Ads That Work... Too Well?

Quick one today, because I'm fighting off illness and over scheduled. (Also, no image, because various forces are messing with me hard, the way that always happens when you are fighting off a bug. Not appreciated.)

Does anyone else consider the timing of the American Medical Association's call for a ban on broadcast ads for over-the-counter (OTC) medications curious?

I'm probably overstating this on the simplicity, but I think it's a simple case of OTC ads taking up the place of daily fantasy sports sites on NFL ads.

You remember those, right? They were only on every 90 seconds for the better part of two months, so much so that public irritation with the businesses probably accelerated the legal action brought against them in many states. (Well, that and the fact that the sites are clearly gambling, and corrupt, and only were made legal through a lobbying loophole. But I digress.)

Ads on NFL games are many things. Wildly expensive. Shown to tens of millions of viewers. Not skippable, because interest in the game is real time only, for the most part. 30 to 60 seconds long, an eternity in an attention deficit age. The last bankable mass audience. And incredibly memorable, because they are just about the only ads that anyone sees and remembers now.

There's pros and cons of OTC ads. Some studies have shown that patients are better at sticking to a program when they are more bought in, and that the ads do that. Others believe that this is a consumer segment in dire need of legislation and change, with political figures making the industry a target. The ads themselves can seem off-putting, especially when you get into the side effects. And as we've already established, the ads are being viewed.

That's the nature of spotlights; everything is revealed, and there's nowhere to hide. I wouldn't be at all surprised if, like DFS before it, OTC pharma is making the right move in the short term, and the wrong for the long.

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Single Metric Madness

Takes Control

Maybe you've seen this pithy little moment of nonsense in your travels around the Net: that you are more likely to be approved to gain admittance to Harvard than to click on a banner ad. Since no one loves ads other than the people who get paid to make them, it's big chuckle time at those foolish people who make ads, or those that use them.

Beyond the silliness of the comparison -- after all, only really bright kids bother to apply to Harvard in the first place, it costs money to do it, it's not as if they get millions of people trying to get in every year, regardless of life situation, and it's not as if you've thought about that rate any other time in your life -- there's also this.

If banners really were such a bad idea, why do so many smart brands run them, and why is such a significant amount of coin spent on them?

The reason is simple; the click is not the true metric of success. What is the true metric of success is the amount of business that's being done, and the banner buy is just part of a balanced marketing and advertising plan. Removing it doesn't make sense, so it stays.

Even from the dubious notion that brand impressions in a banner have no value (which would be unique to advertising) pure direct marketing standpoint, banner click rates are a tip of the iceberg metric. If a user opens up another tab, the banner clearly caused the awareness, but doesn't get credit for the click. If search engine traffic spikes following the display of a banner, it's also pretty obvious it had an impact. But it's not seen in a click rate. Where it is seen is in an A/B test, where a portion of the audience doesn't get the banners, and is measured against the viewed group.

A similar point happens around click rates in email (again, you aren't getting the full value of the impression from increased use of other channels, direct dials from direct mail letters, response rates on business reply post cards, and so on. And even if these single metrics are good, they don't tell the full story, or ensure success. If you run your North American banner in China, you could easily achieve a 10X click rate boost, but if none of that traffic converts, it's pointless.

That's because marketing is more complicated than a single metric. It's a lot of moving pieces on many chessboards, with impacts beyond the known, the easy, the simple. Measuring the simple stuff is good. Knowing the context is harder, and requires more analytics.

Or, failing that, a little faith that there are reasons why smart brands do what they do...

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

True Thanks

The easiest column fodder in the book for people who publish routinely (and, well, this is Post 101, so that's me) is to look to the calendar and grind. The Thanksgiving thanks list, provided it's on your category, is a lay up.

This one, however, is going to be a little bit different, in that I'm going to be a little more candid, and a little less, well, seasonal.

This year, I'm thankful that...

> I no longer rely on online banners to pay the bills.

What a year for digital, honestly. Starting with the slow-moving avalanche that was the end of Flash, going to the growing horror that was maladvertising, and ending with the increasing mainstream nature of ad blocking, and you just had a year unlike any other in the two decades that this has been, well, a thing. I still believe in the medium, if only because there's too much money in it, and I believe that tech will solve many of the problems that it's caused. But for the time being, it's nice -- really nice -- to not have to defend all of the issues of the medium.

> I have no equity in my last gig.

This seems odd, but honestly, I am thankful my options were underwater and pointless to exercise, and the entire sum and substance of the past gig is now something I can brush off my shoulder. There's a value in being able to speak openly about an experience, and to not have to, in any way, "root" for the enterprise. Clean break and move on and no, um, you know, given.

> My network has never been better.

From the designers that we've worked with at M&AD, to the old friends and contacts that I've caught up with, 2015 has been a great year for conversations and renovation. There's no such thing, when you work in the Wild West of digital marketing and advertising, as true job security, but an active and engaged personal network makes that ugly reality a little easier to take. And honestly, some of the people in my world are just game changers. (By the way, if you are looking for people, ping me. Got

> Health, and the health of loved ones.

It's not something you get to just take for granted, honestly. The time commitment to maintaining such things is not an easy thing to carve out, given the other parts of my day. You also get to the point of reading obits for people in your demographic. It's not something anyone gives thanks for, until it's entirely too important. Be grateful.

> The current gig.

It's in a challenging category with great opportunities, in a medium that has exceptional advantages, for a management team that's supportive and respectful, without any dead weight co-workers. The work-life balance is dramatically better, and while there are aspects to it that I'd change, no problems look like they are just going to be the same for, well, years. And I'm learning new stuff. If I can't be thankful for that, I'm doing it wrong.

What are you thankful for this year?

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