This week’s reading ‘A world of Differences’ by Chris Lederer and Megan Brownlow shares the view that there is an opportunity for electronic and media industry to grow and discusses its shifts that are occurring in five dimensions: demography, competition, consumption, geography, and business models.

The reading highlights the fact that E&M spending is growing more than GDP growth and that companies should be focusing on certain factors like studying patterns of youth as they consume more information than adults and they also adapt to changes easily. Which means that if more youth adapts to changes, there will be more digital spending and companies should have knowledge as to when the trends of youth will shift from one thing to another. Content is still strong but it has been redefined by forces of globalization and localization simultaneously. Much of the E&M industry is growing more global, but cultures and tastes in content remain steadfast local, for example, there are at least 100 international variations of the British- created quiz show ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ and they succeeded in domestic markets heavily due to their local flavour.

One other thing to notice the other factor which cause local content to be more popular due government regulations like blocking entry of international companies, requiring a certain percentage of airtime to be dedicated to local market content, mandating government review and approval of content before content can be aired, and imposing different tax structures for local and international companies. Take China for example, it has blocked websites of U.S companies and limited amount of foreign films are released and yet their E&M market is robust. To tackle these sorts of issues, companies should try into getting partnerships with local ventures and then localizing content and comply with local regulations as well suit the local tastes.

I believe that world is definitely shifting to a quicker change and companies must be updated of the new challenges that they will face or else they’ll be left behind. This reminds of the exit of Nokia in 2014 in handset industry after being crushed by Samsung and Apple. This was due to the fact that they didn’t comply to the changes in market and consumer behaviour. So the message is simple for the E&M companies out there “If you don’t change, you shall be removed from the competition”.