Tag Archives: advertising

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?

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, digital media, Reality checks

Tagged as , , , , ,

September 16, 2014 · 10:54 am

Can You Trust Your Customers?

It’s not news to any of you who are paying attention to media but we’re at a tipping point.

1898 advertising poster

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The cracks in the traditional patterns of media consumption have widened to a point where the foundations of those patterns are falling down. Need proof? How about this morning’s piece is the Wall Street Journal:

Hopes that TV advertising will rebound this fall are beginning to dim. TV networks have been banking on a surge in ad spending in coming weeks, ever since an anemic second quarter reported by media companies and a weaker-than-expected “upfront” advance ad-sales market for the new season. The new season doesn’t kick off until next week but already sentiment is starting to change. On Monday, Jeffries analyst John Janedis lowered his estimates for advertising revenue growth in the second half of the year for most of the biggest media companies

Or this from Kantar Media:

“Four of the nation’s five biggest advertisers,” including Procter & Gamble and AT&T, “cut ad spending on traditional media and online display in the first half of the year.”

So now what?

Millennials spend 30 percent of their time with content created by their peers. This means they’re spending more time with peer-created content than traditional media combined (print, TV, and radio).  Nielsen’s most recent study indicates that Americans aged 18-24 watched a weekly average of 19 hours of traditional TV during Q2 2014. That was a substantial 2-and-a-half-hour drop-off from Q2 2013, which in turn had been down by an hour from the year before.  Spending more heavily in those channels isn’t going to happen.  The impact of most digital display is negligible.  Where is the light at the end of the tunnel?

The answer might just be in the audience itself.  Putting consumers and their messages about the brand front and center – probably through social channels – might just be the way forward.  That’s where is the audience is spending time and the messages are from trusted sources.  As Nielsen found:

Word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family, often referred to as earned advertising, are still the most influential, as 84 percent of global respondents across 58 countries to the Nielsen online survey said this source was the most trustworthy

The real question is do you trust your consumers enough to hand over your brand?  Can you get on board with them creating content that you’ll push for them?  Are you willing to provide tools – images, logos, whatever – or to promote the products that consumers choose, not those slated for promotion in the marketing plan?

Interesting times.  What’s your take?

Leave a comment

Filed under Consulting, digital media, Reality checks

Tagged as , , , , , ,

August 20, 2014 · 11:14 am

Tracking The Trackers

Footprints in sand. Marinha Grande, Portugal.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Another day, another web site (well, portal in this case) comes out in favor of ignoring the express wishes of its user base.

AOL‘s new privacy policy states that it will not honor the do-not-track requests that users send through their browsers. I’ve written about this before and as someone who is very customer-focused, I can’t understand this decision.

Here is how one of the companies (the Network Advertising Initiative) administering a Do Not Track program explains it:

NAI members are committed to transparency and choice. The NAI opt-out tool was developed in conjunction with our members for the express purpose of allowing consumers to “opt out” of the Interest-Based Advertising delivered by our members…Following an opt out, (members)… cease collecting and using data from across web domains owned or operated by different entities for the purpose of delivering advertising based on preferences or interests known or inferred from the data collected (Interest Based Advertising or IBA).

Pretty clear.  The  browser you’re using right now probably offers do-not-track headers, which tell publishers and ad networks that you don’t want to be tracked. But the header doesn’t actually prevent tracking. Instead, ad networks and publishers are free to ignore the signals. Of course, when you combine users opting in to the do not track program with them setting their browser to tell sites that they do not wished to be tracked, you’d have to be pretty dumb not to get the message.  Yet of all the hundreds of sites out there, only 21 have committed to implement this program and only 2 (Twitter and Pinterest) are what I would consider major sites.

In AOL’s case, as is the case with Yahoo and damn near every other publisher, they get the message.  They’re just ignoring it.  They use excuses like “no one else is honoring them” or “the standards aren’t set yet for what can and can’t be tracked.” I read that as “our business interests supersede your desire not to receive targeted ads.”  This is short-sighted and will, I believe, result in more users doing as I do:  blocking analytics, ads, and everything else publishers use to make the content they offer better for the user.

As someone who works with clients to make money off of their digital efforts I know how vital data is.  I grew up in the ad business so I support free content paid for by your attention to ads.  But the value exchange needs to be transparent.  I think there is a huge potential for backlash as what and how users are being tracked, as well as what’s done with their data, reaches the mainstream.  What do you think?

Leave a comment

Filed under digital media, Huh?

Tagged as , , , , , ,