Steven Finkler + Vice President + AT&T on Marketing Strategies

In June, AT&T acquired Time Warner one of the big six and became a much larger and more powerful company than before. With so much resistance to this deal, the justice department is still working to reverse it. There are no doubts that the potential effects of a merger this large could create drastic changes to the marketing and advertising industries. But what are those drastic changes everyone keeps talking about?

More Media Convergence
One of the largest ways it will affect marketing is through convergence. This allows marketers to target exactly who they want and get any message to just about anyone. Whether it is on television or through your phone service, converging media companies from different industries, time warner being movies and television and at&t being telecommunications, you have a better chance of getting information across all platforms, especially if you control two of the largest ones.

Subscription Models Reign

There is no question that Time Warner has a huge library of content, and now AT&T has access to it also. Pushing their content to the new merged network will be first on their list of things to achieve, and will be their advertising focus. As AT&T users start to use their phone more for watching content, expect some changes in the subscription model that will focus more on mobile content. This can come in the form of lower prices for those already on AT&T and higher subscriptions for those just wanting to watch a Time Warner Movie without having the phone service. This will be the bread and butter of their merge, and is essentially the reason it happened in the first place.

Distribution Competition Increases
In order for content creators like time warner to survive they must also invest in distribution. AT&T will have an uphill battle as the competition increases for distribution. Other large companies like Netflix and Amazon are in both, and now that AT&T and Time Warner are one entity that have also thrown themselves to the wolves of content distribution. It will be exciting to watch how this merge effects other distribution companies and their tactics. Lone wolfs will have to learn to stand alone in the distribution business and hope that they don’t get swallowed up by the big named companies that are both now creating and distributing to the same audiences.

Time Warner and AT&T consolidating is not the first of its kind, but the massiveness of both companies is sure to make things much more difficult for others, and even for themselves. They must learn to navigate in the scope of both digital and analog. The journey will have ups and downs, in all aspects and will be groundbreaking for the mergers that will happen after.

About the Author

Steven Finkler is an AT&T Vice President and specializes in business and marketing. Steven Finkler takes pride in sharing his professional opinion and giving people an insight to the world of telecommunication.