Re: Impressions and Ad Rates

Sean Pfister (seanp_at_cnet.com)
Tue, 30 Jul 1996 19:30:42 -0700 (PDT)

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all_at_once.roc.servtech.com (Tony Glassman) writes

>"ANSWERS TO SOME OF THESE QUESTIONS"!?! There are no answers!
>Well-studied, footnoted, I don't give a hoot. Just toooo many variables
>here. [...]. But and
>nobody ever *found* a formula in our "traditional"electronic or print
>media. We won't in this venue.
>This whole discussion ... just makes gathering statistics and all that attends
>it, look promising. It's not. It's a joke to try to calulate most of the
>things that a lot of folks are expecting will lead to great revelations.

Beg to differ. Discussions are not a joke simply because no participant has
a definitive answer. Both business and cocktail parties would be infinitely
boring if one could only converse about the known.

The purpose of statistical evaluation is not to provide definitve answers.
It doesn't happen that way in marketing, nor does it happen that way in
bridge building. Statistics are a great means of reducing the level of
uncertainty, however, which is all one can reasonably expect.

There are now 8 decades of research on print publications. The procedures
employed are well-documented and commonly accepted by media planners and
advertisers. Part of this acceptance is based on the common understanding
of the limitations of the various research methods used. (Look at the
controversies surrounding the "recent-reading" versus "through the book"
methodologies used by Simmons & MRI over the years.)

The Web is much more measurable than print, or even television for that
matter. It's a young medium so difficulties are natural but standards will
evolve, based on well-founded traffic pattern algorithms.

>nobody ever *found* a formula in our "traditional"electronic or print
>media

That is patently untrue. No one ever found a perfect formula. Lots of
formulas that reduce the level of uncertainty in media placement are in use
everyday, for business decisions involving millions of advertising dollars.

sean pfister
director, research and analysis
CNET: The Computer Network
seanp_at_cnet.com
415-395-7805 x 1529
Fax: 415.395.9205

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