It's Called "On-Demand" for a Reason! - Mike Einstein - MediaBizBloggers

The ad business offers a curious take on supply and demand in that the same supply must somehow satisfy two demandsThe supply is represented by the overall ad inventory billions of ads in myriad forms across a vast array of media all competing for the same eyeballs The demand however assumes two disparate forms There39s the internal industry demand in which an advertiser seeks exposure via a specific media supplier and then there39s the external consumer demand for the information conveyed in those adsProblem is in an ondemand world there is no consumer demand for advertising leaving us with an industry that preys on itself through insider trading in a commodity in which no consumer has any interest at allTotally lost in this incestuous relationship is the ability to engender affordable bigbrand reach and audience scale Yes it39s possible to scale the supply but so what That only keeps the intermediary busy chasing their own long tails What our industry needsamp8212and what every big brand on the planet seeksamp8212is a way to scale consumer demand And we can39t reach consumers with a product ads that no one wants and everyone is equippedamp8212and inclinedamp8212to avoidIndustry reaction to this conundrum has been predictably myopic In our quest to reach a recalcitrant audience we ask the wrong question first all but guaranteeing the cascading domino effect of wrong answers For example it makes no sense to askamp8212or even worse assumeamp8212what kind of ads consumers prefer because they can39t possibly have a preference for something they don39t want in the first place It39s like asking someone who39s facing execution if they would prefer to have their head chopped off or be burned at the stake As they say ask a stupid question get a stupid answer despite Curly Howard39s assertion that a hot steak is better than a cold chopWhen online display ad CTRs began their precipitous decline from 5 just a few years ago to less than 1 today a 98 reduction the writing should have been on the wall How did the digerati spin this They ditched the clickthrough as a meaningful metricamp8212despite the fact that it39s the only online metric that measures actual responseamp8212and reverted to the same soft metrics they had previously accused the broadcast folks of hiding behind So much for accountability Worse yet these legions of 20somethings many of whom weren39t yet born when an advertiser could reach 70 of the marketplace through just three television channels on any given night misinterpreted reach as a supplyside metric Anyone with an ounce of media experience knows that reach is an audience measurement and has nothing to do with the supply Reach can only be achieved in a linear application It literally means to reach someoneamp8212not somethingAnd as if things weren39t bad enough we now have behavioral targeting proponents straying even farther from the path Relevance resonance recencyamp8230all ways to justify perhaps the most idiotic marketing meme ever conceived BT like all targeting methodologies works against scale It uses customer data gleaned in the rear view mirror to navigate the road ahead For all practical intents and purposes it39s like driving blind In so doing BT invades privacy doesn39t talk to prospects and falls victim to the same logic that dictates why you can39t reach anyone with a product that no one wants relevant or otherwise What39s more BT attempts to legislate taste an impossible task that only further reduces the prospects for success Ask Charlie Tuna and he39ll tell you that Starkist doesn39t want tunas with good taste they want tunas that taste good And what does it say about how far we39ve come when an animated fish knows more about marketing than we doThe truth is we do know we39re in trouble We39re painfully aware of it even if we won39t admit it How else do you explain online quotimpressionsquot priced at less than a buck per thousand We have a demonstrably worthless oversupply of inventory for which there is selfserving internal demand at best and absolutely no external demand Stated another way we now have more places for advertisers to waste their money than there are consumers to waste it on yet we persist unabated in this folly to the tune of billions of dollars per year with virtually nothing to show for itMeanwhile radio and television both mere shadows of their former selves are enjoying a deadcat bounce at online media39s expense as desperate advertisers seek refuge within the reach devil they know But let me reiterate It39s called quotondemandquot for a reason and no matter which medium you choose you can39t scale what you don39t reach and you can39t reach anyone with ads they don39t want and are inclined and equipped to avoidThe media model that will ultimately realize the promise of the digital revolution will be one that recognizes the foolish futility in scaling the supply This model will draw upon the lessons learned in the halcyon days of radio and television when sponsored content was king and advertisers knew the audience was there for the show and not the adsNext up in this space Scaling the demandRead all the Einstein Brothers39 MediaBizBloggers commentaries at the Brothers Einstein MediaBizBloggersCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBlogger

Become a Thought Leader.
Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

It's Called "On-Demand" for a Reason! - Mike Einstein - MediaBizBloggers

Author

Publish date

Channel

Mike Einstein

Hispanic Leadership Roundtable: Inclusion, Mentorship, and Building the Next Generation (Video) - By Juan Ayala

More Videos:

Become a Thought Leader. Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership

It's Called "On-Demand" for a Reason! - Mike Einstein - MediaBizBloggers

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

Mike Einstein

Hispanic Leadership Roundtable: Inclusion, Mentorship, and Building the Next Generation (Video) - By Juan Ayala

The payment was successful

Cookies

Become a Thought Leader.
Share your thought leadership article with industry professionals & have them archived in Thought Leadership