Media Orchard Interviews Drew Curtis of Fark.com
"The whole advertising industry confuses me sometimes. Advertisers for
some reason really, really want to buy ads that annoy the shit out of
the consumer. They want to buy ads that block you from seeing content,
that shout at you when you hit the page, that stay on the computer
desktop when you leave the site. You know why ads on the right sidebar
get better clickthrough rates? Because people are trying to scroll
down with their mouse and miss the damn bar, accidentally generating a
click. Most popup ad clicks are generated by people missing the X to
close the thing out."
I agree. Always have. I came to this conclusion the first time I could
not get a pop-up ad to go away, long before I got my degree in
Communications or worked at any TV stations or ad agencies.
I often wonder why more advertisers don't pay more attention to the
rational things in life. People don't like things that annoy them. And
annoying them will more than likely end up alienating them. That
doesn't sounds very smart or profitable.
"One unique thing about Internet advertising is that it's trackable.
You can tell how many people saw an ad, how many clicked on it, how
many sales were generated from it and so on.
Traditional media has rough stats like circulation or ratings, but no
real way for advertisers to gauge effectiveness. They'll tell you that
advertising in newspaper, on radio, or on TV performs well, but
there's no way to know for sure. They tell you that most people who
see your ad and act on it won't tell you, so don't be worried if no
one says they sought out your business because of your ad…
…Here's the thing: an ad may be circulating on mainstream media, but
no one really knows if it's being seen, and if it's being seen if it's
being ignored or not. If I buy an ad on page A5 of the local paper,
even though it got sent out to 100,000 people we don't really know if
anyone saw it."
I may be going against tradition here, but since I longer work in the
sales dept. of a TV station, I think I'll risk it- I have also
wondered how sales departments can say with any certainty that your ad
will be seen. Ever since my Audisence Research class (where they teach
you the formulas to calculate Nielsen and Arbitron ratings, newspaper
circulation and etc…), I have thought that those numbers not terribly
accurate predictors of media success. Sure, a commercial airing during
the Superbowl will most likely have a rather large audience. And so
will one that airs during CSI or another successful show. But that
doesn't ensure that consumers will rush out and buy your product. If I
(and I am admittedly no math genius) can fudge the numbers to get them
to say what I need to, how can I trust them to predict how well my ad
will do?
"Could it be the case that Internet advertising will ALWAYS generate
less income than traditional advertising because now we can measure
effective it really is? What are the ramifications of this for the
mainstream media giants? My personal opinion is they better get used
to operating on a fraction of current revenue in the future."
Fascinating, and scary, to think about a whole industry unraveling…
"Checkout Las Vegas jobs at NVJobSearch."
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