The Future Of Nonsense

There was a time when it was believed that the web would be a beacon of rationality that would deliver a deep blow to the forces of ignorance. According to Arianna Huffington...

"Thanks to YouTube -- and blogging and instant fact-checking and viral emails -- it is getting harder and harder to get away with repeating brazen lies without paying a price..."

If you need evidence of the astounding naivete of the above sentence, I suggest you Google "9/11 plot" or "holocaust denial." While the web has certainly opened up some powerful new avenues for free speech and news, it has also become an incubator for nut jobs, terrorists, pedophiles and all manner of unpleasant human life. More a mixed blessing than a utopian dreamworld.

Another of the questionable claims made about the web is that it will make advertising less effective by diminishing the influence of media-driven images in favor of person-to-person experience. In other words, consumers will consult the web for the true experiences of people like them instead of relying on the vague assurances that advertising provides. Once again, while it is certainly true that many people use the web to check peer recommendations, the idea that this will replace advertising is highly questionable.

Whether the web will make advertising less effective is an interesting proposition as it goes to the very essence of how advertising works, how ideas are distributed, and how our behaviors are shaped.

It is pretty clear that people substantially rely on others for their opinions. We believe all manner of nonsense we would never accept without the assurances of "experts," "spiritual leaders," and "political leaders." In the electronic age there also arrived a new and very powerful formulator of beliefs, called "the media."

"The media" is ostensibly just a vehicle by which ideas are distributed, but you would have to be a fool not to believe that media companies have gotten deeply into the business of formulating and spinning many of the ideas they trade in.

One of the huge advantages that large enterprises have over small ones is the money they have to influence us through the use and manipulation of media. It is hard to exaggerate the power that media distributed ideas have on our opinions, and even more importantly, on our behavior. It is also hard to exaggerate the lengths to which advertisers have been going, and will continue to go, to blur the line between media-delivered information and advertising.

Consequently, if the predictions that advertising will become a less pervasive force in our lives is true, then it must also be true that media-driven ideas will become less pervasive. This seems highly unlikely.

In fact, the amount of time people spend with media, particularly TV and the web, is nothing short of alarming. And as mobile devices become more prevalent the number of hours spent with media may actually surpass the number of waking hours (because of the ability to use more than one device at a time.)

And media is supposed to become less influential? I don't buy it.

The web notwithstanding, experts, spiritual leaders, politicians, and media will continue to fill us full of nonsense and we will continue to accept it.

Yes, there is a future for advertising.

The Way-Too-Simple Online Ad Strategy

It seems that every company in the world is trying to cut through the hype and baloney about online advertising and produce an online ad strategy that makes sense. Here at The Ad Contrarian, we always put our loyal readers first and so today we are going to speculate on how you might spend digi-dollars sensibly and prudently.

Let's start with all our cards on the table. As you know, when it comes to online advertising, I am a Luddite dinosaur.

One of the insufferable things about us Luddite dinosaurs is that we require facts before we believe something, and we insist on strategies before we allow money to be spent. I know, we're totally out of it.

Nonetheless, just for the sake of argument, let's pretend that there are some imaginary marketing people in the world who want to implement an online ad program that is based on facts and has a strategy behind it (c'mon, it's only a game.)

Let's start where intelligent marketers always start. Not with demographics or ethnographics or psychographics or any of the other jive-o-graphics of marketing, but with actual consumer behavior.

It turns out that people do a lot of things on line. Here's a list of the top 10 activities people engage in on line and, according to Nielsen, the order in which they do them:

1. Social Networks 
2. Online Games 
3. E-mail 
4. Portals 
5. Instant Messaging 
6. Videos/Movies
7. Search 
8. Software Manufacturers 
9. Multi-category Entertainment 
10. Classifieds/Auctions

The first thing to notice from this list is that the vast majority of time spent online is not spent buying or searching. In other words, not in "shopping mode." From the numbers that Nielsen has published, I deduce that the amount of time spent online in "shopping mode" is about 5%. I stipulate that this is an imprecise number and for all I know it could be twice this. However, according to Nielsen's data, 5% seems like a reasonable estimate.

My key hypothesis in deriving my strategy is this: When people are in shopping mode the web is a very effective advertising medium. However, when people are not in shopping mode the web is a dismally ineffective medium. This is an important concept.

As an advertising medium, the web resembles the yellow pages more than it does television. People use the web much as they used to use yellow pages -- as a way to gather information and make comparisons once they've decided they might like to buy.

In other words, if one were a marketing professor, one might say that online advertising has thus far proven itself to be very good at fulfilling demand i.e., helping people who are already inclined to buy make a final decision.

On the other hand, online advertising has not proven itself to be effective at creating demand. Unlike television, we cannot think of a single mainstream non-web-native consumer-facing brand that has been built primarily by web advertising. Can you?

The clearest evidence of this fulfilling demand/creating demand dichotomy is the dominance of search. Search constitutes 4% of online time but receives 45% of online ad dollars. This is telling us something.

Knowing all this, what is a sensible online ad strategy? It's so simple, even a marketing professional can understand it.

Instead of slathering the web with 360 degree silliness, go where the shoppers are.

Spend your money where people go to fulfill demand -- in the locations where people are spending the 5% of their online time in "shopping mode" and are willing to pay attention to your message. A lot of this is search, but remember, search is just a middle man. Search takes you somewhere and there are other web venues where people go to do research and compare.

Unless you're a direct marketer, don't spend money trying to create demand in the locations where people spend 95% of their online time. It's just not cost effective.

I realize this way of thinking is way too simple for today's techno-hypnotized marketing professional. Nonetheless, if someday you happen to find yourself on a planet where facts matter and strategy rules, it might prove helpful.

2011 Top 10 Best Of Bullshit

It's the time of year when everybody is making Top 10 lists. Here at The Ad Contrarian, we want to be part of the fun too, darnit.

2011 may have been an astonishingly stinky year, but one thing you have to say -- it's been a fabulous year for bullshit.

Since bullshit is our beat, we thought we'd make a list of the varieties of bullshit that made 2011 such a delight. So here is the 2011 Top 10 Best of Bullshit.

We'll count 'em down from #10 to #1:

10. Mobile Phone Bullshit: It's the era of 4G and every phone company has the best blazing-fast 4G network in the universe. So, one question -- how come I still can't get my f/ing email?

9. Nutrition Bullshit: Usuga beans grown only in the Olduvai Gorge make your liver lovelier and your pancreas pancre-asskickin'. 

8. "Reaching Out" Bullshit: If I hear one more dimwit say they "reached out" to someone there will be blood in the streets.

7. Security Bullshit: Note to Congress: hundreds of otherwise unemployable people standing around airports scowling at us while they do nothing doesn't make us feel safer.

6. Parenting Bullshit: Please, 12 pictures a day of your precious spawn on Facebook is a dozen more than we need.

5. Movie Bullshit: An amazing year. Check the ads. Every movie released was "the best film of the year."

4. Exercise Bullshit: We are all thrilled that you ran a 500K potato sack race. Really, we are.

3. Foodie Bullshit: I don't care how many stars that precious new restaurant has, there's nothing they make that's better than a pizza.

2. Celebrity Bullshit: One giant, pathetic freak show. A few hundred years ago entertainers were called 'fools.' Today fools are called entertainers.

1. Wine Bullshit: Just shut the hell up and pour it.