Niche is the name of the game. Media markets are getting increasingly cluttered by sound bytes and sales pitches. While mass broadcasters have "penetration", the advertiser's concern remains to identify his target audience and capture & retain his interest.

Current technology already permits TV broadcasters to broadcast content selectively. Soon TV Channels will routinely telecast content (including spots) based on regional settings (weather, regional preferences), household profile (digital TV) and personal profile (mobile TV).

Meanwhile, Internet based mass platforms are already being programmed to display relevant ad material based on key words.

All developments point to the same direction - mass customization.

Search Engines
'Smart' search engines like Yahoo! (Overture), Google, FindWhat, Kanoodle, Enhance, LookSmart, Espotting & many more have introduced the concept of 'paid ad words'. A simple but effective concept which allows an advertiser to display a text ad message based on keyword(s) displayed in a Search result !

Email
Google is beta testing their new email service called Gmail. This is an excellent, user-friendly concept for email users which stores all connected emails as "linked lists". This eliminates the need for segregating email into "folders" by maintaining the "connections" to each preceding email.

The revenue model is even more ingenious. In an extension of the "Search Engine Ad Word" concept, Gmail will scan the e-mails a user receives and display relevant ads based on key words it finds.

Both the above are live examples of mass customization using a mass broadcasting platform.

Split that Spot!
Media planners in the U.S. may soon be rejoicing. Now, that television commercials can be scheduled, hold your breath, not only on regional preferences but even changes in the weather & pollen count. That's exactly what the US Weather Channel has been offering to their national advertisers on a trial basis, since April this year.

Look at the possibilities: as the mercury dips to sub-zero on the US west coast this winter, Campbell Soup spots could be automatically, yes automatically switched from vegetable juice to classic Chicken noodle soup.

Simultaneously, the southern states will automatically see Campbell cooking Sauces (where they are popular). While viewers in the North East States will see (again automatically) commercials for Pepperidge Farm cookies.

The US Weather Channel must be betting high on its automatic 'copy-splitting' technology. With its ability to simultaneously schedule different spots for specific regions across a vast, multi-cultural nation, it's bound to give an extra bang for the advertising buck. And a definitive boost to television advertising!

The network which has already signed up 4 national advertisers, has targeted 20 clients who could be telecasting spots on variables like temperature, pollen count, weekend weather conditions and geographic region.

Micro Marketing
The US Weather Channel, Gmail & Search Engine Ad Words are good examples of narrowcasting or 'micro-marketing' - the ability to narrow down the people who would probably be interested in a particular product or service, at the current moment.

Incidentally, this has always been seen as Cable TV's edge over national network broadcasters. In fact customisation of spots for cable has been around for a while, on regional level.

With Nielsen Media Research already announcing audience monitoring of national campaigns by split creatives in 2005, it is clear that mass customisation is upon us.

And why not? After all, isn't it every media planner's goal to minimise wasted exposure by pinpointing the target audience they want to reach ?