NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> Immaturity of On-Line Advertising
ONLINE-ADS>> Immaturity of On-Line Advertising
Randy Pickard (rpickard_at_peapod.com)
Fri, 22 May 1998 09:02:00 -0500 (Central Daylight Time)
I just experienced an illustrative demonstration of the
dichotomy between the thoughtful posts of the erudite
members of this group and the real world of Internet
advertising presentations. Yesterday, I listened to a
presentation from a leading Internet publisher that
proposed a 12 month million dollar Internet advertising
package. This publisher led off with an exceptional
content presentation. However, when it came to discussing
the quantitative media aspects of the plan, the
presentation consisted of nothing more than a graph on a
PowerPoint slide illustrating projected visits during the
upcoming 12 months. The upward sloping curve on the graph
was based on the publishers plan for improved content,
increased marketing, and vaguely defined acquisitions.
Based on a rough estimate of average page views, the
publisher indicated that they would be serving up "x"
number of impressions and that based on a CPM of "y" this
million dollar media buy represented a "good deal".
The proposed plan had no testing component, no reach or
frequency estimates, no demographic profiles, little
in the way of content targeting, and no make good
component.
Despite my doubts about this opportunity , I'm sure it will
be appealing to some Web advertisers. Based on the way
Wall Street has been rewarding any and all announcements of
multi-million dollar relationships with Internet "portals",
I'm probably being naive in thinking that leading Web
publishers, online services, and search engines should be
doing anything more that just providing impression metrics.
On the other hand, while many high traffic Websites are
able to sell advertising space based on little more than
impression data, other web publishers are being asked to
jump through hoops by advertisers. The difficulties they
face were enunciated in the following e-mail from Brian
Shepard:
"Problem is, the advertiser not only wants publishers to
have a good audience (which is a valid request), but now
they want to hold the publisher responsible if the message
isn't delivered. That's not fair. In my mind, they are
shifting the responsibility of creating a compelling reason
to seek further information to the online publisher. Does
Budweiser have a right to hold NBC responsible if the
audience is getting sick of the frogs and lizards that
appear in their ads?"
Randy
----------------------------------------------
Randall Pickard
Peapod. "Smart Shopping For Busy People"
http://www.peapod.com
StoogeNet. "Entertaining Lessons On How NOT to Market On
the Internet"
http://stoognet.com
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