Ad Age ran an interesting article today, Public Might Cut Cord on Landlines, Cable TV. The article posed the hypothetical question, “If you could keep only one thing out of a list that included your phone (home or mobile), your TV, or your computer and Internet connection, what would it be?”
According to the article, the implications of the current economy and subsequent consumer cutbacks is on the minds of marketers, telecoms, ad agencies, and media companies. Verizon is currently seeing a trend of increased mobile phone and broadband penetration with decreases in the fixed line business. A research project conducted by WPP’s Ogilvy Mather and Mindshare profiled high tech females (aka digital divas) and found that most of the respondents would choose their laptop over TV and their mobile phone if given an ultimatum.
The article suggests that most people would choose their computer and Internet as the sole technology they could not live without. It’s not a surprising observation, as one can gather news and entertainment, watch movies as well as TV programs, and communicate by email and/or VoIP services via the Internet.
Premium cable TV packages, Blu-ray DVD players, Slingboxes, and high-end mobile phone packages were listed as services/devices that most individuals could do without if forced to make such a decision. Unfortunately, some individuals have had to go without a particular service or technology as a result of reorganized household budgets or a preemptive decision to control expenses. Even so, I’m optimistic that most people will not be faced with such a drastic decision - to keep only one thing. Not now or the immediate future. The question does make you think. What would you choose? - that is, if you had to.
By the way, Parks Associates has research on “cord cutting” households from our survey, TV 2.0: The Consumer Perspective.
