It has famously been said that to attempt the same thing over and over again and expect a different result is a definition of insanity. One could also argue that perseverance has a similar definition.
I guess that means that one could easily be remembered as a lunatic or perseverant, depending if the outcome ever comes out in their favor. It's with this thought rolling around in my head, that
I read -- and choose to write -- about the latest research on Internet brand advertising.
Last week Gavin O'Malley's piece "Report: You Know What The Problem With Online Brand Advertising Is?" covered the latest
in "Why branding works online" research, this time in a great report by eMarketer.
The main point we are still trying to universally accept is that an impression of an online brand
message is worth something to a brand. And of course, that Google gets all the credit for online advertising, based on a disproportionate attribution of value to the "last click" -- meaning
consumers see lots of online ads before they click on an ad that comes up during search. I think we can all agree that consumers see lots of ads, period, before they commit that "click."
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I am all for a strong click attribution system, but I also think we can agree that attributing all the value to the final click is silly at best, especially when it comes to a brand with
significant consumer awareness and acceptance. So we are back to the main point: Is an impression of a brand message to a consumer valuable for a brand? It seems silly even to type the question. Of
course the delivery of a brand message to a consumer is valuable. Okay, so the issue becomes: "How valuable is it?" Online publishers, agencies and marketers can all answer at once, in
unison: "It depends." And so we have arrived at our problem.
The problem is that something is "worth" whatever a market will pay for it -- nothing more, nothing less. You
can't create a market if there is no agreement on a standard currency (what constitutes a brand message delivery) or if there is a near-"infinite" supply on one side. These are the real
problems with bringing brand dollars online. There is a seemingly infinite number of "impressions" available for brands online, yet any idiot can tell you that there is not an infinite
amount of consumer attention available for brands, in any medium.
Really, the issue with bringing branding online isn't with the marketers and agencies, it is with the publisher side,
maybe with some help from the marketers, of course ;-). Publishers can create "impressions" simply by adding ad units, but adding ad units don't magically increase the amount of consumer
attention in the world, or even on a given page. What publishers have that is of value to brand advertisers is consumer attention. In order to prove valuable to brand advertisers, publisher must find
a way to share their audience's limited attention with marketers in a FAIR exchange of value.
All of this is why I have been advocating "engagement" as the metric brand marketers
should demand of publishers (hence why I question my perseverance vs. lunacy). Engagements mean that a publisher has delivered the active attention of a consumer to a marketer. The brand marketer now
has the opportunity to deliver a message and drive further engagement.
Admittedly, engagements don't account for the value of people seeing a message but not interacting with it. But if
publishers are forced to deliver on this metric, it will quickly become obvious which publishers are placing brand messages where people pay attention and which are not, and the extra value of
"views" will quickly be priced into the "cost per engagement." The best part about engagements is that publishers cannot create an infinite supply, which can finally result in a
meaningful market between publishers of content and brand marketers for consumer attention.
The marketer's role in this is twofold: 1. Don't force publishers' hands by arguing both
sides. Marketers can't claim they value the opportunity to guarantee the delivery of a message to consumers, then when presented with such an opportunity, cite the lowest ad network CPM rate they
have been quoted for negotiation purposes. 2. Build creative that is meant to be a contained brand experience/engagement. Engagements are not traffic generators. People don't necessarily want to
visit a brand's Web site at the drop of a hat, and forcing publishers to alter people's behavior doesn't work out for anybody. In fact, it just plain doesn't work.
I truly
believe that the onus is on content publishers and ad networks to be more responsible in defining and delivering value, if we want to see a time when brand dollars can be distributed online in
proportion to attention online.
Of course, there is a 50/50 shot I am a lunatic, based on my opening.
What do you think? Lunatic or just perseverant? Vote in the comments and drop me a
line at www.twitter.com/joemarchese.