The belief that the fundamentals of publishing will be reasserted, is interesting. Great content attracts a great audience, which attracts great advertisers. But while Wolff asserts this on the one hand, he also acknowledges a parallel phenomenon that the pool of advertisers having access to the channel is larger, thanks in large part to Google. Local pizzerias are therefore bidding for the same eyeballs as marquee brands. To believe that only marquee brands can elevate the quality of advertising is an interesting position, but one that detracts from the main argument that advertising is about effectiveness – and it’s failing.
Wolff’s discussion of click rates is actually more telling than he realizes. We’ve been stupefied over the past decade into assuming a click was anything other than technology’s answer to proving interest or intent. True practitioners moved past that hurdle a long time ago, but the topic is by no means dead and buried, judging by the amount of discussion it still receives. What Wolff identifies is the symptom to the underlying problem – a problem that will continue for Mr Jobs, or whichever new media baron rises. Advertising will never work the way it’s currently being measured – whether it’s in web 2.0 or Internet 1.0, in HTTP or DOM.
That’s because we’re still trying to use the same tools and methods that we used when the space was new. It’s an indictment of all the investment of time we’ve spent trying to support untenable measurement standards. It’s pathetic that the last true work on measurement accuracy was the 302 redirect. It’s not an accident that advertisers haven’t migrated $$ into a channel that can’t demonstrate an effective and predictable return – whether they’re a Fortune 500 company, or one that includes fortune cookies with your order.
Until now. Only when you stand back and look at all the facets of how advertising works can you really design how it should work. This has been TruEffect’s mission for the last 5 years. Wolff is right about a lot, but he may not be correct about how it all plays out. What we’ve seen in countless online display campaigns is a staggering change in measurement accuracy, a lack of clear understanding of how to make media efficient, and the importance of accountability in terms of response and managing ROI. To say it’s broken implied that it ever worked in the first place.
The answer lies in a number of the areas illuminated by Wolff. First, the bond between content and audience has been frayed. Intermediaries have attempted to build networks before they have assembled quality programming. Secondly, technologists believe their census based measurement is robust and empirically sound – but it isn’t! Finally, we’ve been seduced into thinking we can finesse responses by identifying user attributes – and that this will overcome lack of context.
But most importantly, we need to discard what's never worked, and stop measuring performance with tools that aren’t up to the task. Stop trying to target with indiscriminate volumes of irrelevant data based upon a transit mechanism (third party ad serving) that’s poorly designed and wholly inadequate for today’s needs.
The answer lies in the relationship between the advertiser and the consumer, enabled by the publisher. Advertisers and consumers have relationships, intermediate service providers do not. Advertisers and their customers enjoy a dialogue (most of the time) about the value and meaning of their products and services. Intermediate service providers seek to ambush consumers on behalf of whichever advertiser is willing to pay the most! Advertisers and publishers nurture relationships through content and discussion. They produce things –you get the idea. But to do this requires a different type of technology which removes the intermediary from the dialogue between consumer and advertiser, and provides accurate measurement for effective analysis. This is what TruEffect does.
The hope here is that Steve Jobs will do for Internet advertising what he’s done for retail, and the micro-payments market with iTunes – make it relevant and resonant for the consumer. And shape it in a way they like to buy. To do this, however, requires reshaping the online advertising model to measure and engage properly. As the Lowe group used to say “Good advertising and bad advertising cost the same – the difference is priceless”.
– Martin Smith
And shape it in a way they like to buy. To do this, however, requires reshaping the online advertising model to measure and engage properly.
Posted by: beco gemini | September 30, 2010 at 12:12 PM