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RSS"Are We There Yet?"
So, let's imagine that your 5-year-old child interrupted you every 14 and a half seconds with "Moooommmm..." or "Daaaaddd...". If we use my patience limits as a baseline here, that mean's you'd last about 1.3 minutes before you went ballistic. The difference, of course, is that we're genetically hardwired to pay attention to our children, much as we sometimes might try not to. We've been conditioned to ignore advertising.
But what happens when we really want to buy something? Suddenly, we're looking for information, and we spend a lot of time doing so. At least, that's true for some purchases. Take a computer, for instance. It's not unusual to spend 10 to 15 hours researching a computer purchase, from the minute you decide you need one to the minute you tear open the box in your home. That's not including the many hours needed to get your "plug and play" box actually playing after plugging.
The Cost of Consumer Research
Of course, we generally don't put a cost on our time, but let's say an hour of your time is worth about $40 (an average rate for someone making $75,000 per year). That means that $1,000 box of electronics cost you an additional $600, just in time spent to pick the right box.
The Internet is not making this any easier. Yes, as consumers, we're armed with more information sources, but we spend a lot of time sorting out sense from nonsense. The explosion of information sources, both the good and the bad, mean we're spending more time thinking about what we should buy. A study by ScanAlert found that that across many ecommerce categories, the average time to buy has increased by almost 79% in the past two years. Now, this was just the duration from first visit to purchase in the actual online store. It doesn't include any consumer research before visiting the store. But I think we're safe to assume that there would be a corresponding increase in the amount of online consumer "tire kicking."
It's No Picnic for Advertisers Either
Before you feel too sorry for yourself, let me tell you, it's not easy being an advertiser, either. How do we get past the filters? How do we stand out from the other 3,999 messages you'll hear today?
To recycle some research I did for a previous column (because research is a terrible thing to waste), the Ontario Tourism Board ran newspaper ads in Toronto targeting people looking to vacation in the province. The ad cost (at posted rate card rates) about $54,000. Even with an exceptional response rate, that ad might sneak though the filters of 1,700 or so people and actually catch their attention. This works out to an average cost of about $32 per introduction, or, to put it another way, $32 to tear a hole through that advertising barricade you've been building.
Got a Minute? I'll Make it Worth Your While
So, if advertisers are willing to pay to get your attention, why not cut out the middle man and pay you directly? Why should the Toronto Star get all that money, when you're the person the advertiser wants to talk to? What if every one of those 4,000 advertisers who are going to try to get your attention today (Consuummmerrr...Consummmerrr!) paid you a dollar to listen to what they have to say? You'd do okay financially, to the tune of about $1.46 million a year. Of course, your brain would explode after the first hour.
The concept is not as far-fetched as it seems. In fact, in 1999 John Hagel III and Marc Singer, both principals with McKinsey and Company, wrote a book called "Net Worth" that explored this very premise (along with a number of others) as a potential online business model. The book provided a detailed business plan for a new concept: the infomediary. Some of the details have been passed over in the last eight years since publication, but the basic premise still addresses a significant disconnect in today's advertising marketplace. Next week, I'll lay out the foundation of infomediaries and look at how some of our favorite search players seem to be inching their way towards Hagel and Singer's proposal.
We now return you to your regular commercial onslaught.
RSS FEEDS
The same filters and blocks that I have in place to stop advertising messages can also be turned off, all I need is some incentive...!
I wrote a while back about a guy who sold his non-identifying personal data on eBay, along with the right to target one ad per day to him for 30 days. He got $355 in the auction, or just under $12 per ad. Could be a pretty lucrative gig!
Now, the vast majority of these four "kilo-ads" come to you unrequested and unwanted...and therefore, if e-mail are rejected either by our "SPAM blockers" or our use of the "Delete" key...or if in our media (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, various display devices, usw.) by our conscious minds...WITH ONE IMPORTANT EXCEPTION!
Earlier this summer, I bought a new computer...from an ad in a newspaper flyer! Why? I was looking for a new computer, at an advantageous price...and this machine, on a price vs. features basis, even beat out the refurbished machines I saw promoted regularly...!
Moral of the story? IF you happen to be trying to sell what a specific buyer (and/or viewer of your ad) needs/wants/THINKS he/she/it needs/wants (and creating those thoughts is the task of your advertising agency/person..!) is YOUR job as the seller...!!
IMHO, YOUR task...as the seller...is to tell me clearly and comprehensibly EXACTLY what you are trying to sell me...WHY I need it (in comparison to other versions, if this is a competitive market...!) and HOW to reach you should I accept your offer! Further, you must do this in a totally and demontrably honest fashion...if I am to buy your weasel-eliminator rather than the Acme, which costs three dollars less, you had better tell me WHY...using true and verfiable data...why yours is preferable!
Hey...my "local Newspaper" is "Oshawa This Week"...which started out as a free handout, including as many flyers as possible...but, after the death (by strike) of the ACTUAL local paper, "The Oshawa Times," had to assume a more respectable role...! However, I still depend on its delivery of the local grocery flyers, so I can figure out what is on sale at which chain and whether the saving is worth the effort of stocking up...!
Steven C. Barr stevenc@interlinks.net
Meanwhile, for the more passive consumer, online immersion in campaign mini-sites, or gaming advertisements, or even the casual glance across from site content to an attractive or amusing banner becomes the proxy for the retail foreplay of the shiny terazzo-floored mall. The consumer does not need the virtual edifice of total immersion in some Second Life pavillion to trigger the emotional excitement of the retail hunt.
So don't read the situation the wrong way round, if either party should paying the other in this exchange, it's the consumer that should compensate thier suppliers for working so hard to innovatively, attractively and entertaingly fulfil their wants and needs.
But then, wait a minute, isn't that how it works already? Brilliant!
I have yet to see who authored the study, the actual components, set up, etc and any ascertainment as to the validty. Personally I think this ijust might be a very good example one of those if you say it enough times scenarios that everyone ultimately accepts it as fact.
Can someone prove this to me and the rest of the world that is has been actually researched and truly validated?
The fascinating thing is that once you start to pay the consumer directly for their attention, you change their attention in a way that is not beneficial to the advertiser, you distort it. That's why incentivized leads work so poorly for advertisers and Google works so well.