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Restoring Sanity…Lessons for Media and Marketers

November 1, 2010 | Neal | No comment

I was lucky enough to live close enough to Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity that I was able to attend despite Washington’s Metro system being woefully un/under-prepared for the event.  It was a great event from three standpoints, two fairly obvious and one less so.  The obvious ones were entertainment – where else are you going to see Ozzy, Yusef/Cat Stevens, and the O’Jays on stage within the span of 5 minutes? – and the message that the media, in an effort to create relevance, is making it increasingly difficult to disagree and debate in a civilized way.  I’d be happy to add my two cents to both of those topics but there are people much more qualified than me to do so and I’m sure you can find their writing all over the interwebs this morning.

The point that I took away from the Rally that was crystallized by this article is that Personality is the differentiator in the modern fight for people’s attention.  In the media, that means people like Glen Beck, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert can see tremendous popularity while reporting-focused organizations like CNN or ABC News who try their best to stay out of the opinion game most of the time lag behind.  We find ourselves with news organizations fighting each other for the “scoop” on a fact when the only people who care about who got the scoop are people in other media organizations.  Taking this lesson one step further, marketers now find themselves competing online and in mobile with all other types of content.  As with media properties, companies will find that their digital efforts are most successful when they can identify and project a personality of their own.  This personality doesn’t have to reach millions of people in the same way that mass media outlets do but the lesson is still the same.  People will remember you and your brand if you give them something interesting to grab onto.  The key is making sure that personality comes through as you interact with your customers and prospects via email updates, social media posts, your web site, live events, digital community, newsletters, and however else you engage.  This doesn’t mean that you have to find the ability to be as funny and smart as Jon Stewart overnight but what you DO need to do is to find a personality that works for your organization and your target audience and have the conviction to stick with it.


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