BIG’s Blog: Now here is a doozy of a question!

Joe Marchese asks in a recent blog; “Does advertising, as we know it, have a role in a world where content is on-demand?”

Whoa!

See, here’s the thing . . . people like you and me don’t even think about what advertising is or the role it plays; we know what it is and we know its role. Pretty straightforward, right? And then this 30-something asks the question that only someone from his generation would ask. And POW . . . we’re stumbling, we’re stammering, we’re caught off-guard.

As nonprofit fundraisers, we know that we will be creating much more and varied content in the future . . . videos, blogs, podcasts, and articles and on and on. We get it that we will have to do a much better job at storytelling to be compelling. Although we’ve told stories through our direct mail for years, we realize we are going to have to “up our game” across other media as direct mail declines.

Meanwhile, in our real lives, we are already plugging into and paying for Netflix, Hulu, and cable-pay channels that offer on-demand entertainment content which means we are watching fewer and fewer venues where “advertising” is present. All this means that our tolerance for “advertising” is either going down or . . . going away. That is really the core question that Mr. Marchese is asking, “What is advertising’s role when all the content is ‘on-demand’?”  

So think about it, as fundraisers, will we be advertising or just delivering compelling stories? And if it is the latter, do we have a fundraising business model that can deliver dollars to our charities in the same way that Netflix and Hulu deliver revenue to their companies? You know, a subscription model. Will a subscription-like model work for fundraising?

Our take is . . . absolutely!

And it’s about time.

Join us.

-Mike

Welcome to BIG's Blog!  Please feel free to forward this post to your friends and coworkers...and email me a comment at: mike@big-db.com