• by Christopher M. Schroeder , March 30, 2005

Paraphrasing an old adage, there are liars, there are damnable liars, and there are statisticians. I cut my earlier professional teeth in national politics. And it never ceased to amaze me how both sides of a debate could find some statistic to prove with undeniable accuracy the truth of their position while, at the same time, their positions were 180 degrees apart.

How many times during the 2004 presidential debates did your head whirl while one candidate shouted "black!" with a host of statistics, and the other retorted "white!" with a numeric arsenal of his own.

There is nothing earth shaking or particularly new here, of course. One can hear Adam in the Garden of Eden saying to the Almighty, "You know, sir, one apple out of an entire tree is really statistically insignificant." In the world of online marketing and advertising, I am often befuddled and confused by how folks, especially in so-called "traditional media," use numbers. It is rather fascinating that there is so much confusion about what the numbers are and mean. And yet, with a dose of common sense, I sometimes wonder why there is any debate at all.

I was in New York a few weeks ago, and met with an assortment of advertising, television, and private equity types, and here is a sampling of what I don't get:

"For all the excitement about interactive advertising, Chris, television and magazine dollars (even "normalized" for a presidential election and Olympics), have never been better!" As the dollars are the dollars, this is true at one level, and yet I wonder why. Twenty years ago, one could reach 80 percent of the nation's audience on three television networks  now it takes over 100. The number of brands has proliferated exponentially. Nearly 400 new magazines are launched each year. Young people spend more time with online media. Why do marketers think throwing more dollars in decades-old models makes sense?

"For all the hype about tivos and pvrs [personal video recorders], Chris, we really don't know what the rate of uptake will be, and consumers will still hear our messages as they scan through ads." But consumers are voting with their feet now, well before there are 30 million households with pvrs. Fifty-one percent of households already surf past ads with a remote control, more than a third physically leave the room when commercials are aired, over a quarter mute commercials, and 80 percent of households report they conduct "other activities" when commercials appear. If someone created a new form of media with these kinds of statistics, what marketer in their right mind would invest in it?

"Pick your favorite research, Chris, marketers are just willing to invest 5 to 8 percent of their ad budgets online, it's too risky!" Putting aside the fact that the 5 to 8 percent myth is dated and doesn't include significant dollars marketers are now spending on their own Web sites and interactive affinity programs, why do advertisers continue to spend only a fraction of their budgets on a medium that attracts a significantly greater share of consumer eyeballs more efficiently and that has proven itself to be a more targetable, measurable, and cost-effective medium?

The Internet is the most cost-efficient, targetable, and measurable media in history. It is the first media in history that can serve simultaneously as a mass media and a demographically targeted, one-to-one media. It is an ideal way for marketers to profitably reach and build meaningful relationships with customers.

"Common sense isn't all that common," one very wise marketing executive told me recently. There is so much at stake in business being done as it always has, so much fear and confusion, that basic common sense is lost in the cacophony. But the history of change shows overall, and with great pain and cost, common sense usually wins out.

A few of us keep waiting for that messianic tipping point. Will it be the anticipated 30 million households with pvrs? Is it a 20 percent decline in newspaper readership? After a few years, maybe we'll wake up and wonder, "what were we thinking, and what were we spending on?"

Christopher Schroeder is the former CEO and publisher of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (chris.schroeder@wpni.com)