Media mediocrity.

The more I watch television, the more I read the trade journals, the more I believe that media departments exist to procure tickets for Agencies and comment upon the "upfront" and the "changing media landscape." I suppose it's true in most disciplines and media is no exception--most of media is about buying at advantageous rates (based on scale) rather than saying "hey, we should try something different."

I bring this up because in large measure it seems to me that as an industry, we are still being pilloried on the Cross of the 30. That is despite all the death notices of the past few years that claimed the 30 is dead.

Here's the thing. I think 30 seconds is plenty to do a funny little spot for Skittles or Pepsi. Basically those spots don't have much to do other than say "we're here and we're cool." However, I'm not sure the 30, or the 60 for that matter, does all that much for more complex marketing problems. It's hardly enough time to say anything much less differentiate. Yet in a communications world where virtually everything has changed over the last few years, the 30 has remained sacrosanct.

Adam Morgan in his seminal book, "Eating the Big Fish" said that one of the tenets of a challenger brand should be to puncture dominant complacency. TV is a challenger medium today. We should puncture its complacency and do something different.