But now people are starting to look at them and being like, Whoa, let's take these people seriously. They're actually aggregating real audiences, real communities that these audiences are taking action. Let's start taking them seriously. What I have seen over the last few years is it's just starting to take this seriously. Let's start moving some of these marketing dollars over here. But it's crazy to think Duke, that even though our life is involved around this whole thing that we're still in the wild West days of social media and you wouldn't think that because it's been around for over a decade.

Duke McKenzie: 7:40

Right. I know. And it's like I keep on having to remind myself when we look at opportunities and we look at development and we look at things about how early social media is, and then addition to that, how early the social media celebrity is, right? That is a relatively new phenomenon. The originator of what a social media celebrity would be. If you look at, who is done it the longest would probably be the Kardashians, like Kim Kardashian and the Kardashian things. Where they explored it on Instagram. And you know, who's done a really great transition from the old world into the new is The Rock. I would argue that the Rock is a digital personality first.

Kyle Kaplanis: 8:17

Totally.

Duke McKenzie: 8:18

That fuels all his other ventures. Yeah. But the Rock has been doing it now for 20 years and the Kardashians been doing it for 20 years. And they started with Old World things, right? The born on Digital Creator is a relatively recent phenomenon. And I keep on having to remind myself how early it is and how early the industry is.

Kyle Kaplanis: 8:35

A hundred percent. I wanted to tie this into it because this happened actually at the VMAs, but we're seeing a shift in digital media as a whole with not only creators, but just how content is done. And now we're gonna start seeing digital assets being involved. We're going through a whole digital era shift right now. It's happening as we speak and regardless of how people feel about it or not, but we're in a new digital shift. Along with that interesting enough is like NFTs /Web3. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is cause

Duke McKenzie: 9:06

you haven't talked about NFTs on the podcast in a long time. I can't believe. Cause like I'm back. I'm sneaking it back in here. Go ahead. I to, I have to bring it to the people. Bring it to the people.

Kyle Kaplanis: 9:16

not only because I'm the web three guy on TikTok, but I have to that this was a really cool moment. So Eminem and Snoop Dog were at the VMAs performing, they did a little talk and they ended. Interesting enough, this was a really cool thing that happened. But, when they were, on the couch and they were talking, they brought up NFTs and the two rappers morphed into board a yacht club, NFT avatars, and then they were transported into the metaverse for psychedelic performance inside the metaverse.

Duke McKenzie: 9:48

That's cool.

Kyle Kaplanis: 9:49

To me that's showing where we're shifting. That's just a sneak peek. This is just the start of, we're gonna start seeing everything within the digital space is going to be increasing over the next decade. That's where I think traditional is just gonna start declining. And digital, it's here and it's gonna boom really fast.

Duke McKenzie: 10:05

And when you say digital, do you mean like digital creators? The web three? Are you using as a catchall phrase? What do you mean when you say digital?

Kyle Kaplanis: 10:13

Yeah, so when I mean digital, I mean anything that you can create yourself on the internet. Meaning less producing studios or cutting out a lot of middle men, where the digital world is going to be that you have control as a person like me, myself, I can create a whole production studio right now without anybody telling me that I can't because I have access to platforms that I can reach millions of people without having to buy or pay into these things or be a famous person that gets found. So I think there's gonna be a lot more people that are going to be seen or found based off of their own methods of creating And we're seeing that with music in general, just like the billboard charts are all wrapped around what's happening in the digital world. Versus before, traditionally it was like what stars are up and coming, or who put in the most money to be recognized, marketing wise. But now the entire billboard charts are run by digital.

