The Always-On Problem

24 7 365

A brief (?) aside, but wait for it, Marketing and Advertising will happen.

I remember when I first realized I had a problem, when it came to being online. I'd spend hours on my favorite site, agonizing over getting the wording just right. I cared way too much about what a specific girl would say about what I wrote. I disrupted my sleep schedule, engaged in the usual hyperdriven levels of teenage drama, and frequently valued the relationships made online more than my immediate friends and family.

The year was 1985, and the medium was bulletin boards, the CB radio level precursor to the Internet as most people knew it. My addiction was to a monochrome screen, download times that were barely faster than a very fast typist. But still, strangers on a screen, potentially from all over the world, reacting to what you write. Magic.

The point? Addiction to screens is not exactly a new phenomenon. At least when I was a teen, I had to be in front of my monitor, in my room, with no one else on the house telephone. (Woe to the kids who used pay sites, or dialed in to boards that were long distance calls. That led to spectacular levels of Parental Trouble.)

Today? It's in your pocket, fast, with mutli-media and so much more. You can check it hundreds of times a day, and many do, without ever thinking about it.

How does anyone say no to it, really?

The answer is that, honestly, they don't. Which also means you have untold opportunities to make a buck off them.

The best time to send your commercial email... is probably when no one else is, particularly if you've got a solid offer and an algorithm that's pushing out relevant goods. I've seen big bursts of clicks on 11pm local sends, because we can't say no to the phone or tablet, and looking at the email is nearly as easy as ignoring it.

How about your content piece? Many of the best that I read are sent in the very middle of the overnight, so they aren't above the radar. Others sprinkle them out during the work day, and avoid falling under the waves in the in box by avoiding the channel entirely.

Your marketing and advertising messages exist in a sea of other moments of interruption. Tests are being co-opted by competitors, search, social, direct mail and more, and nothing ever, ever stops. Particularly if you have consumers spread over many time zones, all of them with the ability to always be on. Especially now, when you not only have the ability to receive the message at any time, but the data shows that many, well, are.

I don't know if it's doing anything good for us as a species. I worry about attention spans, sleep schedules, the damage done to personal relationships, the ability to be truly present and focused. I've seen adults pay very good money to play beautiful golf courses, but still online. I've seen others gambling big sums of money, making decisions at a poker table, still online.

We have the ability to market and advertise to these people all the time.

And if we don't, someone else will.

That's a problem, right?

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Another problem: I need you to like or share this column. Feel free to also connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes on the top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

Being Uncomfortable

Professional Advice

I notice that my opponent is always on the go
-And-
Won't go slow, so's not to focus, and I notice
He'll hitch a ride with any guide, as long as
They go fast from whence he came
- But he's no good at being uncomfortable, so
He can't stop staying exactly the same 

- Fiona Apple, "Extraordinary Machine"

This weekend, I hosted my annual fantasy football league. (Don't worry - the marketing and advertising is coming. Patience.) The league has been running for the better part of a decade. We do a modified auction, which is a single round in position, which means there's a fascinating amount of positional raises and gamesmanship. Combine this with some league quirks (bonuses for a defense that wins the game, year-long scoring instead of head to head), and you've got something with a fair amount of Nerd Appeal.

Which gets me back to the M&A portion of the program. Why haven't we made the jump to salary cap stuff, like true hardcore nerds? Why haven't we tried Individual Defensive Players? Why haven't I gone the extra mile and played in the hottest portion of the market now, which is daily fantasy leagues?

Well, I've got other commitments (lots of 'em!). I don't have time for it. I'm a grown up and all, husband, father, businessman. I just play my one league, and don't want to increase my time commitment.

But if I really want to dig into it, I don't have time for this league, either. There's multiple blogs to populate, projects to deliver, a child that's starting to look at colleges, another that deserves more attention than she gets, because, well, the first one is looking at colleges. Even my dog deserves more time (collie, needs a lot of exercise), and I've fallen behind on my fitness goals. If I want to think more about side entertainment and cash, my poker game could use more reps, and has a lot more chance of thrills and payoffs than my single entry fantasy league. And so on, and so on.

I have time for my fantasy league, because I make time for it. What I'm not making time for is Something New.

And that's a very important and difficult distinction to make for a marketing and advertising pro. We all get to the point where we need to work harder to stay in touch with our target demos, when we have to force ourselves to listen to new music, view new art, watch new cinema and shows, rather than do what's comfortable... because what's comfortable rarely gets you into a good state to sell something new, to someone new.

