Last night -- another perfect example of today's fragmented audience

All day yesterday I kept hearing people talk about the "big game."

I assumed they meant my under-10 girls soccer team match against our division rivals for first place in the winter indoor season.

Instead, they were talking about the Rose Bowl. How was I to know?

After our game (we lost ... just like USC), we went out to eat at a favorite neighborhood spot and it was packed, filled with people oblivious to the overhyped college football game.

A few miles away, at Reliant Stadium, 25,000 fans were watching football of a different kind -- the InterLiga soccer series featuring some of Mexico's finest teams.

And while this year's Rose Bowl scored good ratings, ABC's overall audience share for the night was still only 31 percent.

In other words, there were an awful lot of people NOT watching the game.

It's difficult in today's age to generate a mass audience for anything. Per Wednesday's USA Today:

" ... the blockbuster is dead. Mass-market, event-size movies, CDs, TV shows and books are all getting exterminated, displaced by hundreds or thousands of titles that appeal to ever more narrow audiences."

What does that mean? It means that we as marketers need to quit worrying about the size of the audience, and start worrying about the interests of the market.

Better to reach 1 person who truly cares than 1 million who can't tell a bowl championship from a girls soccer game.

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