My marathon media diary

I consume a lot of media, fact. And it’s not because I work in media, it’s because my whole day revolves around all-things-media. I’m probably a perfect target for advertisers… very easily influenced, almost a shop-a-holic, Facebook-obsessed etc (minus the masses of disposable income factor), though I notice very little joined-up, targeted advertising. To be honest, I almost feel a little hard done-by, as though somewhere, someone is missing a trick.

To prove my point, I will reveal a TouchPoints-style day in the life of my media diary. BBC Breakfast News wakes me up for all of 20 minutes before I need something a little-less serious to get me ready for work. On goes the radio, which transfers to an app for my walk to the tube. My favourite days are Wednesdays – Stylist day. This week, a brilliant article on how we’re all obsessed with media, mainly of the social-kind, and as such have lost the ability to live in the moment. I go to work (via Piccadilly where Outdoor ads are aplenty) to see a tweet about the article… oh the irony!

I normally manage to check my Facebook, Twitter & email accounts (in that order) en route to work but do it all again as soon as I sit at my desk, as though something catastrophic is going to have happened in that five minute window. Then online… and yes I do tweet for work, but it is also essential that we all know what Stephen Fry had for breakfast!

Normally, I’d do the same journey home – taking in the same campaigns, seeing the brilliant moving ads going down the tube, reading the Evening Standard and so on… but now all that has changed because I’m running the London Marathon (yes me – in 1 month 19 days and 22 hours to be precise). This means running home, which has added a fair amount to my media day.

To focus on anything other than the pain in my legs (and to stop myself from constantly checking my Nike+ GPS app!) I notice things – ads on buses, ads on billboards, ads everywhere. You name it, I see it (you can’t really miss it when you run through Vauxhall… which, by the way, is where I start running – jog through Green Park, run through Vauxhall & leg it through Brixton!).

After getting home and collapsing on the sofa, turning on the TV and pretending to stretch, I am all over Facebook because bragging about my training regime is surely a benefit I am entitled to, isn’t it?!

I watch TV all evening, annoying myself by checking my phone at the same time and nothing… nothing jumps out at me, nothing reminds me of an ad I’ve seen earlier that day or prompts me to buy that product I keep seeing on posters and in magazines everywhere.

Now this may sound like an article more-suited to Stylist, but there is a serious point here – for someone who consumes as much media as I do, and let’s be honest, as someone probably more aware than your average 28-year-old consumer – why isn’t good, creative, joined-up, targeted advertising getting through?

Although obviously I have taken it all in subliminally, which will become all too apparent when I am buying the L’Oreal eraser in Boots this evening…

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