Labels: advertising, comScore
comScore's release for March contains some fairly riveting stats. Numbers this aggregated don't really speak for themselves, to be sure, but the picture painted is one that is far less monolithic than current media accounts (mea culpa I suppose) might suggest.
The ad network stats pictured here, for example, show many of the supposedly "tired old" companies doing some pretty brisk business. And some of the startups in the group show real promise.
Some niche ad networks are doing pretty well, too. As are individual sites, selling their own inventory.
If niche ad networks have a role to play, and if the best economics for large individual publishers (as Jason Calacanis recently argued) are to sell their own ads and barely use networks at all, then look forward to continued variety in the ad sales economy. No monolithic "takeover" by any big network is in the works. If anything, it proves the value of the publishers themselves. It is mighty difficult to control someone else's inventory, as disintermediation is only a click and a better deal away.
Conveniently left out of the tables: revenues.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Monday, September 10, 2007
Valleywag believes Yahoo hasn't done much, a couple of months into the "100 day" plan put forward by new/interim CEO Jerry Yang. Maybe summer isn't the best time to start the clock on something like that, though. Labels: advertising, yahoo
Without second-guessing whether these were good ideas in the first place, here's the update on what Yahoo has or has not done from my list of random big ideas posted as An Open Letter to Jerry Yang on June 19:
* Yahoo has not acquired any hot little search startup;
* Yahoo has not acquired Yelp;
* Yahoo has not acquired GoDaddy;
* Yahoo has not acquired Research in Motion, but Microsoft was rumored to be interested;
* I am not aware of whether Yahoo has downsized inefficiencies in management -- I'll leave that to Valleywag. However, some key Yahoos have left for startups like Veoh. This probably means Yahoo will need to show it is serious about attracting good people, by showing the door to less effective managers, and recruiting some high-profile people. Jeremy Zawodny showed good initiative by jokingly attempting to recruit Matt Cutts through his blog. Matt was jovial enough to reply in comments.
* No sign of a partnership with Microsoft;
* The home page is as uninspiring as ever (if you like that sort of thing, MSN.com is better);
One key move has been to acquire an ad serving company, BlueLithium, to follow on the acquisition of Right Media. Although the latter is not a major deal, the trend is important.
As long as advertisers are disgruntled with current ad networks and "contextual ad platforms," this is an area that new product development needs to focus heavily on. That, plus gobbling up more inventory in a variety of verticals (personals, home, travel, social networking, etc.), will have to be the focus for Yahoo for the remaining few days of this 100-day segment, and the 100-day extension we'll have to give them, because the wheels grind slowly when it comes to turning around a multibillion-dollar company.
It'll be interesting to see if Yahoo can integrate new ad buying features (and more relevant inventory) into its Panama platform, or whether they'll create separate automated platforms for buying ads online based on the emerging "exchange" paradigm that will eventually largely eclipse the old networks and traditional media buying functions.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Friday, June 08, 2007
Is it just me, or is the report on this study a little muddled? Labels: advertising
Young people don't know about geography (not a surprise). They don't care about where a product comes from (or yes they do care). If it's a luxury brand or a high tech item, it matters that it comes from a place associated with quality or high tech (ok, now we're getting somewhere, and Ries and Trout said it a long time ago).
About the only clear conclusion I see is that the US auto industry is still in big, big trouble, and doubling down on the patriotism is making it worse, further alienating youth, the buyers of the future.
But no mention of the counter-case, such as American Apparel; or the substantive issue behind that (not all "countries of origin" are equal; some are low-wage places with no labor laws - does this matter to customers or not?). Rather disappointing.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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Wednesday, February 07, 2007
I'll take a cue from a paragraph that Robert Gorelli of Future Now slips into his post critiquing GoDaddy: the part where he basically reminds us: "come on, guys -- is the massively sexist cheesecake model the best way to sell a tech product in 2007"? T&A to sell product. To guys. Gorelli more or less asks: "don't a lot of women make these purchasing decisions, too?" Labels: advertising, humor, personas, stereotypes, super bowl
Yes, as a pretty liberal, joke-loving guy, I'm back on the Bob Garfield train: I am actually quite a conservative when it comes to my reaction to these interruptions that assault me from the ad world with notions that are actually offensive, not funny.
Some of the worst stuff I run across involves unfunny ethnic stereotyping. I mean, I don't run across it, it yells at me while I'm on an elliptical trainer or trying to endure a reality show not of my choosing.
Funny ethnic stereotyping? Sure, it can be done. A matter of perspective, but the rum ad that has an artificially officious lineup where you need to take a number and wait in a straight line just to buy fruit from a stand in the Caribbean... now that's funny. Apparently, I don't draw the line at melon jokes.
But I do draw the line somewhere.
Not funny:
I really didn't much like the ads for the recent Metro Toronto Home show that couldn't let go of the idea that the words Feng Shui are really funny. First it was on the website: Feng Shui isn't a Chinese vegetable. Then on the radio: Feng Shui isn't dim sum ya know (or something like that). This is just so far from amusing, I don't know where to start. Why work so darn hard, and wind up actually insulting people (their intelligence, at least)? Is the Home Show so trivial that we need to distract from its benefits? Did Feng Shui have anything to do with it, for 90% of the attendees?
In the unforgiving world of measurable search ad copywriting, I have never come close to seeing messaging like this succeed. It simply confuses people, and doesn't work.
Now, YellowPages.ca - "the find engine" - is running radio spots that truly fail to tickle the funny bone. Get this, imagine you type "hot chocolate" into an "ordinary" search engine, and you wind up getting, ha ha, an adult escort website (complete with the sexy voice of said male escort). That, the ad says, is the stuff you DON'T want. You really wanted Josie's Coffee House, or whatever. Whatever.
Not only is the sly stereotyping out of place, it makes you wonder what you might actually get when you typed the query "hot chocolate" into one of those "other" search engines. How bout Google? Looks like a range of results, including some gourmet hot chocolate ads in the margin. And a nice Onebox result pointing to the music of Hot Chocolate, of "You Sexy Thing" fame. If truth is the best sales tool, I think Yellow Pages Group just proved that Google is a pretty good search engine. Using local.google.ca in the "Find Businesses" category, I got a mapped view of the results, including the Low Carb Grocery and Pusateri's. On YellowPages.ca I got three results, pretty much bulk providers of hot chocolate - including Mother Parker's coffee. YPG, your search engine is actually giving me worse results!
They have another one on the radio. Something about typing in "iron curtain" and getting some crazy Russian guy instead of the drapery shop you were trying to find. (I can't be bothered to remember what the actual commercial said, but we are assured that this Russian dude is what we DON'T want. Is this 1970?)
I know, they're not supposed to be real examples - they're supposed to be amusing. Mostly, they're grating.
Signed,
An uptight liberal with (some sort of) sense of humor
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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