A famous Canadian is full of shit

I was sitting in a marketing class in Texas when a famous Canadian business professor’s name was mentioned with his famous line, “The medium is the message”. 

We are taught to accept absoluteness. We are taught not to think for ourselves. Despite what educational institutions think they promote, they really promote conformity.

The instructor was demonstrating how the medium was the medium and the message was the message. The two should never be used in a way that Marshall McLuhan had used them.

Bravely, I raised my hand and asked if the instructor thought McLuhan was wrong. He responded adamantly with a sonic boom. “I’m saying Marshall McLuhan was full of shit."

It has taken me two years to figure out why the famous line was accurate at the time and why it isn’t anymore. 

Using television as an example, in a time when not every company could afford to pay for television advertising, it displayed strength. The more television advertising it paid for, the stronger a company looked. The medium had a message of strength. So in fact the medium was the message.

As mass media got fragmented, being on TV didn't carry the same weight. With specialty channels, regional broadcasting and niche markets, television advertising has become quite affordable. Strength is no longer an attribute associated to a company advertising on television.

What’s more important, the right message on the wrong medium or the wrong message on the right medium?  

Medium is less important than message. If you have the wrong message on the right medium, you'll talk to your target audience but they won't care. If you have the right message on the wrong medium, someone will not only care. They will remember you.

The right message is what you have to strive for. Always hoping that you hit the golden trifecta by using the right message on the right medium at the right time.

McLuhan was partially right when he came up with his phrase. But it wasn’t a universal truth like Einstein’s theory of relativitiy. With time he has been proven wrong. I have to agree with my Texas teacher. He’s full of shit in 2015.