Why tailoring message to medium is more important than ever

‘The medium is the message’ is an old saying now – overused, and therefore much misunderstood.

Marshall McLuhan coined the term back in the 60s. He theorised that social changes occur because of technologies such as the printing press or the television (mediums), rather than the ideas that they disseminate (messages).

For example, whereas television – by its very nature – induces a state of receptive passivity, the internet encourages people to form connections with strangers, then reinforce mutual beliefs. The shift from TV to the internet as the dominant form of media consumption is therefore fundamentally changing society. 

What does this mean for content creators? That material transferred from one channel to another is not going to be effective. Instead, a marketer – or any other communicator – should look at what each medium’s social effects are, and tailor content to take advantage.

Shareability is now key

When our ape ancestors left the jungle to live on the African plain, they kept their opposable thumbs – which are useful in both situations – but lost their spinal configuration, because it is easier to run across the open ground when upright on two legs than knuckling along on four.

Your media should undergo the same kind of evolutionary process – it needs to be adaptable to multiple environments, or altered to fit each new environment.

Take video content, for example, which is an increasing part of CPL’s business. Surely a video is a video, wherever you put it?

Actually, no. Consider that many people on social media will only view your video without sound. On TV, or on YouTube, you can do whatever you like in terms of sound – however, if the video is then posted on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram but isn’t delivering a powerful message through visuals, a large proportion of your audience won’t get the message. 

Even more crucially, the video needs to be shareable. A TV ad or magazine piece merely has to be convincing to the person consuming it, whereas a video appearing on social media should encourage people to share it with others who have similar views.

This is where reinforcement of mutual beliefs comes in. If people can reinforce their group identity through the use of your content, they will pass it around – and it might even go viral. Big companies now understand this, which is why there is a trend towards ‘ethical’ advertising campaigns – these firms have seen that people with an ethical self-image will share the messages with others on social media, as a way of virtue signalling.

If you can do something similar by fitting your content to the medium, your message too will reach more people – and will do more to convince them.