Stop Saying Ads Must Get Better

Fighting Dirty

In one of the best moments of "Inside Amy Schumer" this past season, there's a skit where a self-defense class is taught, but instead of physical combat, it's emotional combat as part of a male-female romantic relationship. In the middle of many solid laugh lines, a male student tries to get a word in edgewise, and is told that he can never raise his voice... with the joke being that, well, he hadn't raised his voice.

But there it is, the perfect way to escalate an argument into nuclear warfare: tell someone they are doing something when they aren't. (Oh, and if you want a bonus one on this, feel free to accuse someone of always thinking they are right. Well, um, does anyone really argue for things that they think are wrong, without being, well, psychopaths? But I digress.)

We now turn to the reason you read these little musings: the point in re marketing and advertising.

The purveyors of ad blocking software, in a remarkable bit of conflation, seem to believe that blocking ads will (magically?) make advertising better. The argument is that native is great (um, sure, if you've got great content producers who don't mind working in the gray area), and the current ad situation, especially vis a vis mobile, is so bad that you are going to have to burn the village down to save it.

There's some merits to these arguments. No one can, with good conscience, argue that the mobile Web and advertising experience is what it should be. Defending the status quo is borderline impossible, especially when you consider how viewing ads has recently put people at risk from malvertising, let alone data plan costs. Like file sharing before it, the existence of the technology seems to argue for the use of the technology.

But, well, lots of technologies exist that you just can't use any way that you like. Plenty of markets are nearly as messed up as online advertising, not the least of which is healthcare. But pointing a gun at a doctor and demanding service, or bringing a bazooka into your local pharmacy to debate per pill costs, is not going to work. That would just be obvious theft, and result in either incarceration or societal chaos... and asking doctors or pharmacists to fix the healthcare market, since they now have this new stress to make it better, would be insanity. Online advertising will get better when it is properly priced, and when we stop making it dance on the heads of pins (I'm talking about clicks here) that other ad channels don't have to do.

Also, well, how exactly should ads get better? No one wants to give up more of their information to make them better targeted. No one wants to give them more time and space to tell a story. And truth be told, the vast majority of ads aren't supposed to be Great; they are supposed to make you more likely to buy something. Great ads are mostly great for the people who make them, not the companies that run them.

Finally, this. I've worked on more ads than, likely, anyone you have ever met. (Thousands of clients, 15 years in online. It's been fun.) The number of ads that were not the best we could do, given the size of the contract and the need to make a deadline? Damned near none, really. It's what professionals do; you work to the best of your ability, even if the client has challenges (maybe especially if they have challenges). We didn't shortchange anyone. We made the best ads we could. So does, well, just about every ad pro in the business.

So stop saying ads have got to get better, because they are already just about as good as they can be. What needs to improve is the technology and bandwidth around the online experience, the pricing for viewable impressions for branding value, and the understanding from consumers that without some form of value exchange, most professional and quality amateur content will have to go behind pay firewalls, and the Web as we knew it, where traffic meritocracies could spring up based around a roughly fair system of monetization, will end.

With the same quality of ads as any other medium has.

* * * * *

Please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

The Five Impressions Rule

Classic marketing -- and by classic, I mean the stuff we learned when everything wasn't through our own very personal screens -- held that if a marketer was going to have any chance of making the case to sell to a new prospect, they needed to reach that prospect in a wide variety of ways to establish branding and legitimacy. While there were always a few people who had an immediate need, or might buy just on impulse or price, most consumers went with a trusted brand, and that level of trust was achieved through a long tail of broadcast, radio, print and more.

Now, those factors are still important, but they seem increasingly subservient to just in time marketing impressions through digital modes. Word of mouth still matters, but it might come from social media or a blog, rather than a moment in the market.

Where the rubber hits the road, however, is building a brand. Even for online-first brands, broadcast is where the story is told, because that 30 to 60 second spot is so ingrained in the story format that's expected... even if it's not needed. And perhaps those just get ported into online video, with ad-blocking being the only issue to overcome.

Well, that and the fact that public acceptance of ads, especially in the mobile platform, is so low that the blocking software is getting pushed as a performance, bandwidth and security saving measure. Rather than just, well, simple theft.

My belief is that despite the commonality of everything still coming through that single screen, different channels make your look and feel of that screen very different. If something's in your social media feed, that's a different place in your consideration set and mental acuity than an email, native ad, interstitial, audio ad in a podcast, and so on. Daypart might also make for a very different brand impression, on a very different platform, with more or less time on their hands.

It's an open question as to whether the market will support this supposition, because it's all new, and the screen is personal enough to make some think of stalking. But it won't be an open question for long. (Yes, that's a bit of a tell.)

* * * * *

Please like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Putting Numbers To Nonsense

Ever run into a situation where your client is just insisting on what you know is a poor practice?

It happens a lot, especially in digital, where metrics can be learned pretty quickly. At some of my gigs, I've been front line with clients who just had to do things in a certain way, even when it meant they were leaving money on the table.

(A small aside: of all the places to leave money, isn't the table one of your better choices? At least there, you'd think you'd be able to get to it pretty quickly. Moving on.)

You'd be surprised, honestly, by just how hard it is to change some processes, especially in more conservative verticals. Bringing in more aggressive e-commerce practices and design work can seem like you are downgrading the brand or threatening the margins.

In moments like this, your only real course of action as a marketing and advertising change agent is to try to put numbers to the practice. Ideally, this is done in a test cell, but if you aren't getting enough traction to change the poor practice in the first place, maybe a test is also asking too much.

Here's the process that I usually take.

1) Defuse the situation. Often, changes can be seen as a threat to outside creatives, or a situation where you can come off as insensitive or threatening. So what you need to do is point out that your motives in making this recommendation are for the long-term success of your client. It seems like something that's so obvious that it doesn't need to be said, but believe me -- it needs to be said.

2) Clothe it in a FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) moment. If a competitor is doing better because of the practice, if you feel like you've established a little bit of rapport, then show the better practice in question. While you should never quote a performance boost in a way that seems promissory for obvious liability issues, quoting a general "up to" number can be effective. 

3) Don't get doctrinaire. You don't need to make this a my way or the highway kind of approach. If your new way of doing things inspires a test because it speaks to a new thought process, that may be a bigger win that what you were recommending. Remember, the point isn't to just improve performance; it's also to learn something significant.

4) Make it seem like their idea. If you can tie the thought process from your clients's supplied materials, it's a spoonful of sugar. Again, it's all about where you get to, not who will get credit for the direction.

5) Identify the blocking agent, and if necessary, set yourself a reminder. Every meaningful change tends to come all of a sudden in most testing situations, so if you do find yourself blocked, keep in mind the name of the person performing the block, and a 3 to 6 month window where you ask again. Persistence pays, especially if you work in a restrictive environment.

* * * * *

Persistence can also pay off when you like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit our RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.