Here’s an interesting story from Ad Age about some technology Google is tinkering with for TV ads. I actually think I like this idea. The idea is to include “quality” as a metric and to use that to price advertising. The proposed quality metric is based on audience retention during an ad, so the more people who watch the ad completely, the cheaper the ad is for the advertiser. The fewer people who watch, the more costly the ad. The hope seems to be that unpopular and stale ads would get pulled from the airwaves very quickly. This will be enabled by two-way communication as viewers watch TV. The article says that it’s unclear how Google would do this, but I disagree. Largely, it has do with who Google partners with on the content delivery side. Two-way communication is possible to get from viewers with cable and DVR’s because those already have two way communication built into them. The second-to-second aspect is the real problem — but who says you can’t choose a sample of the viewing audience at each second. Also a viewers viewing information can be cached internally on the hardware and sent up to the service provider or Google at anytime of the day. As for the viewing audience, my hope is that this of system will get rid of commercial fatigue. The first two or three times I see an interesting commercial, I will pay attention. As the commercial is repeated, I lose interest and either do something else while the commercial is on, fast forward through it via TIVO or flip the channel. It sounds like under the system that Google is proposing as a commercial becomes stale, it will cost the advertiser more to continue to run the commercial, thereby forcing the advertiser to make fresh commercials. So the good commercials will naturally rise, but after saturation is reached, something new will have to be brought in keep the audiences’ attention.
Category Archives: Advertising
The Decline of Network News
Here’s an interesting article from Ad Age about the decline in viewership of and advertising during the network news. Some “Duh” points brought up is that fact that the desired core demographic of upper income 18 – 49-year olds are not at home during the evening news hours (4 – 7PM). Consequently, the average age of evening news viewers is 60 — retired folks I imagine. Personally, I don’t bother watching the local or evening news broadcasts because they are neither informative nor entertaining. I get my news from the radio, via the Internet, and reading print magazines — that is if I care to get the news. Sometimes I skip the news that isn’t tech related due to fatique. I know that sounds bad, but honestly has anything really changed in the last few weeks with regards to the US Presidential Election, Iraq, and the US economy? I would like to get some world news, but believe it or not, International news is kinda hard to come by in the US.
Interestingly, Ad Age is also running a series of articles on the decline of the newspapers. The article run today speculates as newspaper readers die, they aren’t being replaced with new readers. I wonder if that’s the case for network news as well.
Moving on, the article is careful to explain that the news is not no longer relevant. Rather, people have more choices for how they consume the news — TV, radio, and the Internet via computers, cellphones, and other mobile devices. As such, it seems that advertisers can diversify their ads efforts. In my own experience, I see that news websites have a lot more videos now. I find the videos to be a pain for news items that could be described in 3 paragraphs or less. This is due to the load time for the video and the unavoidable 30-60-secs of ads that is tacked on to the front of the stream — sooo annoying. So much for high speed Internet … dear gosh the ISPs need to hurry up an upgrade their infrastructures.
On the whole, though, I’d say that the most useful and detailed news comes from online and print magazines. Broadcast and Internet news amounts to a bunch of sounds bites that generally remind people of the major headlines. The print magazines, though, like newpapers have nice long meaty articles. Unlike newspapers thought, most magazines are weekly, bi-weekly, or monthlies. Since they are easy to transport, a magazine can be taken almost anywhere for convenient reading at the reader’s leisure. Perhaps this contributes to the continued success of magazines. Perhaps this, too, could be the future of the newspaper — fewer issues, small form factor, and glossy media. I think I would get a weekly San Diego/San Diego county news magazine if there was one. What about you?
Anyhow, use the link given in the first sentence to read the article.
Article: GE Brand Reinvention
Here is a very nice article about GE’s Judy Hu. She is leading the effort to reinvent GE’s image into a green innovator. Enjoy!
Here’s a link to the article
GE’s Judy Hu: ‘We’re Reinventing a Brand and a Company’
Published: December 12, 2007 in Knowledge@Wharton
Article: Social Marketing
Here’s an article about some companies’ sucesses and failures with social marketing. I think the key take-aways are that campaigns with high customer interactivity have to be authentic and the company has to be prepared for content that may be unflattering to the company.
Social Marketing: How Companies Are Generating Value from Customer Input
Published: December 12, 2007 in Knowledge@Wharton
Article: The Balance Btw Online Privacy and Targeted Ads
There’s a reason I don’t actively use Facebook or MySpace (I have blank accounts to spy on my little brother) and this is it. Within the walls of work I have no problem using my real identity because I have no fear of advertising third party junk to me — ok, except for that Phillips spam that has been littering my mailbox since Thanksgiving. Anyhow … I think Facebook missed something fundamental about American values (and maybe almost everyone else on the planet). We don’t like to advertise about the stuff we buy. Just like talking about salary it’s rude and just not something done (although, that could be an American thing, so I’ve recently heard). Another thing is that if we are going to recommend a product to a friend, we will on our own time and with our own words. It’s called “authenticity.” I think a real heart felt targeted recommendation directly out the mouth or fingers of a friend is MUCH better advertising than some computer generated spam or posting that says your friend bought this and so should you. Oh, and then the kicker … Facebook and the advertisers don’t even recognize the social faux-paux, rather they say they were too radical in their approach and the if they increase their rudeness gradually, then people won’t notice. What happen to common decency?
Anyhow, read the article and be amazed …
Who Owns You? Finding a Balance between Online Privacy and Targeted Advertising
Published: December 12, 2007 in Knowledge@Wharton
More Rambling 