September 29, 2014 · 11:17 am

You Sowed It – Now Reap!

If you’re in the business of marketing, the latest report from the Adobe folks ought to scare the heck out of you.  It their 2014 Adblocking Report and the findings are neither welcome nor unsurprising.  In 17 slides the document raises questions about why any marketer that wants to reach a young, tech-savvy audience would bother to invest in digital ads.  Let me explain.

There are 144 million active ad blockers installed around the world.  That’s a smallish percentage of the total web usage base but among certain segments the number has reached critical mass.  27% of US web users report using ad blocking software and among 18-29 year olds the number rises to 41%.  The software is mostly installed on the Chrome browser as well as other user-installed browsers.  One would think that those who don’t use the pre-installed big 2 – Internet Explorer and Safari – are probably more technically literate and I’m guessing they are a desirable audience.

Why do people install ad blockers?  Nearly half say they just don’t want to see ads but a third of folks are open to seeing ads, just not in the obnoxious and intrusive ways many sites display them.  Another big reason is a concern about privacy. In fact, this sums it up quite nicely:

The majority of adblock users do not object to advertising in principle. They are acting out against a number of ad formats that make it harder for them to access content. Many adblock users also cite practical or privacy reasons for adopting adblock. There is an opportunity to acknowledge all these concerns with advertising that respects the user’s privacy and hard-earned attention.

 

In other words, why is the ad world so dead set against opt-in ads?  We tend to take privacy concerns for granted and now it’s coming back to haunt us.  We believe people so want our content that they’ll sit through a 60 second video to watch a 15 second clip.  We pop things up, under, and over.

We’re reaping what we’ve sown.  As a marketing community we cannot escape the consequences of our actions. Maybe it’s time to have another think about how we monetize content before this sort of software moves to mobile, which is where the audience is heading.  Thoughts?

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September 26, 2014 · 8:30 am

Food For Thought

The folks at Eater provide our food for thought on this Foodie Friday.  They ran an interesting piece on 72 ways food can change the world.  It’s a collection of brief articles from chefs, farmers, scientists, and others.  It’s worth your time.

One piece that got me thinking was an interview with a food scientist from Washington State University.  This quote, in particular about working outside of the mainstream commodity system, resonated:

If you had a big truck with twenty tons of wheat and went to the grain elevator they would look at the stuff we work with and say, “That’s purple, that’s a different shape, and that doesn’t work for the commodity systems,” which are built on the notion of a huge amount of virtually identical, interchangeable product. By focusing on non-commodity varieties, we can pay attention to things like nutritional value and flavor—things that that big commodity farmers and programs tend to not care about. For them all that matters is yield.

There’s a great business point in there for all of us. The farmers with whom the professor works think about the game differently.  Rather than allowing the vagaries of the market to dictate their product they bypass the large, proven markets and focus on aggregating niche markets.  They control their product and find buyers as opposed to bowing down before the commodity system.  This gives them the freedom to improve the product – grain in this case – since they are not growing to product specifications imposed on them.

Over time, one or more of those niche markets may, in fact, become mainstream.  In other markets we might call them “early adopters.”  It’s not hard to remember when a high-definition television, a tablet computer, or a hybrid car were niches.  The “farmers” behind them didn’t try to make a mass-market product out of the gate.  They made something better knowing that if it was good enough the market would come to them.

Food for thought!

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September 25, 2014 · 9:43 am

The New Year And Business

A shofar made from a ram's horn is traditional...

A shofar made from a ram’s horn is traditionally blown in observance of Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish civic year. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Happy New Year!  When I posted this last year for the second time I said I was thinking about making this post an annual thing.  I guess it now officially is.  As Jews around the world celebrate Rosh Hashanah, I thought I’d try to put what the holiday means into a business context.

Last night marked the start of the Jewish New Year.  I didn’t go down to Times Square to see if they were dropping a giant knish at the stroke of sundown – probably not.  L’Shana Tova – a happy and healthy New Year to all of you.

One of the things Jews do over the next 10 days (or at least are supposed to do) is to reflect on the year gone by and think about where it took you on life’s journey.  It’s not really as much about looking back in my mind as it is about looking forward.  Oh sure, one is supposed to think about where one strayed from life’s path in terms of dealing with other humans and human codes of conduct.  We get a day of fasting next week to get that sorted out.  But it’s also a time to think about a fresh start.  Which, of course, promoted a business thought.

When do businesses stop and enter a period of reflection?  It’s obvious when they’re changing – witness Facebook last week – but I, for one, certainly wonder sometimes if those changes happen due to the momentum of previous (maybe not so good) decisions or if they’re the result of a pause, some reflection, and a willful thought by the entire organization as to the direction.  Often, I fear, it’s the former.

Jews are to use the next ten days for reflection and repentance.  I like to think of them as ten days of self-improvement.  I’d also suggest that it would do many businesses a lot of good to build the same sort of period into their corporate calendars.  Some do – they call it the budget process – but I think that’s too selective in terms of participants and goals to do much good.  Some smart CEO needs to declare it New Year’s Day for the company once a year and get everyone to do the same sort of professional reflection that many of us do on the personal side.  Identify your sins (figuratively speaking) and atone.  Faulty customer service, weak brand identity, bad employee relations, products that aren’t optimal, fostering an atmosphere of fear – these are all good places to start.

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