Viewed But Valueless: Targeting, Tech, and Millennials

Another Kind Of On Demand

I am the proud and loving father of a Millennial, a 15-year-old girl, and we have a couple of shows that we like to watch on demand. As my local cable provider has not monetized that advertising inventory to the same extent that they have “live” ads, the spots are for just a handful of providers, and are (very) repetitive. You also cannot skip through the ads, so you wind up seeing them a lot. It is a worse viewing experience than a live approach, but we are not the best on scheduling, and we do not own a DVR.

On some level, it seems silly to have any complaint about this at all. We did not schedule ahead, but we are still seeing the shows when we want. The tech to skip ads did not exist until my daughter’s lifetime, and when I was a child, skipping ads was either technologically impossible, or required the use of a VHS tape and careful fast-forwarding. Only in the lifetime of this child have we gotten to one-button escapes from this level of irritation. So do we smile when we encounter these likely CPA spots, and think, “Oh well, so much of what we watch doesn’t have these, so I guess it is completely fine that we are seeing these ads a lot”?

Well, um, no. Seeing how that reaction would be right up there with being thankful for smartphones when they drop a call.

My daughter’s hatred of these ads is strong enough that I reach for the mute button to limit the damage. I have even explained the nature of CPA/CPM ad buys, in an effort to try to take her “behind the curtain”, and share just how much better she has it than, well, me, when I was a kid. Mostly, I just try to mute the ad and change the subject by talking about the show we are watching. We talk, or she picks up her ever-present phone and distracts herself with other content.

I share this not to complain about my kid, or dwell on how media is doing a poor job at monetizing on demand programming. Instead, the point is to show how the technology changes the landscape, and how viewable does not equate to valuable.  Every single spot from the on-demand presentation is 100% viewable. However, since 100% of the ads currently shown are not targeted to either my daughter, or myself, in terms of an ad buy, it is little better than black hat bot fraud. Since the last mile of relevant is broken, the spots are doing their advertisers more harm than good. (By the way, there are some very big providers at work on this issue. I will get to that later in the week.)

Beyond the waste… if my daughter or I were so inclined, we could reach a worldwide viral network of people with our mockery of the advertisers in question. Since we are both fans and occasional performers of stand-up comedy, it is possible, since a great source of material is to hit the stuff that everyone hates. Again, this 2-way and viral tech is new, and so is the changing world for the advertiser. A generation ago, an advertiser does not have this concern.

A final point about all of this, and something that everyone involved in marketing and advertising needs to know, deep in their bones… what we do *is* annoying. It may seem acceptable, because it is in a medium where it seems tolerated, or we work on campaigns with high budget and analysis of the creative. If we reach such a targeted list, or in a low visibility / complaint media, we might not ever receive personal blowback, but make no mistake about it. There’s a world filled with people who regard our work as ballast or worse, and would be very glad to be ad-free for the rest of their lives.

They do not believe that the amount that we pay for that exposure is what keeps the lights on for any number of publishers, brands and services. These deniers and degraders exist in every medium, from the people who claim to throw out all of their junk mail, to those who download ad blockers to run with their content in laptop and desktop, to those who DVR and skip everything or don’t watch, and so on, and so on.

As marketing and advertising pros, we can ignore this aspect of our work, or dwell on it, all we like. It is a matter of personal choice.

My choice is to view this as a transition phrase, and trust that tech and a free market will eventually produce a wonderful future of targeting solutions that make advertising safe, legal, and rare…

On the other hand, you can regard that as naïve, since advertising density has only gone in one direction, and expect this generation to eventually conform. They will accept your high frequency campaigns as the (free!) price to pay for preferred content. They will learn your branding, your jingle and your offer the same way that it has worked for decades. A strong creative execution and a saturation campaign to build brand and drive awareness.

However, if you are well and truly invested in that latter option, and cannot imagine things going in any other way?

You probably do not want to know how my Millennial finds out about, and listens to, new music.

Seeing as how that revenue stream also has changed irrevocably during her lifetime, and she is a lot more attached to the musicians she likes than the TV show she watches…

* * * * *

Connect with me personally on LinkedIn. I also welcome email at davidlmountain at gmail dot com.