It's not what audiences do at certain stages of their lives, for the most part, which is the real reason why brands don't target older consumers. It's not that they don't have money, or won't try new things. It's that trying new things is hard, and doing hard things isn't a choice we want to make when we get older. For younger consumers, FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is much more than the fear of making a mistake.

How do you overcome this? Well, it's a personal question and answer, but for me, it's a discipline issue. I'm not likely to become a world-class athlete, but I still go to the gym. I'm not likely to make it to the final day of a huge multi-day poker tournament, but I enjoy the game, so I'm still going to work on my reads, and try to make things difficult on my opponents. I'm not likely to become a scratch golfer, but I want to be better, so I'll keep playing. Making time for family works better when you have other things beyond them, and can truly value the time, rather than make it feel like an obligation.

As for making sure you stay attuned to new trends and developments in the field... well, that's just being a professional. And being a professional is all about going beyond the comfortable, and always learning something new.

Which means that the real reason why I like my fantasy league just the way it is, and don't want any changes? Because it's actually a leisure activity. No matter how much it might seem otherwise.

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Thank you for making the time for this column; if you like or share it, I'd appreciate it. Feel free to also connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes on the top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.

Where The Ads Will Be

Box And One

Much to do this week in AdWorld around the rise of online ad blockers. Bob Garfield at Media Post points out, correctly, that the current hue and cry is dumb, that the industry hasn't fixed the problem for the decade or more that it was on the horizon, and advertising execs need to finally cotton to the fact that, well, No One Likes Them, or their ads. They just tolerated them while they had to, and now, they don't have to.

Which pivots to Roi Carthy for AdAge, who turns a column into an advertisement (ironic!) for his company's ad blocking software. Consumers have a right to this stuff, you see, the same way that they had a right to download music for free, walk into stadiums without paying for a ticket, and just go to the supermarket and eat your way through the produce section. Wait, no one has the right to do that, even if no one's watching and you won't be caught? Then why does the software exist?

Don't have enough dumb in your life? Then step on down to hear the next approach, where consumers wouldn't block ads if the ads were just better. Also, if ads never, ever had malware. Because blaming all advertisers for a few bad actors is totally fair. People blocking ads are heroes!

Completing the collection of Oh, What A Piece Of Work Is Man? Ben Barokas at Sourcepoint, who equates his company's software as so meaningful, he's Superman (in a cape, no less) to online publishers. Why? Because his software blocks the ad blockers, allowing for the publishers to put the ads that the scofflaws didn't want to see... back in front of them. (Feel free to add a Nelson Muntzian Ha Ha! here.)

Heck of a way to run a railroad, folks.

Anyway, the plain and simple of online ads is this. The nits have won the day, up to now, because they've managed to only pay for clicks. The criminals have won the day, up to now, because Web publishers went to the lowest common denominator with Flash for a solid decade longer then they should have. The idiots who contributed to a world in which digital content couldn't be monetized have won the day, up to now, because it was easier to cry Hell In A Handbasket and Privacy Violation, rather than commit to software that might have monetized traffic enough to carry the day.

But, well, nits, criminals and idiots have never, in the course of human history, kept winning the day in perpetuity in areas of Real Business. And online ads are a real business, if only because other formats have, believe it or not, even worse problems.

Television is suffering viewership losses that are not going to reverse themselves, as younger generations have increasingly chosen their own screens. Print ads wish they had the problems that online did, because it would mean people were still trying to fix the issue, rather than just write it off as a lost cause. Outdoor is in a better boat than print, and has the wild card hope that the Internet of Things might one day save the business, but they'll take the hit if everyone keeps staring into their screens, particularly on mass transit. Telemarketing, radio, direct mail, the Yellow Pages -- all occupying different points on the continuum of obsolescence, all tremendously impacted by the continuing earthquake of worldwide connectivity and communication.

Online ads have, no question, Serious Issues... but these are UI and UX issues, rather than fundamental and critical failings. Will there be more fits and starts? Of course. But there are Serious People (hello, Alphabet!) at work on these issues, and way too much Serious Money at stake to leave things to the nits, criminals and idiots.

The eyes are on screens. The ads will be where the eyes are. The details of how will be worked out.

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Your eyes were on this column; if you like or share it, more eyes happen, and I am happy. Feel free to also connect with me on LinkedIn, email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes on the top right. We offer copywriting, direction and strategy, along with design, illustration, photography, coding and hosting. The RFPs are always free. Hope to hear from you soon.