Duke McKenzie: 11:06

TikTok creators. It's all TikTok creators. Yeah, yeah, yeah. TikTok creators, have a major influence on music. I believe I read a stat at one point last summer, 70% of the songs in the billboard, top 100 were powered by some type of TikTok trend. You know what's interesting? The one thing, I've been spending a lot of my professional time trying to think about this. It goes back to the conversation that we had, with the opening stat of how there were, 3.7 million people that tuned in live to watch the VMAs. And then at the same time there was a large amount of social media buzz and more, more people doing that. And then you mentioned you do believe that the Teen Choice Awards right now is heavily creator focused, but you believe that there'll be a born on creator type of award show or whatever, but I think that's actually what's missing in the space. Aggregating a large amount of people to view something at one point is a really powerful, powerful thing. If you could create something and the more that that is created, it'll become even more powerful because it's really, really, really hard to do. Getting everybody to watch something at the same time where it used to be relatively easy. Right now, it's really, really hard to do. And whoever is doing that the best. And if you can create products that do that, that's very powerful. An example, the most powerful brand in TV actually is the NFL. 75% of the top viewed programs on television were NFL games. Right, and the reason why that is powerful is not that it's on tv cuz the power of TV is diminishing. It's that each game you're getting millions of people to watch each game live all at the same time where you could get your message out. And for example, Twitch is actually powerful medium because it's predominantly consumed live. But the challenge that they are having is how do they get create a product or how do they get 1 million people to watch something on Twitch all at the same time. Right? Yeah. I was able to do, at one point there were two things that happened on Twitch. One that I was not involved with, one that I was involved with. One was when, I can't remember who Drake jumped in with, but Drake did a live stream, someone was playing a video game, and then Drake and a bunch of rappers and basketball players, remember they jumped into the livestream and that became the one of the most viewed live streams of all time with 500,000 people. And that in my past life when I worked with YouTubers, We organized a live stream between a YouTuber called, Pew Die Pie, who was the largest, YouTuber at the time. And Ninja, who was the largest Twitch stream at the time. Mm-hmm. and that live stream garnered three or 400,000 people at the time as well. But when you compare those numbers of people celebrating a live stream of three or 400,000 people versus TV where they're not celebrating 3 million people they're saying it's bad, but it's still a lot of people watching everything all at one point, one time. Totally.

Kyle Kaplanis: 13:51

Do you think that there's a correlation between viewers not showing up all at one time because of the fact that before traditional media was like a fomo, right? The fear of missing out of that show, of that live entertainment before re streams or anything like that, if you missed it, you missed it kind of thing. Or if somebody recorded it on VHS tape, that was the only way you could replay it. Mm-hmm.. Whereas nowadays I think even with lives are traditionally kept online for people to view later. Do you think that there's a correlation where people are like, Wow, I could just watch it later cause I'm busy.

Duke McKenzie: 14:21

Yeah. Hundred percent. A hundred percent. And that's why the only thing that is protected by that is sports. Not even live music, cuz you could watch live music performance is a maybe. Maybe award shows like the Grammys and the Oscars could make an argument. Mm-hmm. They can make an argument that they have the same thing as sports.

Kyle Kaplanis: 14:41

Yeah.

Duke McKenzie: 14:41

Because sports, there is value in seeing something live. And that's why the best media product, and I don't even sell against it, I'm a big believer of creators. I'm a big believer in social media. That's where I invest all my time is a Super Bowl. Right. The Super Bowl attracts a hundred million people watching it all at one time. We have a couple of creators that are doing some stuff with World Cup. The World Cup I think is actually the most viewed global sporting event, but that's why it's so powerful and so valuable because if you don't see it live

Kyle Kaplanis: 15:08

Yeah.

Duke McKenzie: 15:08

You mess out and that's the only fear missing out where in everything else, who cares? I didn't watch the vma. That story that you told me about, Stoop Dog and Eminem going into that, I'm like, Oh, that's dope. That's cool. I'm gonna go watch it. But I didn't feel like I missed anything cuz I'm gonna go watch it somewhere.

Kyle Kaplanis: 15:25

Exactly. Yeah. You can still watch it today, like you didn't miss anything really.

Duke McKenzie: 15:29

I don't feel like I missed it. I'm like, oh, it's more of as opposed to, Oh, I missed that player, or I missed this thing. it's more of, Oh, that's interesting, Kyle. Let me go check it out and go see what's going on there. You know what I mean? I don't know, Kyle, so after all this, what are your final thoughts and what do you wanna leave the people with here? Yeah,

Kyle Kaplanis: 15:45

I just think that we're gonna see an interesting shift over the next several years. It's happening now, but just people to keep a thought in their mind of how traditional media and how traditional media is decreasing in their own household. People who are listening right now, ask yourself, when's the last time you watched something on tv? Or when's the last time you took action on something that was more traditional based off of like a commercial or a billboard or something? And then ask yourself, have you take an action digitally? And if it's yes on that, like that just clear indication of where we're going. And I think is a good example of what we are gonna see in the future.

Duke McKenzie: 16:19

Kyle, I love the way you close that off. That's the point of the day. That's the point of the day. Listen, everyone, we love doing these episodes. Thank you for listening and subscribing to Tomorrow Today. We are gonna come out with some more interesting things. Please subscribe. Please write a review. Please listen. We appreciate you. I'm Duke McKenzie.

Kyle Kaplanis: 16:39

I'm Kyle Kaplanis.

Duke McKenzie: 16:40

And we will see you next week.