• by Christopher M. Schroeder , December 6, 2004

To paraphrase the old adage - there are liars, there are damnable liars, and there are statisticians.

You may recall that I cut my teeth in politics. And it never ceased to amaze 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 debates (sorry to bring up the 2004 election - but I'll be brief...) did your head whirl while one candidate shouted "BLACK!" with a host of statistics, while the other retorted "WHITE!" with a numeric arsenal of their own.

There is nothing earthshaking 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 our worlds of online marketing and advertising, I have often been befuddled and confused by how folks use numbers. With all the hoopla of our eminently measurable and targetable industry, 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 this past week, 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 an 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 stations, now it takes over 100. The number of brands has proliferated exponentially. Over 400 new magazines are launched each year. New, younger audiences are shifting their hours significantly to online. Why do marketers think throwing more dollars in old models makes sense?

"For all the hype of TiVos and PVRs, 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 a 30 million household PVR penetration. Fifty-one percent surf past ads with their remote control, over a third physically leave the room when commercials are aired, over a quarter mute commercials, and a full 80% say they conduct "other activities" when commercials appear. If someone created a new 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!" The five to eight percent myth is both dated and doesn't include significant dollars marketers are now spending on their OWN Web sites and interactive affinity programs. Why do advertisers spend a fraction of their budgets on a media that attracts a significantly greater share of their consumer's eyeballs, more efficiently targetable, measurable, and cost effective?

"My business, Chris, is all about generating leads, and right now the market prices my needs so that my cost per lead is around $20 or so online, and over $350 in targeted print products and cable. It just is." This exec told me that there was no "measurable" difference in the quality of lead he receives online versus print/cable. He has a choice to attract them at either $20 or $350. Why is this a choice?

The Internet is the most cost-efficient, targetable, and measurable media in history. It is the first media in history that can, concurrently, be mass, demographic-targeted and one-to-one. If a marketer could have invented the perfect way to most easily and profitably reach and build relationships with their clients, it would be exactly this.

"Common sense isn't all that common," one very wise marketing executive said to me this week. 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 wills out.

A few of us keep waiting for that messianic tipping point - the event that kills all doubt. I'm not convinced such an event will happen, but that common sense is happening, shifting perceptions and actions maybe 3 to 5 percent a year. And after a few years, we'll wake up and say, "What were we thinking (and spending on?!)"

I laid out these numbers and others to a senior television exec, and how we'll all one day wake up saying "Duh!" And he gave me perhaps the most honest and indicative answer of all: "Hopefully, by then I'll be retired."