Archive for November, 2007

Mobile Web Advertising

Monday, November 26th, 2007

There’s an interesting (and short) article on the NYTimes today about the continuing hype of the use of the Internet over cell phones and the lack if a compelling technology to make that happen.

Advertisers, particularly multicultural advertisers, are itching to get into the mobile web advertising business. Multicultural audiences way over-index in mobile phone usage and particularly in usage of advanced features of mobile phones, such as SMS (text messaging) and buying music and ringtones. When someone finally comes up with a compelling ad solution for mobile advertising, smart multicultural marketers will be there. Until then, everybody is still waiting.

Technology Threatens Agencies

Wednesday, November 14th, 2007

Accenture released the results of a study today saying that changing consumer habits and digital media are revolutionizing the ad industry and that agencies are threatened by these changes. These results are based on a survey of 70 advertising decision makers at agencies, media companies, and technology companies.

According to the Adweek story:

The challenge agencies face stems from the rise of performance-based advertising and the technology tools needed to execute highly targeted campaigns, rather than mass-media pushes fueled by a singular “big idea,” according to Charlie Symmons, senior manager in Accenture’s media and entertainment practice.

“It used to be content was king; now it’s very much context is king,” he said.

For that reason, Accenture sees a threat to agencies from technology companies, which can provide the tools that allow clients to better know their customers. This could displace agencies’ value to their clients, the report warns.

Basically, the survey respondents think that tech companies have the technical and mental firepower to adapt to the increased reporting, increasingly complex analytics, and digital media vehicles, and agencies don’t.

In part that is true, both for the general market and multicultural agencies. Agencies who aren’t smart, and who aren’t driven to keep up with the changing media landscape are going to get left behind. They won’t go out of business this year, or even next. They may keep chugging along indefinitely, doing the same things they’ve always done. But they won’t be the ones growing and getting cutting edge work and competitive accounts.

Web Users Ignore Ads!

Monday, November 12th, 2007

Be careful when reading headlines alerting advertisers to the fact that not every single web ad is not thoroughly analyzed by its intended target. Although it is true that web users do ignore ads, so do newspaper readers, TV watchers, radio listeners…

Silicon Alley Insider has a post on a recent(ish) eye-tracking study done on web users, one finding of which was that web users tend to look at content, and not ads. SAI’s take on that finding is to make your ads look more like content.

Personally, I think the answer is not to make your ads look like content, because when readers figure out the scam, they’ll be angry. I think the answer is to surround your web ads with quality content. Then web users will be looking intently at your page and will see the ads along with the content.