Avoid Rubber Necking

Watch For It!

On my way to work this morning, my GPS alerted me of a delay ahead, but didn't tell me to leave the road for another route. Next, I saw a highway sign that asked me to go to the left lane, due to a vehicle fire. Expecting a major problem, the traffic slowed down for a full mile in advance, despite the road never being blocked, because the vehicle in question had burned some time ago, and wasn't even on the road. Just plainly visible for a gawker delay, nothing more.

As we come to the close of Q2 in the U.S. in the worlds of marketing and advertising, I'm struck, as always, by the sound of virtual crickets. But this year is a little ominous. If only for the road signs.

You'd think that, having been in the space this long, I'd just arrange vacation time to coincide with this time. The leading lights in the industry go to the south of France to spend an unconscionable amount of money on awards and connections. The rest of the U.S. closes up shop before the July 4 holiday weekend. Q4, when everyone makes most of their money, is too far away for serious grinding. There's every reason to take the time off and find a beach, roller coaster, mountain range or whatever works for you. And if I didn't have more pressing matters to take care of, and a child who is close enough to college age to make every dime we spend something that gets considered many times over, I'd be off as well.

But this year, there's a little tension in the lapse, because there just seems to be an inordinate amount of uncertainty in the industry about, well, everything. Will the Brexit vote continue to reverberate through the world's markets, sparking employment shifts and lower spends in the UK? No one really knows the severity of the damage, or if it will eventually reverse itself. Of course, it's impossible to discuss Brexit without bringing up the US presidential race, which has a similar or stronger ability to change outlooks. The vacant spot in the Supreme Court and recent major decisions almost seems minor in comparison to that upheaval, along with the rancor in Congress over gun control measures. Every day is a crisis, beyond even the media's need for crisis.

But the crisis in just don't know goes beyond politics. The Rio Olympics is happening in a country in unprecedented chaos, between the Zika epidemic and the political uncertainty following a presidential impeachment. The Islamic State has lost ground in Iraq, which seems to create more appetite for soft targets abroad. Syria continues to be heart-breaking, Russia seems downright provocative, this all somehow ignores North Korea and their missile tests, and so on, and so on.

Getting back to matters that are more directly connected to our world, ad blocking is exploding in popularity. Smartphones have changed every aspect of digital marketing, from responsive coding in email to new rules in optimization and UI. Viewability and fraud remain active fires, publishers continue to struggle to avoid race to the bottom CPMs, and everyone I know who works in digital wonders just how in hell analog maintains their billables.

Realistically, all of this will get kicked down the road, rather than actively settled, during the holiday period. Possibly to clear the decks for some fresh crisis, even. But in a period of both real and ginned up crisis, just being able to keep your head and grind out your work is, just by itself, an increasingly rare skill.

And if that isn't enough to keep your eyes and ears from all the distractions?

Just remember how many of your colleagues are getting left behind from all of the rubber necking...

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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 RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Texit

Back and to the Out

Tonight as I took my dog on his nightly jaunt through the neighborhood (he's the kind of beast that likes to activate all of the dogs in their yards without barking back, because he clearly enjoys instigating), I caught a fair number of backyard cookouts and family get-togethers. I live in an area that's nicely diverse, and as I saw a number of kids running around playing various chase games with various accessories, it really didn't matter what language they were speaking, because every part of it reminded me of my own family events. There's really nothing more heart-warming than seeing generations coming together, with the young buring calories at a ferocious rate, while the older folk chuckle at the shenanigans. Language really doesn't matter.

But as we moved our mile down the road, to blocks that are very different in their demographics, I started to wonder if everyone felt the way I did. And from there, to the fallout from the UK referendum to leave the European Union, and it's continuing impact on world markets, and by inevitable extension, marketing and advertsing circles.

To wit... could something similar happen here?

If you think about it, the United States really is more fragile than we might care to admit, and might not make sense from a shared values experience. The people of Seattle have much more in common with the people of Vancouver than they do with, say, Miami. Miami's denizens probably don't care all that much about what happens in Maine, and outside of tourism experiences, none of the above probably thinks all that much about, say, Los Angeles or Hawaii. And none of those folks think very often about the northern plains, and vice versa.

Something more to this, even with all of the uncertainty in this year's contest; all of these places are increasingly likely to always vote in the same direction in general Presidential elections. Similarly, cities tend to always vote differently than rural areas, regardless of the state they are located. So what's to stop Balkanization from going world-wide, even if it's not so likely in a country that, all things considered, really isn't under the same level of stress and uncertainty as the countries in Europe? Especially if the immediate fallout from the UK vote leads to, say, Scotland and London both trying to re-enter the EU on their own?

In the U.S., there's the historical precedent of intense warfare, let alone the interconnected nature and shared language and currency of the States. We also have a shared military, currency, language, electrical grid and so on. Patriotism isn't felt more or less strongly by different groups and regions, even if you might not see the same percentage of flags on cars or turnout at Fourth of July events.

But maybe that changes. Especially if the vote continues to polarize, and the nature of technology, communication and trade continues to add stress and uncertainty to the future earning power of various groups. Maybe the social belief systems and nature of shared values continues to erode, especially as we make uneven progress on social issues, a trend from religious to secular, and we all spend an increasing amount of time on the coarse-inspiring Internet,

I'm sure that, would such a bill come to public voting and debate, it would fail, and the U.S. would remain a single nation. But I'm less sure that if that vote were to keep coming up, that the rate to remain would always stay the same.

Because that's kind of the problem with taking your country "back". It doesn't always sit well with those who were, in their opinion, taking it forward.

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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 RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Banner Blindness

Seen, Unseen, And Still Billed

This week, I was on a seminar that discussed the state of the nation in Banner Land, that troubled world of digital display advertising where viewability, ad fraud and getting what you paid for is far from assured.

And there was good news! Viewability is up, all the way to nearly half of the banners sold. Fraud is as low as 3%, or as high as 37%, which is in no way indicative of a massive problem that no one really has a handle on. And the fact that this might be the easiest and most prevalent way for criminals to operate, with opportunity all over the world, means that the presenter said, and I am quoting, "fraud will not disappear overnight." Good thing I was sitting down for that.

Now, none of this is especially new or novel, and the plain and simple fact of the matter is that Web ads still matter and still work, because when you A/B test search and email results without them, the banner audience shows a lift, assuming that the ads are, well, seen. But with the Internet Advertising Bureau still holding on to the plainly absurd standard of 50% pixels shown for just one second as a viewable ad, and viewability billing treating 70% as 100%...

Well, just what part of this should convince anyone that there's real improvement afoot? Or that if you aren't currently in the banner business, that it's one that you really should prioritize, moving forward?

Here's the crux of the problem for me. You've got an unloved ad unit that has never really worked for the consumer, especially in mobile, which is where the majority of traffic is going these days (and that trend isn't stopping). To get the same results as previous, you have to constantly scale up, which technology will easily allow you to do... but only at the cost of oversight, because no one has the time to monitor the untold number of Web sites that get in the mix for programmatic and retargeting campaigns.

So where we get to is an ad unit that can only work for brands with low concerns or market standing, for billing that has to be either so low that it can survive the low viewability, or in contracts that only pay off on rare events. It's just a perfect blueprint, honestly, for fraud.

And a few more points of viewability, or a greater focus on fraud, or a little more give back for the banners that were never seen, and honestly, should never be part of any billing moment?

Isn't really changing much...

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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 RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.