Mr.
Matt
Spangler

Rupert Leads They Way

This past week Rupert Murdoch came out publicly and stated that he plans to “charge for all his news services by next summer”.   I think people who work in the news business across the country breathed a collective sigh of relief. In the wake of Chris Anderson’s “Free” diatribes and the public skewering of his theories by journalists like Malcolm Gladwell, this comes at the perfect time for an industry that is having a serious crisis of self.

Whether or not this will work is an entirely different thing all together but drawing this kind of line in the sand is exactly what the industry required.  Someone had to have the balls to say enough is enough, I’m willing to put my reputation and company on the line to take this bold step.

Of course, before we give ole Rupert a medal of honor, we have to remember that old adage that people won’t change unless they are forced too.  People won’t drive less unless gas prices are astronomical, and Rupert wasn’t willing to make this bold change until he experienced a 3.4 billion dollar net loss at News Corporation for the financial year to June.

The bigger question is can the other entities wait long enough to see the repercussions of this move?  It will likely not be until 2011 before the reports are back on its effect for News Corp, and that is too long for the rest of the major players to wait and see. Companies like the New York Times need to make the move now to charge for something that has great value and by doing so force the hand of public perception.

Gatesgate

I could care less about this debate, although I definitely fall on the ‘cop abuse of power’ side of this argument.  That being said one thing I’m happy about - by calling this issue “Gatesgate”, the usage of ______gate as the term for a media shitstorm has completely jumped the shark.  Put it to bed people.

via spiers:

Good Radley Balko piece on Gatesgate here . (Dek: “Put the race talk aside: the issue here is abuse of police power, and misplaced deference to authority.”)

By any account of what happened—Gates’, Crowleys’, or some version in between—Gates should never have been arrested. “Contempt of cop,” as it’s sometimes called, isn’t a crime. Or at least it shouldn’t be. It may be impolite, but mouthing off to police is protected speech, all the more so if your anger and insults are related to a perceived violation of your rights. The “disorderly conduct” charge for which Gates was arrested was intended to prevent riots, not to prevent cops from enduring insults.

“The Henry Louis Gates Teaching Moment” [Reason]

Good Back And Forth on The Personal Branding Efforts of the Mediatti

Good anecdotal evidence from Elizabeth in response to Will and Soup’s thoughts…

spiers:

“From my experience, 27 percent of the people who work in media (and I’m using the Mediaite definition of media, which is pretty much “anyone who gets paid for typing, talking or figuring out how to fire people who type or talk”) are journalists in the truest sense, out to enlighten the public for common good, altruistic believers in the fourth estate and its power to invoke change. The other 73 percent are pretending to be that 27 percent and really just trying to promote their own personal brand.”

Will Leitch, The Real Reason You Should Hate The Media (And That Includes Us)

What Leitch is blissfully and conveniently ignoring is that sites like Gawker and Mediaite wouldn’t be successful if only those in media cared about media.

(via soupsoup)

Eh, I disagree, Soup. Gawker could have not covered media and been fine. Our first big traffic spikes were posts about Puma and Catherine Zeta Jones. Covering media gets you PR (because people who might cover you want to read about themselves) which is a plus, but it doesn’t really drive traffic.

Another metric: look at the views on Gawker for media-related items vs. everything else. Or ask Sheila McClear or Maggie Shnayerson why numbers were down on their posts. (They both covered media exclusively for Gawker.) It certainly wasn’t a quality issue.

Most people who don’t work in media don’t even recognize bylines, much less care about the insidery politics of media organizations.

Though I will say, I think Will’s 73 percent estimate is overblown thanks to unfortunate overexposure to people like that. *Most* people who work in media are in production jobs, are stringers, beauty assistants—or, godforbid, ad sales!— etc., who just do their jobs without much thought to journalism OR personal brand.

Follow up to Noah's display ad column on Ad Age

Just finished my friend Noah Brier’s article about display ads at Advertising Age.

I couldn’t agree more with his hypothesis that blanket buys across many sites “gives up the biggest advantage the web has over other media: the ability to target smaller groups affordably with discrete messages. As soon as we go with a single message across all these sites we’re left with a glorified TV ad”

At thehappycorp, we have recently had extremely successful online campaigns for VH1 and Brooklyn Brewery.  Both of these campaigns considered the sites they were going to run on, and the audience they would speak to on those sites.  Both campaigns employed rich media in a way that made it work with the layout of the page in an intelligent fashion.  In the case of the Brooklyn Brewery campaign, the banner was built specically to run on ONLY 1 SITE(!)…The New York Times Dining & Wine section.

