K.I.S.S. K.I.S.S Bang Bang
March 9th, 2009 by Kathryn Koegel
I was dismayed to hear that a panel of online experts at last week’s AAAA’s conference basically threw up their hands at the state of online display ad metrics. (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101487)
IAB Director of Research Joe Laszlo called them “Confusing.” To Nielsen President Jim O’Hara they are an ”Enigma.” Mediasmith CEO Dave Smith called them “Inadequate,” while Marketing Evolution CEO Rex Briggs said they were “Disconnected.” Talk about scaring off your audience.
At the 2001 AAAAs, online was fighting for a seat at the table and was still called “emerging media.” We merited one lousy panel that generated less excitement than the exhibition hall. Now we’ve got center stage (at both this conference and in consumer usage) and we air our dirty laundry.
My question remains: why are we still discussing this issue? Has everyone in online stopped to consider that metrics is basically a NON-issue in other media. Sure Nielsen finally acknowledged delayed viewing umpteen years after the introduction of the VCR but marketers clearly don’t care. They continue to buy reach and use GRP models that still relatively accurately predict offline sales. (The promise of set top box data is so exciting, but at what point will agencies be equipped — or even want to — deal with the ramifications of all that data? Plus, can they handle the challenge of producing enough creative to appeal to the segments?) We must see all data — be it on traditional panel based or cookie based data — as merely directional and just get on with it.
We’ve got a data mess on our hands of our own making and the only way out of it is through the creation of a neutral third party — set up as an industry consortium — whose end goal is a planning product through which any data set, be it Google, Microsoft, Comscore or Nielsen can flow. Demographic data needs to be appended to the ad serving data so we stop talking cookies and bowsers and start talking reach of people. Just because we can capture all this data to do such finite targeting, does it really serve the purpose of advertising which is to pursuade an ever larger group of consumers to take some action? Behavioral targeting in my mind is a DR technique for souping up random inventory (like all those email page placements) the networks are awash in. It’s not the basis for a media plan.
Anyone remember ink-jetting in the early ’90s which was going to be the salvation of magazines? In an example that I worked on involving data matching to a subscriber list of scotch drinkers, guess what, it was damn expensive, consumers thought it was creepy, and why only talk to your proven audience?
As a DoubleClick alumnus — and someone who worked in print and TV — I feel qualified to say that online has the smartest minds in the business. But as someone from the TV realm once said, “TV is a C+ business” and yet it thrives and is no one is crying out that the :30 is dead. A recent profile in the NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/business/01marissa.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Google%20female%20executive&st=cse) of a top Google exec revealed that they actually do sit around a table when considering hires, assess SATs and GPAs and and ding unfortunate individuals who got less than stellar grades in macro economics. All that intelligence may be better suited to NASA — or the Obama administration — what we need are media professionals who stop overthinking the problem and start realizing that if we do not create post buy reporting based on demographics and reach and a universal platform to buy and plan online display from, we’re nowhere.
A simple plan: each company with a dog in this fight sends its best and brightest, takes away their iPhones and BlackBerries and locks them in the Newark Airport Marriott with no access to media or transportation. They get 5 days to come up with a simplification plan or are sentenced to another 5 days at the Newark Airport Marriott. They must issue a set of guidelines for buying, planning and measuring online display or they must agree to permanently move into the Newark Airport Marriott.
So Keep it Simple, Stupid or Bang, Bang, display is dead…and along with it a host of content that is extraordinarily valuable to consumers and our business economy.
Tags: ad metrics, Online advertising