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Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Advertising As A Destination Model-A Contrarian View
Posted by: Peter Krainik
MarketShare: Advertising marketing & media
I caught up again recently with digital pioneer and media
contrarian Jeff Einstein of the Brothers Einstein, and we
discussed what he describes as the existential crisis in
the commercial media channels today.
Pete: What's the problem, Jeff?
Jeff: The real problem in the media ecology right now is
the absolute dearth of effective, scalable reach for big
brand advertisers. All branding is a function of reach,
first and foremost, and brands simply can't grow unless
and until they can find and secure cost-efficient ways to
scale effective reach. In fact, scalable brand reach is
the only nondiscretionary line item in any big brand media
spend, and that's why?after all this time?digital branding
revenues are still just a small fraction of their network
TV counterparts, despite the rapid growth of the digital
channels and the equally rapid erosion of effective network
TV reach in recent years. Brand advertising nowadays is
suddenly like the proverbial tree in the forest that falls
when no one is around to hear it. Despite the increase in
sheer tonnage, the media channels are shedding effective,
scalable brand reach.
Pete: How can there be no effective, scalable reach when
there's so much inventory, especially online?
Jeff: For the same reason that knowledge and wisdom are
subtractive, not additive. Because the entire advertising
industry?especially online?caters almost exclusively to
the supply-side creation and distribution of the one thing
no one in an on-demand media universe demands and the one
thing everyone in an on-demand media universe is equipped
to avoid: the ads themselves. It's utterly nonsensical and
completely delusional to think for a moment that we can
generate effective, scalable brand reach with the one thing
no one wants and everyone is equipped to avoid?regardless
of the medium.
Pete: But what can advertisers do to compensate for the
loss of effective, scalable reach on TV if no one wants
the ads online either?
Jeff: We need to begin by asking the right question, one
that's truly mindful of the fact that all commercial media
are now and always have been on-demand. And the right
question in an on-demand media universe isn't, "How do we
target the right audience?" The right question is, "How
do we get the right audience to target us?"
Pete: Implicit in that question is an assertion that the
right audience somehow qualifies itself.
Jeff: Exactly, Pete. Self qualification is now and always
has been the defining characteristic of all on-demand
media. In fact, we declare our demographic profiles every
time we decide which programs to watch on TV, what to
listen to on radio, which magazines to read, or which
websites or blogs to visit online. In an on-demand media
universe the right audience always qualifies and declares
itself simply by showing up. But in advertising, getting
the right audience to show up is the easy part.
Pete: What's the hard part?
Jeff: The hard part is delivering the brand message once
they get there because no one ever goes anywhere for the
ads, and the ads can no longer hope to penetrate the
massive inertia generated by their own incessant clutter,
especially online. The patent inability to bust through
the clutter of our own commercial media environments adds
insult to injury for advertisers because it forces them
to pay the equivalent of a progressive environmental tax,
what I call it the Inertia Tax, the growing percentage of
each media dollar dedicated to overcoming the inertia
generated by the commercial media environments themselves.
The Inertia Tax online is especially onerous and masks the
much simpler truism that the ads aren't there to support
the content in the first place. Quite the contrary: the
content is there to support the ads.
Pete: Some would argue that content is king.
Jeff: Content may be king, Pete, but content is always
incidental to the real function of all commercial media:
deliver the ads. This fundamental truism of commercial
media gets lost in the clutter each and every time we sit
down to calculate our Inertia Tax. Even kings need their
financial barons.
Pete: So what can advertisers do?
Jeff: Rather than pay to immerse the ad in the content,
advertisers need to remove the ads from the intermediary
clutter entirely and immerse the content in the ad instead
on a branded destination page. Advertisers need to augment
or replace the collapsing advertising-as-intermediary model
with a more robust and effective advertising-as-destination
model.
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Pete: Can you give me an example?
