NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> Peter Bull debate - the wrap-up
ONLINE-ADS>> Peter Bull debate - the wrap-up
Peter Bull (peterb_at_dvp.com.au)
Wed, 10 Dec 1997 09:31:08 +1100
I want to say thank you to everyone who has contributed recently to the
debate on the relationship between site creation and web publishing, and on
how to get the web to better serve local advertisers. I know I have been a
bit provocative in some of my suggestions, but that was mostly deliberate,
and it sparked some very intersting responses, both here in the forum and
in my own mailbag.
The debate has threaded itself around the pejorative "ad piracy" label,
which was not my plan, but no matter, it attracted attention so I leave it
up there. For the record, I am not an ad pirate, nor do I want to be, I
think I am more like the boy who pointed out that the Emperor had no
clothes - the current web ad models are weak, vulnerable, and ultimately
extremely limited.
There are obviously some very sophisticated database applications being
developed for tracking and targeting website visitors that allow for more
accurate market segmentation, and these will in time allow the larger
traffic websites to offer a very convincing value proposition to national
and regional geographically based advertisers. And there are many content
sites that are in my mind more like specialist print magazines, where the
nature of the subject matter creates a community of interest which is truly
global, and these sites are very attractive to advertisers specifically
interested in these niche communities. And these are unique and valuable
marketing capabilities, which will grow and develop.
But they aren't nearly enough. The fact remains that most of the millions
of businesses in the world, who spend most of the billions of advertising
dollars in the world, who support the overwhelming majority of the print
publications in the world (and at least in the early days, a lot of the
advertising dollars the web attracts will be carved from print budgets) are
not global businesses looking to target global audiences. And most of the
advertising in the world is sold, not bought, and it is sold by sales reps
who have their feet on the ground in local communities, and whose job it is
to know by name everyone in their territory who has ever bought more than a
classified ad in the promotion of their business. One local newspaper near
me has 12 reps on the road who sell up to $50,000 worth of advertising
EVERY DAY in just that one town, and almost none of those reps even know
how to spell Internet - and why should they, the net has nothing they can
sell. As the world gets more and more wired, many things will change,
including that, but this is reality today and there is tremendous intertia
power in that sort of grass roots activity. These reps and their customers
don't have the web on their radar screens right now, but if we could offer
those reps a product that meant they could convincingly extend their
customers' reach into the wired 27% of their own population who read, but
mostly don't read newspapers, they would jump at it. If we don't figure
out how to harness that sales strength, it will fight us all the way, and
for a long time, it will win.
Persuading any business to part with advertising or promotional dollars is
a specialised and tough job, I know, I have tried it and I have watched
experts in action. Content creators in general, in any medium, don't have
much of a prayer of controlling this channel to market from end to end.
Yet even the biggest conventional media publishers don't seem to understand
the nature of the web yet, and appear to be following many of the models
generated by the early web pioneers, confusing publishing with content
creation, instead of forming the content alliances and devising the
financial structures that will allow this industry to survive and thrive.
There are no more than a handful of journalists who have ever
single-handedly successfully created a complete newspaper, designed the
layout, written the content, sold the advertising, and then distributed it
and made a profit. Well, in the pioneering days of the Old West maybe they
did (and perhaps that's not a bad analogy), but these days lobally
accessible web content of the end user's choice, together with other
mechanisms to ensure that some proportion of that revenue generated goes
back to the content creators/owners in the form of republishing royalties.
The numbers for dollar spending on web advertising are still going up, but
this is coming off an extremely low base, and it is still only a drop in a
very large ocean. The incredible general growth of the web is masking the
fact that the advertising revenue dollar is not keeping pace with that
growth, and we will soon reach saturation point with the limited niche
appeal it has as a medium.
The industry's best hope of solving this problem is between the ears of the
people who read this forum. All things are possible on the web so there is
no single answer, but I think there is room for some fairly standard
workable mechanisms to be figured out and implemented so that most of us
can stop fiddling around the edges and get after the main game. Some of
the germs of those possible models have started to emerge over the last
couple of weeks and a great chunk of my thinking time is now being devoted
to defining, analysing, and refining these to see which ones might be gold
and which ones dross, and you will know if I think I've cracked it and hit
the mother lode. I urge you all to do the same.
Peter Bull
Director, DVP Media Pty Ltd, Brisbane, Australia
peterb_at_dvp.com.au
For samples of DVP's most recent work, see:
The world's best online wine store - www.thegrape.com.au
Australian Provincial Newspapers Classifieds - www.checkoutclassifieds.com.au
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This week's Online Advertising Discussion List sponsors:
Infoseek, Hotmail, and Web Ad '98.
When it comes to ad performance, not all search engines are equal.
Infoseek gives you solid reporting and highly targeted placement.
(And we return calls, too.) http://info.infoseek.com/doc/sponsors.html
----
A NO RISK MEDIA OFFER? Buy 100,000 impressions on Hotmail targeted
to your demographic. We'll credit the full cost on your next buy.
Find out more at http://www.hotmail.com/offer.html
----
Web Advertising '98: Three days of nuts-and-bolts information from
the experts on how to make web ads _work_.
http://www.thunderlizard.com/webad.html?OLAspnWAT2
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Online Advertising Discussion List To Unsubscribe send UNSUBSCRIBE
http://www.o-a.com/ to online-ads-request_at_o-a.com
