[opendtv] Re: News: Nets taking smaller piece of the advertising pie

Craig Birkmaier wrote:

> The reason money is flowing into Internet advertising
> is that it provides something that is lacking with
> most other forms of advertising: the ability to track
> actual ad consumption and to follow-up the leads
> generated.

Note that this is exactly what the ad-filtering
mechanisms I listed, i.e. the adware cleanup software,
malware cleanup, and e-mail spam filters, the cookie
blockers, are aimed at preventing. These filtering
mechanisms are all aimed precisely at the "followup"
you talk about, and in fact are among the most
important updates introduced with WinXP SP2.

And there's also the pop-up ad blocker.

I would not be surprised to hear that ad agencies are
slowly figuring this out. That kind of behavior on
their part creates a backlash that I bet they can
measure. Eventually. Just as the too-numerous ads
on radio and TV, or tele-marketing. All these have
been or are being done to excess, and they all become
neutralized as a result.

> As to the long term prospects for TV ads, the future
> is already clear. Systems that can provide
> advertisers with better accountability and highly
> refined targeting are likely to take the lion's share
> of ad budgets,

> Cable is already a long way down this road, as they
> have a subscriber relationship and can provide data
> on who is watching; the next step is localization
> and personalization.

If all you're suggesting is a simple replacement of
generic broadcast ads with ones that are slightly
better targeted, that's fairly straightforward. And
with a one-way broadcast medium, also fairly
self-regulating. If one overdoes ads in a one-way
broadcast medium, the audience will simply tune out or
skip the ads.

It's when you marry this ad targeting with two-way
interactive media, such as telephone or Internet, that
the potential for abuse seems impossible for advetizers
to resist. It's ads intruding into interactive sessions,
or ads attemtping to initiate their own interactive
sessions, that are the ones which create the demand for
the harshest contermeasures.

That's where I disagree with the article. I think the
growth potential in Internet ads will be stymied by
the countermeasures, SPECIFICALLY because the Internet
allows such relentless "targeting." I think instead that
TV advertizing and print media advertizing, in
moderation, are instead one of the most survivable forms
in the long haul.

It's simple, really. Just because something is "new"
does not mean it is better. The law of unintended
consequences almost always comes to bat.

Bert

 
 
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