• by Masha Geller , September 28, 2001

This morning, I received an email titled "Don't miss the ad revolution!" Good beginning, right? Unfortunately, the next sentence started out with "While broadcast dies..."

The email went on to pitch a streaming something-or-other that produces the "highest response rates ever recorded online," but I confess I had no interest in reading the rest of it.

"While broadcast dies?" Were these three irresponsible words supposed to get my attention? Mission accomplished. I am now seriously thinking of instituting a weekly award for 'most ludicrous pitch.'

In my humble opinion, broadcast is as far away from dying as this streaming company is from making it... despite the high response rates.

Just so there's no confusion, I support the development of streaming advertising and firmly believe the streaming ad industry will eventually figure out how to deliver results and advertisers will start thinking about spending actual ad dollars on streaming ads. Eventually!

If any one medium has to fear the Internet, it's cooking recipe magazines - InsightExpress recently found that the Internet beat magazines and moved into the #2 position after cookbooks, as the preferred source for recipes. The surprise findings showed that 23% of home cooks prefer to use the Web to seek out recipes compared to only 21% who cited magazines, but that's another story.

The point of this rant? I'm not against touting the benefits of streaming advertising, if indeed there are any to tout. I'm not against enthusiasm and truthful promotion. But trashing one ad medium to help another is deplorable and I'm deeply saddened by the fact that someone in our industry is employing such a tactic.