Sharing a Weekend Listen podcast suggestion. It’s a TED Talk Daily from Hamish McKenzie, co-founder of Substack. This podcast is on the short side as podcasts go, especially at 1.75x. I think it’s worth a listen from a scenario planning perspective to think about what the future of media could look like and by extension the implications of that future on building brands.

Check it out here: https://lnkd.in/gbWdT7FF

I don’t entirely agree with the premise that the future of media is (or should be) all about subscription. Besides being self-serving, given the Substack model, it also strikes me as narrowly focused on the upper socio-economic end of the population. Scott Galloway has suggested, I think rightly, that “advertising became a tax that only the poor and technologically illiterate had to pay.” In a subscription-only media future, where does that leave the portion of the population that can’t afford endless subscriptions for all their media. It seems like there will still have to be ad-based platforms. Also, what about brands that want to tap into the broader pop-culture zeitgeist and be seen as hip or even just highly visible. A subscription-centric model creates wonderful communities of interest but reduces the potential for a trend or influencer-driven brand to explode. (Would Poppi have become a thing in this world?)

This got me thinking about a highly simplified, and definitely non-statistical model for a media consumption segmentation and how brands might align with those segments. The graphic below lays out my thinking.

While subscription models will probably become more prevalent in the future, I have a hard time seeing them take over the media landscape entirely.

What do you think? What other future media and branding scenarios could you envision?