Page 68 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

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The (very) long tail
More than 10 years ago, Chris Anderson coined the term “long tail” in an article6 in the monthly magazine Wired. In it, he touted the success of a new economic model for the media and enter- tainment industry situated at the opposite extreme of artificial scarcity; a transition from “few products with a high margin” to “many products with a low margin.” This new model of abundance is driven by the business cultures of players such as Netflix and Amazon. At that time, both companies were already beginning to envision the possibilities of marketing cultural property in digital format with the elimination of the restrictions of physical space. Many of the predictions in that article could not be more accurate today. Indeed, the “long tail” has been another decisive lever of change for screen consumption.
Illustration: Graph of the “long tail.”
Source: David Wilkins https://www. learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/154/e-learnings- long-tail-leaving-walmart-to-buy-from-amazon
The traditional marketing of products in a physi- cal format has been very profitable but “puts dra- matic limitations on entertainment” (Anderson, 2004). In the long run, the problem with creating exclusive and scarce products has been shown to be one of sustainability. It depends on being able to connect with the audience in a very limited space and time. And this increases the financial risk. If success is not achieved in the first stages of marketing, the product’s value chain is weak-
ened and this (negatively) affects its marketing in other stages. This can be better explained with an example: Why are most of the best-selling films on a physical medium the same ones that have had a more successful run in the cinema? Because they are well known to the public
and have therefore drawn interest in the next marketing stage. What happens to those that have had a more modest run at the box office? Their DVDs will have less presence and visibility because the system is designed to reinforce the successes. The well-known products assure a greater profit margin than those that are less known.
This new model of abundance is driven by the business cultures of players such as Netflix and Amazon.
The situation becomes complicated when we add the restrictions of physical space. The shelf space of a shopping center is not infinite, the radio frequency cannot accommodate more than 24 hours of programming a day, and the cinemas cannot show more films than those that fit within one business day. With these precon- ditions, it is not hard to understand why much of the cultural market is dominated by these short-term winning horses, which seek to seduce the largest number of viewers in the shortest possible time. Moreover, this general consump- tion of physical products depends very much on the marketing campaigns funded to create it. For years, they have reduced the space for another type of content that is now very much a trend: the not-so-successful but very long-lived “long tail.” Long tail refers to a secondary alternative market made up of products outside the orbit of conventional commercial operations, presumably because of their lack of profitability. In the an- alog era, this niche cultural framework required an extraordinary effort and active search by the user, who had very little information about more diverse and less available products. Art cinemas or second-hand bookstores, shops for record or B-series DVDs, were seen as elephant graveyards of culture.
THE NETFLIX MODEL’S IMPACT ON CULTURAL CONSUMPTION ON THE SCREEN · ELENA NEIRA
Digital Trends in Culture