Jeff: Sure. The advertising-as-destination model dominated
the golden years of radio and TV, when advertisers owned
the programs they sponsored, and thus owned the entire
branding experience, soup to nuts. The programs were
indistinguishable from the ads because everyone knew full
well that the programs were only there to deliver the ads.
The programs and the brands who owned them shared the same
marquees and the same destinations.
Pete: That was a long time ago, and most advertisers don't
own their own content anymore.
Jeff: That's true. Advertisers have devolved over the years
from content owners into media renters. But while many
advertisers may not own their own content anymore, they
can certainly license what they need and own the virtual
theater and stage. They can own the online destination.
The secret to delivering an impactful brand impression is
purely subtractive, and the job of the brand marketer is
to subtract all competing distractions, to distill the
branding environment until only the essence of the pure
content and brand message remain. It was true eighty
years ago for the radio pioneers, true in the 1950s for
the TV pioneers, and even truer today when the Inertia
Tax consumes so much more of each and every media dollar
invested.
Pete: Is anyone building those destination environments
online today?
Jeff: There's an online syndication shop in New York City
called Studio One Networks. They've been quietly and
successfully building single-sponsor destinations for big
corporate clients online since 1998. Ironically, one of
their biggest clients is P&G, the sponsor for some of the
earliest radio and television soap operas. Anyone interest-
ed in building quality environments for their brands
should pick up the phone and talk to Andrew Susman.
Pete: I can understand how the advertising-as-destination
model might deliver a much more effective branding environ-
ment, but how does it deliver scalable reach?
Jeff: It doesn't. Just shifting from the advertising-as-
intermediary model to the advertising-as-destination model
can't deliver scalable reach. In order to generate scalable
reach, you need to replace the intermediary ads that no
one wants with something that everyone wants. The current
advertising-as-intermediary model is like fishing with
bait that's been clinically proven to repel fish. Simply
stated, advertisers need better bait.
Pete: Such as?
Jeff: Short-format video clips. Just as we can state
unequivocally that no one wants more ads, we can also
state unequivocally that everyone wants more short-format
video?the only reason any of us pay through the nose for
high-speed Internet access to begin with. The fact that
the folks who don't want more ads are the same exact folks
who want more short-format video merely confirms the need
and insatiable appetite for better bait. If you want to
attract specific audience demos in real scale, just replace
the ads with demographically appropriate video snack thumb-
nails. Once you do, self-qualified audiences will flock to
your exclusively branded destination pages in huge numbers.
It's the only way for big brand advertisers to compensate
online for the erosion of big brand reach on television,
and the only way to vastly reduce or eliminate the Inertia
Tax that drives up costs and drives down performance for
everyone. Remember the sage lyrics of Fishin' Blues: "Any
fish bites if ya got good bait, here's a little somethin'
I would like to relate..."
Pete: Is anyone fishing with better bait now?
Jeff: There's a small company just southwest of Chicago
that owns and operates a contrarian network called the
Vidsense Video Snack Network. Unlike all the online ad
networks, however, Vidsense doesn't distribute any ads.
Instead, it delivers what it calls Video Snack Bars across
a network of more than 25,000 safe-for-work websites. Each
Video Snack Bar carries up to eight unbranded video thumb-
nails, selected for their proven ability to attract and
drive specific audience demos directly to single-sponsor
destination pages. Each click on a Video Snack Bar thumb-
nail resolves on a single-sponsor destination page where
the requested video clip plays while immersed in and
surrounded by the brand message. As far as I know,
Vidsense is the only pure brand reach network on the
Internet, and the only one that can deliver the scalable
brand reach numbers of TV?upwards of 300 million self-
qualified visitors per month?with the immersive inter-
active performance of digital.
Pete: Why aren't there more companies like Studio One
Networks and Vidsense?
Jeff: Because everyone uses the same supply side digital
tools, because no one driving the digital bus is old
enough to remember Sal Mineo, and because they don't
teach common sense in business school.
Pete: Thanks, Jeff. Always interesting.
Jeff: Thank you, Pete.
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