Niche Marketing Lessons, Or If You Love It, Put A Toe Ring On It

And Now For Something Completely Stupid

In my 15 years in online marketing and advertising, I have been fortunate enough to work for several high throughput providers that have also provided creative services.

Some of those clients were among the largest advertising plays in the world, in major consumer categories. These resulted in online ads that you have probably seen at one time or another, for brands that you have definitely heard of.

Others? Not so much.

This is what happens when it comes to new technologies. Sometimes, you get clients that are more bleeding edge than leading edge. If they are willing to spend, you do the business. Preferably by getting the money up front.

Looking back, I think my favorite was an outfit called Timmy Toes. They sold toe rings, and the merchandise was not, shall we say, subtle. So the SKUs ran into thousands of dollars, or tens of thousands of dollars, for stuff that just looked like it made walking or standing impossible.

The site sold just toe rings mind you, nothing else – and this was not a retargeting campaign, it was a broad jewelry placement. To users who were not just shopping for toe rings, since that select would have been a distribution set of next to nothing.

I am quite confident in saying that the team and I made the finest toe ring ads... that you have never seen.

And I am also confident in saying that you will be shocked, shocked, to learn that neither the campaign nor the business turned out to be a long-term success…

* * * * *

So what do you learn from doing this kind of work? Plenty, actually.

• Niche plays can be big winners, but usually aren't.

Toe rings notwithstanding, there has been a sizable percentage of winners that looked like oddballs at the start of a campaign. New plays to market always are more likely to fail, but as always with marketing, list and offer matter a lot more than creative. And when they get the right mix, it’s magic. Magic, you might know by now, is only magic because it's unexpected.

• Competitive analysis is higher.

In niche markets, the players are all working in a very small space, and are much more aware of what the other players are doing – especially the lead dog. From price points to language and execution, speed to duplicate or enhance is just higher when there are only a handful of players to monitor. It also means that your niche provider might have competition for your interest soon, so make sure you've got your policies on category exclusivity set up ahead of time.

• Your client contact is either a lifer or a transient.

If you have deep knowledge of a niche consumer category, you either love it and want to keep working with it for the rest of your days… or it is just a means to an end, and you will move along as soon as you can to avoid the business equivalent of type casting. (Which means this pro deserves your best service, since they are likely to find you again in some bigger category later. But I digress.)

• Approval to innovate is generally all or nothing.

Legal or brand compliance is usually what is cited for why a new version cannot look or read very different from the control, but the real reasons are probably more idiosyncratic than that. Your best move is to ask for all past work, and see if execution moved off the control before.

• Egos will not match market share.

The smallest fish in my career have had some of the most exact standards and stringent branding needs. Especially if you are dealing with a dominant market leader, you can find yourself with a client that is harder to please than someone with 100X budget. They will also fight you over what should be mentioned in the selling copy, usually in the favor of some deep benefit that’s far more meaningful to the maker than the buyers.

• Their audience may not be as unique as they think.

Data-driven look-alike modeling proves this, but so does just general marketing common sense. Our toe ring vendor back in the day would have been better off compiling a young and affluent list who viewed non-traditional publishing sites. Instead he chose to test his work against people who spent similar amounts on traditional jewelry. (To be fair, when you have the idea of selling really expensive toe rings over the Web, how can you dial down your own genius long enough to listen to someone else's opinion or data?)

Please share your favorite niche client in the comments, and anything you have learned from the work. I would love to hear about something odder than mine!

* * * * *

Connect with me personally on LinkedIn. I also welcome email at davidlmountain at gmail dot com.

Managing Creative Talent: Horses For Courses

Brainstorm

Horses for courses (British & Australian expression): Choosing suitable people for particular activities, because everyone has different skills. "Ah well, horses for courses. Just because a plumber can mend your washing machine, it doesn't follow that they can mend your car as well."

A small disclaimer before we get into Hurt Feelings. The following is not meant in total seriousness or sincerity, if for no other reason than I have been creative talent myself, and my best friends do this work. I also do not really know all that much about horses, or have any great like, or dislike, for them. Having said that...

