Attempting to Harness the Power of the ‘Fragmented Female’
Lifetime television is making friends with Hearst, Glam, and About.com.
The timing was perfect. Good old Rupert just declared that profits from television advertising are going to suffer from general declining interest from audiences (and therefore advertisers). He stated that "free-to-air television faces a lot of challenges, just from the sheer fragmentation of the audience" and that it is a "highly challenged industry." Heavens to Betsy!
[[TV is, in fact, going down. Has everybody seen the news about yet another Web alternative?]]
So, LifetimeTV has rebranded itself as myLifetime.com – a nice clear example of the transition that television channels are going to have to undergo if they want to stay on top of the trend towards the Web. In this case, they’re realizing that one way to get the eyeballs they want is to target their ‘fragmented female’ through web properties.
"The real challenge is how to talk to women online in a way that’s
unique and genuine," says Elizabeth Ross, President Tribal DDB West. "And some of these niche sites have
found a way to do it authentically so that moms think about them first
before they think about TV network properties."
We’re talking about Martha’s Circle, an online ad network which represents other websites. We’re talking about iVillage’s deal with Sugar Publishing. These are real, valuable partnerships, and Lifetime wants in. Warner Bros. Group is already up on in it, with their launch of MomLogic.com, the site for "thinking moms who don’t have time to think." 
What do you think?
I love you dense this post is. I hadn’t heard of Miro nor most of the “fragmented female” verticals you referenced. I’ll have to check them out. Do you think third-party verticals have a better chance of succeeded than communities created around a single consumer brand, e.g. Clorox, Fiskars etc? Liz Ross, for example, created the mealstogether.com site for Clorox’s food brands.
November 28th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Good question – I wonder how much it matters if a site is obviously branded. I remember at the last ad:tech SF there was a panel on brand advocates and how they just dug the forums and communities that their favorite brands set up. Meeting others with common interests, that kind of thing.
But I think there is a line, even for the most gung-ho Clorox fan, for example, that they have to be careful to not cross. And it’s the collection of personal information, making people sign in to an “account” and feeling safe, then serving them ads they don’t need more of – preaching to the choir, really. Overkill can kill even the most avid fan.
November 29th, 2007 at 8:38 pm