The end result of both of these were extremly high responses for these campaigns including the highest performing campaign that VH1 had ever seen and great response compared to the majority of NYT Dining section campaigns.

That being said, as Noah indicated, there are boat load more issues related to the success of display ads, (including for starters a critical need for education and creative experience in the media buying community) but these points are a good start.

The Death of Display?

It seems like every year or so there is an groundswell of sentiment that the internet advertising display business is destined for a crash.  Noah Brier puts the point in the context of Federated Media and their shift to focus more on Conversational and Social media.   He references the article from Nick Denton back in November that has taken on mythical proportions at this point about how the online advertising should brace for the worst this year. 

Mike Shields cover piece at Mediaweek last week titled the “Death of the Display” was a good use of a clever title to draw attention, and delivered the typical industry fervor around this doomsday claim.  Mike’s response is tempered and fair and he addresses the issues and also gives credence to the industry insiders who have plenty of evidence to back up that fact that we’re heard this before and its simply not true.  I really like his idea on scarcity and believe that kind of Upfront mentality - where the “best” content is up for grabs early and limited makes sense for the future of the online.

That was our belief when we put together Largetail.  Its all about the quality of the brands and content in the publisher group.  You would rather place your ad during Mad Men, then the Tyra Banks show and likewise, we believe quality brands like BMW would rather place their ads on sites like Cool Hunting and Refinery29 then they would on Bill’s Blog.  The question then becomes more about curation then it does about impression.

I will agree with Chas Edwards from Federated that they are more of a publisher portfolio then they are a network.  That was the goal of Largetail as well.  The scale of a true network is in technology innovation and billions of impressions.  For a publisher portfolio it becomes about an audience and fullfilling the needs of the publishers.  So what do they need?  They need the collective voice of a more powerful entity representing and negotiating for them, they need sales people who understand their audience (who ARE their audience) and they need reps who will fight for them on the frontlines with media buyers and marketing directors to push smarter programs then just display.

Chas discusses how their decision was driven by talking to advertisers about their spending patterns for this year, but I don’t feel that what you hear from them is that surprising and a demand for such drastic measures.   They basically say they are gonna explore other options for advertising to make sure they get the best returns.  duh.  Isn’t that what a good online marketer should be doing at all times anyway.  At the end of the day the move by Federated is more buzz building then it is reality in how they will be operating their business.

Its unfortunate that this kind of buckshot planning is permeated throughout the advertising community during economic downturns.  Statements about the sharp move away from display are tossed around by people with limited understanding of its proper use and often times by those who haven’t been building effective plans in the first place.  The key is not one thing or another.  A smart media plan should have a good combination of conversational, display, and other interesting ideas that are custom for the brands and work well with the audience.   Display should be seen for what it is: highly useful for brand recognition and impulse purchase.

thehappycorp recently did a campaign for VH1 that performed better then any rich media campaign they had run. The success of that campaign was about the overall plan - quality media placements, interesting content, a good concept for the campaign and good execution of the ads.  The humor of the ad created conversation and the space it lived in did not limit is effectiveness.

The fact is, the current infrastructure that supports the IAB standard display advertising is going to be a tough one to change.  Standards have been set for years, millions of sites have designed around them, rich media companies like Pointroll and Eyeblaster have been setup to support them, designers have been trained to design for them and the pricing model for ad production doesn’t support the ability to create additional sizes for limited placements.  I argue that a dramatic shift from the current display model is something that needs to be explored, but it needs a well though out plan and industry leadership driving the innovation rather then a site by site, or network by network, solution.

One inherent mistake that I still see media buyers and journalists make when considering display is its purpose.  Display is for brand re-inforcement and impulse purchase.  Its not for direct response.  Never was and never will be.  But it does serve a purpose and that is getting you to hear about the stuff you didn’t even know you needed.  Its for awareness, not for drive to purchase.  There are plenty of options for direct response, but if I want a specific audience to know about my product, and the ads are designed well, then the campaign can be highly effective. I align display advertising with that impulse purchase rack in the super market when you are about to check out.  You notice it and if you find it interesting, you think to yourself for a fleeting moment that could be something you might like to purchase.  Whether that happens then or 2 days later is less important and harder to track.

I realize this all may not satisfy the unquenchable thirst of the metric mavens who demand statistical data , but from past experience, I have seen first hand that successful brand advertising is not just about clicks and that online display advertising is destined for long term growth in one form or another.