For those of a certain age, the experience of mass media appeared monolithic. In the Golden Age of the 1950s through the 1970s a small number of media sources whether print or broadcast drew stupendously large audiences of Other Guys. We knew a time when 50 million people were watching weekly the same episode of I Love Lucy or Gunsmoke or All In The Family or Ed Sullivan. Media stars looked omnipotent.

Today, we can see our illusion. Our destiny was never in those Stars, but in Their technology. If you owned a megaphone – rare, expensive, technical – you made the Stars. Now, with iGizmos and Internet connectivity, anyone can be a Star. See this in only the latest example: Oprah Winfrey.

About 1.1 million people watched Oprah Winfrey’s return to the talk-show format Sunday night, the second largest audience for any show on her year-old cable network OWN. But that audience was a fraction of the 6.5 million viewers Ms. Winfrey averaged in the final season of her daytime show on broadcast television, and it dwarfed most of what has been on OWN so far.

Notice several statistics related to the Reception stage of the Cascade with Winfrey. First, her premiere episode her OWN cable network attracted 1 million viewers. Second, her old show on a broadcast network averaged over 6 million. Third, her famous old show wasn’t close to the big number from the Golden Age. In the Winfrey’s declining audience share of Other Guys you see the fragmenting effects of new technologies. As more people acquire the new megaphone, the audience share declines for any one medium (the tech device), vehicle (type of programming), or show (specific titles). Technology drives the change in communication and persuasion.

This creates wonderful and interesting opportunities for persuasion mavens. To reach an old fashioned mass audience of hundreds of millions of Other Guys, you need to be more creative and thoughtful in your persuasion efforts. No one yet has seemed to master the new mediascape for getting that old school huge audience. Sure, some folks, with Hollywood as the great example, can mount a global push for one new movie for a month, but notice how specific and ephemeral the change here. The kind of imperialism that once seemed both inherent and eternal in American media is reduced to petty fiefs clamoring for attention – primitives playing as sophisticates.

For the next 10 to 20 years, you will live in a fragmented and diverse media message environment. Then, inevitably, you will see the move to concentration in media sources as a few mavens buy, destroy, or swallow other sources to create a few branded and controlled individual networks achieving again a new kind of Golden Media Age like Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s and TV in those beloved 50s to 70s. Mavens abhor competition.

Thus, fragmentation gives and takes away. It is easier to get into the media game, giving anyone and everyone a shot at being a kind of Idol, no matter how briefly. But, your Reception will exceed your Reach and you will not achieve that massive impact we once knew.

You will be an Idol of the village, but not of the Global Village.

Consider this from Totalitarian Art.

. . . it was, rather, a reflection of the general law of development of a totalitarian revolution.  During its first stage particular importance is attached to direct methods of influencing the masses, and, in this respect, painting, drawing and sculpture have a certain advantage over literature.  p. 86,  Igor Golemstock

Internet advertising is in its infancy compared to mass print like newspapers and magazines, radio, and television.  iAds currently fail more often in the Cascade.  Perhaps, iAd Boys and Girls need to revisit the design principles of Totalitarian Art, most notably from Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Communist Russia and China, and obtain the advantage of painting, drawing, and sculpture over literature. Remember with iGizmos we’re WATtapping.

The NBC News!

Certainly she’s got some Falling Apples.  Great education and experience.  Seems socially competent.  Bright enough.

Certainly she’s got some Persuasion, too.  Gee, that dad.  Mom’s not too shabby, either.

Certainly there’s Persuasion and then there’s Smoke and Mirrors.  Getting this shot at that age, experience, and credential; Lara Logan smiles; Diane Sawyer smiles; Katie Couric smiles.

I understand NBC News here.  Fame and fortune, film at 11 should draw the eyes and ears.  And NBC needs anything for a Nielsen boost since it is drawing more like cable than elite media.

