Commentary
The Tale Of The Not-So-Long-Tail
- by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, March 7, 2013
You may have noticed some of my coverage the past couple of days elsewhere on MediaPost about a new source of real media-buying data. The data from Australian start-up Standard Media Index, is
derived directly from the data processing systems of four of the six big agency holding companies -- Aegis, Havas, Interpublic and Publicis -- and it is revealing some surprising truths about the
relative shares and volumes of all media, but especially digital. On Wednesday, we reported that there
has been a dramatic slowdown in the premium online display ad marketplace, due in part to the extraordinary growth of display’s secondary markets, including ad networks, exchanges and
programmatic media buying. Today, I can debunk another precept about online media: That it’s a long-tail business.
According to SMI’s data, the top 10
digital media companies accounted for 55% of the digital media buys made by Madison Avenue in 2012. The biggest of them, Google, accounted for nearly a quarter (22%) of all digital ad dollars spent by
the big agency holding companies. The No. 2 player, Yahoo, accounted for 9% of Madison Avenue’s digital media buys.
Joe Mandese is the Editor in Chief of MediaPost. You can reach Joe at joe@mediapost.com.
This doesn't "debunk another precept about online media: That it’s a long-tail business". It actually shows that media *advertising* isn't a long-tail business. This is exactly what you would expect, because advertising has lower ROI for small-sellers, due to largely fixed overheads such as preparing copy and negotiating discounts, so people responsible for these should spend their marketing budget in other ways that are more effective.