Marketers Must Embrace the Transition Into the Post-Television World

Ad agencies, marketers and the media are awash with buzz about the competition between the Digital Content NewFronts and the subsequent broadcast network upfront marketplace.

But all the gossip and prognostication miss an essential fact: Digital video is not television.

The NewFronts is not an assault on this classic medium. Rather, digital video represents a culmination of television and the start of a post-television world. Granted, it’s clear how this misunderstanding came to be.

There’s little precedence for the unfolding of digital video -- a medium that can appear so similar to existing, predominant media yet is such a dramatic evolution from its apparent kin. Already in its young life, digital video can do everything that television can -- it can easily deliver big brand, direct response and local advertising, just like the TV set in your den has done for so many decades.

Its producers and networks can already create entertaining and culturally relevant programming that assembles valuable audiences. Premium video content is truly premium by the highest measure: cultural cachet. In 2013, Netflix proved its chops as an original content producer when it won an Emmy Award for Best Director for House of Cards.