But, seriously, folks.  How good can this person be to acquire this opportunity?  Present her as Mrs. Mezvinsky and where’s the beef, to quote Clara Peller.  The hire reeks of persuasion.

But Mr. Capus emphasized that this, and the others, are all serious hires by NBC News. He said Ms. Clinton had “made it very clear that this is not going to be a surface-deep relationship.” He added, “She wants to be in the field for the shoot and in the edit room for the edit.”

She shoots.  She edits.  She scores?

I appreciate the Cue-ball here and given that NBC has hired a George W. Bush and a John McCain daughter they are at least persistent in their persuasion play.  But, perhaps there’s a reason why NBC is getting killed in the ratings.  Consider the wisdom of the persuasion master, Abraham Lincoln:

You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.

P.S. “. . . kicking around what she wanted to do next.” Can you imagine hearing that from or about a job applicant?

Here’s a great WSJ story on how fitness clubs confront the problem of client turnover.  If you take five minutes to scan the piece you see a wide range of persuasion plays, mainly Cues, to maintain commitment to the club.

One strong and repeated play involves Cue based Norms (If everyone is doing it, you should, too).  Norm based plays obviously work off of the natural human need for relationships and contact with other people.  The article suggests, at least anecdotally, that when clients connect with other club members or club staff, they are much more likely to maintain memberships.

Of course, if you’re in the RunOrDie Police, the Central Route Argument is Fit For Life!  All the fru-fru with Cues (like Firefighter Day where everyone dresses up like the Bravest) and Norms (do what they suggest because you like your trainer?!?) are heresy, but hey, at least they’re in church, right?  Once you’ve got their bodies you can work on their souls later.

The story quotes what I think is the key observation behind persuasive fitness.

“Everything you read in the media is incredibly confusing,” she says. “One article says you should eat less fat; another says you should eat less bread, eat less salt or drink less caffeine. I needed someone who could give me things that would work for my body.”

As long as we keep ‘em baffled, we got ‘em right where we want ‘em, right persuasion mavens?

I like this one.

No, this isn’t aerobics.  We’re the winnnndddddd.

All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.

All Persuasion Is Local.

There’s a Difference between Persuasion, and Smoke and Mirrors; With Persuasion the Illusion Lingers.

All People Always Resist Significant Change.

Drive with Science, Putt with Poetry.

One of the most common persuasion strategies for selling anything is to associate that anything with famous people.  You simply Ding-Dong the anything with the fame, let the Comparison Cue do its work, and away you go to your own fame and fortune.  But this simple, traditional persuasion tactic doesn’t always work.  We noted earlier the unfortunate business failure of Maria Pinto, a fashion designer who had the affection of that famous person, Michelle Obama.  Refresh your memory with a picture.

Despite the unsolicited and unpaid participation of Mrs. Obama in Maria Pinto’s work, all that fame and accompanying Exposure and Reception could not save Pinto’s business.  It appears that Pinto got overwhelmed with the attention and simply could not grow and manage her business to handle the fame.  As the Great Gatsby cautioned, be careful to what you aspire.  Obama’s massive fame overmatched Pinto’s business ability.

Now, Mrs. Obama is again providing unsolicited and unpaid participation in a new designer’s work.  Katie Decker makes jewelry and Mrs. Obama wore a fabulous diamond cuff at a recent soiree.  Both Obama and Decker are getting a lot of buzz about the beautiful piece.  (Please don’t tell Melanie about this.  She loves diamonds almost as much as Structural Equation Modeling.)  Take a gander.

Now.  Once again we have a persuasion case of a standard tactic in operation.  Ding-Dong anything with a famous people and away you go.  With Maria Pinto, away she went with her business over the cliff.

Katie Decker?

With a wary glance at F. Scott Fitzgerald, we’ll wait and watch to see how Decker responds to the rewards and punishments of successful persuasion.  You usually fail at your TACT because your persuasion fails.  But realize you can still fail at your TACT because your persuasion succeeds.