December 13, 2012

Best of 2012 - Interactivity: Get Over It


Here's my 3rd post in The Ad Contrarian Best of 2012 collection. This is getting to be fun. Instead of having to write every night, I just copy and paste. So much less troublesome. It's called "Interactivivty: Get Over It" and it's from March 12, 2012

From CNNMoney, last week...
"Imagine if Joe Smith, in need of a new car... presses a button on his remote and instantly receives more information about a Ford F150, including where he can buy one. Meanwhile, Joe's wife, Sally, watches a later ad for a Sony phone. The product on the screen is sleek and modern, and Sally wants it. She can turn her emotion into ownership, purchasing the phone with the click of a button."
Yeah. Imagine if monkeys flew out of my butt.

A decade ago, paragraphs like the one above were appearing all over, promising us that interactive TV (ITV) would be the latest thing that would change everything. People would be watching a TV spot, and they'd see something they liked and they'd click and be taken to some long-form info-something. Then they'd click again and buy right from their screen.

Also, interactive web ads would be so much more appealing. engaging and enticing than traditional advertising. People would see our banners on the web and be fascinated by them and then click to learn amazing new things about our products and then order right from the page.

And our adoring customers would come to our Facebook page and engage with our brand and comment about how much they love us and share it with all their friends.

Only one problem: It's all bullshit.
It turns out that people on line react to ads the same way people off line react to them -- mostly they ignore them. And when they do bother to read them, they overwhelmingly do not interact with them.

Characterizing these ads as "interactive" isn't a description of consumer behavior, it's an  illustration of advertiser delusion.

Delusional thinking isn't just acceptable in marketing today -- it's mandatory.

While people are interactivatin' like crazy with each other, interactivity with ads is miniscule. Unappreciative bastards. Don't they realize we built all this shit just to sell them something?

The latest group to fall victim to the siren song of interactivity is Canoe Ventures, a consortium of  Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and four other cable companies that tried to resurrect ITV. Last week they shut their doors and laid off 120 people.

This is the last time I'm going to say this, so pay attention. In the digital world, people are passionate about interacting with each other -- not brands, not ads, not you, not me.

Get over it.