Information Rush Has Made Marketing More Difficult: The Quick Fix for Getting Through to Your Best Prospects Even Though "We're All Going Crazy" - Bill Harvey - MediaBizBlogger

About 30 years ago I published a book in which I hypothesized that the apparent breakdown of institutions and general profusion of bad judgments are the result of a single cause Of course it has gotten worse since thenThe single cause is information overload I presented results of a model I had created indicating that the number of questionproducing stimuli that would create a P300 wave in the human brain presented to the average human being per day had increased 50X over the prior 600 years The introduction of the printing press was the initial trigger followed by electronic media When I wrote this I was among the amplt1 of the population using online services IMS and Telmar at the time but in that book I made no prophecies about what the Internet would do amp8211 I kept that stuff for my newsletterIn the last 30 years the increase has been palpable above the alreadyburdensome level of the mid70s Between the Internet and mobile devices many of us have gotten so sucked into tripletasking that it is almost as if the devices are aliens come here to take over our mindsI submit that this mass level of distraction underlies our most visible failures as a group and as individuals In effect we39re all going crazy a little bit It39s like when you stress your computer with too many open applications and things start to break down Which brings us to marketingWe in the industry have the word quotclutterquot which we use to describe the noise that makes it harder for our own messages to get through Clutter refers to too many commercials in a pod too many commercials per hour too many ads on a page etc That39s the way we use the word We don39t usually think about all the other clutter against which our messages compete amp8211 the constant stream of thoughts and feelings going through consumers the multitasking they are doing etcThe new ARF 360 Model is actually addressing thatBut what do we do in the meantime until the ARF publishes its next Model There is actually one quick fix that is the low hanging fruit before us as marketers improving the way we target TV beyond the outdated sexage paradigmLast week an anonymous executive sent a letter to Jack Myers eloquently expressing his or her frustration at the underwhelming amount of attention paid by marketers to the pivotal question of targeting The whole post is worth reading and may become a classic It is available at the following link httpwwwjackmyerscomcommentaryjackmyersthinktank50123827html Here39s an excerptquotThat is so cool deliver your message to every living adult preferably most of whom are over 35 and watch sales soar Ingenious And given the tons of consumer research available today you have to assume Jack that the selected target group was the result of a long and arduous process with discussions and focus groups lasting well into many a night What lasted long into the night were discussions on creative on packaging on competitors and their non strategy and on many other subjects most having little to do with the consumer targetquotIt39s pretty obvious that we39ve lived too long with the sexage simplified media buying targets that we are offered by traditional rating services Fortunately those Opportunities To See can now be weighted by simple indices of purchase linked to programs measured by TRA and future competitors in US singlesource who tie actual purchase behavior to set top box dataSexage was a simplification to help deal with the information overload amp8211 but it was a gross oversimplification Simplifications are definitely what are needed in this Age of Information Overload but not sloppy ones The TRA approach being pioneered right now by MediaVest and others in actual media buy negotiation is a different kind of simplification amp8211 the kind that is neededThe Information Overload itself was heavily exacerbated by the Digital Age amp8211 and yet the solution to the overload is also brought to use by the Digital Age in the form of huge digital databases of set top box and purchase data that can be combined at the individual anonymous household level and rolled up into simple index weights to help guide buyingTRA presented evidence at ARF two weeks ago showing that there is a strong correlation between using programs that overindex on Heavy Swing Purchasers HSPs amp8211 folks who are heavy category buyers and who have bought your brand disloyally and ROI At the same podium Mars Inc showed proof that its own TV ROI increased almost threefold as a result of using singlesource for targeting as well as for insight into which creative executions to take off the airTargeting in itself does not get us all the way to overcoming information overload but if only a certain portion of messages get through why not make sure that the bombardment at least is aimed at the right people to begin withTargeting is the quick fix After we fix that we can use singlesource and all of our other tools to improve the messages themselves Since that is the part of the fix that will take the longest why not do the targeting part quicklyTom Kehler when he was at InformativeSatmetrix pioneered scalable methods of getting consumers to interact with brands on the Internet which functioned as great advertising and as data collection at the same time Imagine using tools like that to talk directly to your own brand39s Heavy Swing Purchasers so you find out what they really care about and how to talk to them That39s where it will all go in the long run But in the meantime there39s targeting First find the HSPs and shift messageweight in their direction Next year find ways to engage them in dialog interactively to improve your messages and launch some sponsorships In the long run marketing can adapt to be more effective in the information overload cloudBill Harvey has spent over 35 years leading the way in the area of media research with special emphasis on the New Media Bill can be contacted at billtraglobalcomRead all Billamp8217s MediaBizBlogger commentaries at Bill Harvey MediaBizBlogger

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Information Rush Has Made Marketing More Difficult: The Quick Fix for Getting Through to Your Best Prospects Even Though "We're All Going Crazy" - Bill Harvey - MediaBizBlogger

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Information Rush Has Made Marketing More Difficult: The Quick Fix for Getting Through to Your Best Prospects Even Though "We're All Going Crazy" - Bill Harvey - MediaBizBlogger

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