If you ever find yourself with the great privilege that is managing a group of copy or design pros, you will find it to be a unique managerial challenge. Personality traits are much more likely to be part of the mix than in any other department, and the product of their professional work is more dependent on their mental state than most. You will also find a great mix of work requests, from template to breakthrough, or tried and true to break the mold. Which means that a good team contains...

1) War horses -- day in, day out workers who are capable of feats of great strength and low glamour.

Advantage: The warhorse stops for nothing. Durable, dogged, able to grind through tedious revisions and multiple executions. If you are running a shop that delivers on deadline and/or does many variations for different markets or seasonality, you might only have these folks on staff. (They also might not be suitable for traditional agencies.)

Disadvantage: A steady diet of tedious tasks will blunt the artistic edge of, well, anyone. Warhorses that are mistreated tend to go into engineering or management. (That is what we call a tell, folks.) In addition, when it comes to pure art or words, the warhorse is at a severe disadvantage against other pros.

How to handle: Do not let your warhorse know that their primary utility is the work ethic, as no one ever got into creative because they dreamed of working crazy hours. Give them low-leverage trick horse or race jobs from time to time to stretch their legs, but do not give them too much slack. Warhorses with time on their hands get excessively nervous about their job security, since it seems like everyone can just soldier on and get through a tough situation. (This is actually Not True At All, especially with creatives. Keep some of the types listed in this article at their desks past 50 hours a week, and all you will get is weak work, worse QA, and fast turnover. Moving on.)

2) Trick horse -- Innovative pros who are only happy when they are overcoming obstacles, through either experiments or moments of genius.

Advantage: Most likely to give you a great idea in a brainstorm, beat a control, or profitably break a template.

Disadvantage: Might need those hurdles to maintain interest in a project, and go off the brief to create the kind of situation where they are most comfortable. Turnover can be quite high if not properly managed.

How to handle: Make it very clear when innovation is, and is not, merited. Make sure to make space in projects to keep them occupied, and also keep a side list of "rainy day" projects (Q4 designs out of season is a good start) to refresh their batteries for when they've had to run in a straight line.

3) Thoroughbred -- high speed, cost and maintenance pros who are part of your biggest wins (and losses). What most people think of as creative.

Advantage: On the right day and track, frankly awesome to watch, and can do the kind of work that breaks down doors and gets people remembered and promoted.

Disadvantage: Can be temperamental, unable or unwilling to adapt to new conditions, and fail to improve the team dynamic and atmosphere. Usually do not do well with a very high workload.

How to handle: With enough deference that shows the talent is recognized, but not so much as to give the rest of the team the sense that they are all secondary players. In my experience, thoroughbreds also react well to light managerial training and responsibilities, as it compliments their method, rather than just their execution.

4) Dressage -- Disciplined high-art / concept folks who bring strict standards and training to their work. Typically bring advanced degrees to the table.

Advantage: Will keep a project on point with a discerning eye that ensures consistent standards. Portfolio level work comes from them routinely.

Disadvantage: Poor flexibility, throughput and speed, and can be a challenge to morale. If v1 never looks different from v2, you are working with dressage.

How to handle: Try to bring their good points to the rest of the team, while limiting the influence that they might have on deadline or low-leverage work. Dressage-style pros tend to gravitate to the same kind of jobs, whether it is branding, public relations releases, or any other single patron position.

So if you find yourself unable to relate to your team, going through a lot of personnel turnover, or on a performance plateau... maybe you just aren’t running them on the right courses.

Oh, and one last thing: do not ever tell them what horse you think they are. Because they will think the whole thing is demeaning, or spend too much time trying to be something they are not…

* * * * *

Connect with me personally on LinkedIn. You can check out my agency's blog at Marketing and Advertising Direction. The site has a growing number of posts and free content that you can use to improve your campaigns. I am sure that you will find it worth your time.

In addition to copywriting, direction and strategy, we also provide design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. Tell us what you need done, and your budget, and we will work out an RFP. I also welcome email at davidlmountain at gmail dot com.