High Quality
Open the downloaded document, and select print from the file menu (PDF reader required).
What does advertising and marketinglook like in the 21
st
Century?
David Cushman, January 2008.There is a shift in advertising spend away from broadcast and awayfrom interruption.The shift is toward conversation, toward brand advocacy.The yarn of traditional marketing is unraveling as the power of thenetwork emerges.This document takes a quick journey through the problems facingtraditional ad models, considers the new efficiencies made availableby digital targeting and looks toward a future in which even uber-targeted ads are not enough.Finally, it seeks new rules of engagement – a set of guidelines for creating ad models which match the capabilities and efficiencies of the web.
The crisis of interruption
Interruptive advertising – of the any old kind, any old time variety -was always an annoyance. If it got it lucky and found the right personat the right time, job done. More often than not, it didn’t. All the restwas spam.The more broad the cast, the greater mass the media, the lessdesirable the spam.Then came the internet and its ability to serve in-context, related ads.The gap closed. A bit.A specialist niche of the old school, with cutting edge in-context,related advertising tech deployed might, on a good day, hit a 1%click-thru rate.In the global microniches of ugc that the web spawns, the rate might – might – hit as high as 8-10%.And remember… all the rest is spam.So for most of the people, most of the time, on niche sites or evenniche TV shows, the content gaps filled by adverts are nothing morethan spam. Spam, that advertisers are wasting money on. Spam wemore often than not ignore.
The emphasis on ‘reach’ and ‘eyeballs’ was always driven by theindustrial mindset that gave us mass production and mass media. Itreally helped if we all wanted the same thing, too. And so we arrivemass media’s dependency on hit culture.And that simply does not fit with a networked world. The networkedworld is a participatory one.I referred to this in ‘the death of the hit’:http://fasterfuture.blogspot.com/2007/10/long-tail-and-death-of-passively.html
“Some things will always be popular. But the versions they arewitnessed as will be myriad. The aggregation of these versions may approximate a 'hit' in the old broad model. But it won't be the samething. There will be multiple community-niched versions of how wewitness the same single 'hit' event. Advertising should be devised tosuit each of these differently witnessed versions - if it wants toovercome the crisis of interruption…“…I can imagine 'films' created in a far more co-creational/ participatory way. Take a step or two down the road. Wouldn't it bemore fun to step into the film, take part, shape its outcomes with your friends? SecondLifeis but a baby step towards that. Wait till we get jogging along. Then, is it possible you'll still want to sit back and watchsomeone else's centrally contrived movie?”
What in-context related ads can do – and whatthey can’t
.
Let’s assume in-context related ads get a new lease of life fromrecommend-by-a-friend updates, ones which are rather morewelcome than the friend-spam(http://fasterfuture.blogspot.com/2007/11/friendspam-viral-aint-all-good.html) that facebook deployed.Response rates should improve (70% of purchase decisions aremade under the influence of word of mouth).
But there are still issues. Just because I’m consuming content, thatdoesn’t mean I’m planning on buying something. This is even moreso when I’m both consuming and a creating content (as in socialnetworks etc).What to do with the pesky miscreant who won’t sit and passivelyconsume their ads?Ah, this must be the space for some ‘branding’ then – to keep your brand front of my mind when/if my mood/need changes and I do turninto a good old buy-buy-buy (what ever it is you think suits me)consumer.Translation: Here’s a space to con me in.Eg: Perfume advertising. There are those that believe that ads addvalue to products (eg the soft porn of perfume ads which transform a£3 bottle of liquid into a £50 fantasy fulfilled).But in a networked world in which we all join in the conversation, inwhich we can all be involved in co-creation, is anyone going to pay£47 for an image constructed for them and broadcast at them?The networked world will reveal the huckster in this.
The role of social data analytics
Knowing more about me makes you better able to serve me withwhat I want. Social data analytics makes this a real time enterprise.Applying this to social networks (in its widest sense) means your peers can help.Social data analytics – when used with the right touch – can deliver everything that in -context, related ads do, plus recommend-by-a-friend AND the added bonus of recommendations by people who youdidn’t know you needed to know (ie someone you ‘ought to trust’based on profile info, shared tastes etc). A powerful mix.Used judiciously you could end up being served ads just in time,rather than just in case.And that’s just great. For now. And for a good few years to come.While there is still a large chunk of consumption going on (Nokiapredicts 25% of entertainment will be co-created within five years –which leaves a hefty 75% to be consumed in the meantime.)
Add a Comment
The Nature of Marketingleft a comment