Heard a familiar parable today and thought it applies nicely to the conundrum of web-video and digital disruption:

Two campers are relaxing around the fire, intoxicated from a long meal and lots of beer. All of a sudden, a young, hungry, bear appears. The two campers look at each other. It’s clear that they’re about to become bear food. The first camper starts to lace up his shoes. The second camper says: “what are you doing? You can’t outrun the bear!” to which the first camper responds: “No. But I can outrun you.”

It’s an old joke that remains relevant to a varied swath of economic principles. Don’t try to beat the market, just beat the guy next to you.

But let’s extend the metaphor and add some color.

We all know the bear is the market: in our case, you can’t outrun the demands of growing population of digitally entitled consumers.

But if the second camper is the music industry (specifically the music labels), destined to be devoured and regurgitated into an unrecognizable representation of its former self, and the first camper is the entertainment industry (specifically the TV and movie studios), fighting a poly-front war against fickle fans, technology disruption, piracy, archaic business models, bloat, Google, advertising ROI ineptitude, retailer pushback and every other conceivable factor that drives this sea-change that we’re witnessing in the way entertainment content is made and viewed, then what are the shoes?

What are the instruments that the big players are using to outlast the bear? Will they ever pull ahead and tame the beast? Do these tools really allow the studios to mitigate the timeline of their own demise or are they  fast enough to provide the studios with enough time to resurrect themselves like phoenixes rising from the ashes of digital dissolution?

It’s not the most satisfying or specific of answers, but the shoes, as such, are listed in the title of this post.