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Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The Internet's Boulevard of Broken Dreams
? By Jaffer Ali
I have known John Gaffney, one of the editors of DigiDay,
since our days in the home video business over 20 years
ago. If you have read his prose, you know that he writes
with what I call an informed heart.
I respect his sensibilities a great deal. In an email
exchange last week he suggested that I be more prescriptive
for readers. So for those reading this, I will try to help
sort out some important issues for publishers to consider.
First, why did I choose today's title, "The Internet's
Boulevard of Broken Dreams"? The simple answer is that
most publishers entered the Internet space filled with
dreams of carpets of gold strewn beneath their feet. The
problem was, too many dreamed only at night with their
eyes closed.
T.E. Lawrence (AKA Lawrence of Arabia) captured what I mean
when he said, "All men dream: but not equally. Those who
dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake
in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of
the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams
with open eyes, to make it possible."
The first prescription today is to open your eyes when
you dream. This means taking a look at reality. If you are
a publisher, ask yourself the following question: Who are
your customers? Seems simple doesn't it? Yet many publish-
ers will answer, "my audience."
Unless your audience comprises paying subscribers, they are
not your customers. Whoever pays you are your customers...
and in most cases, it's advertisers picking up the tab. If
you feel differently, you're a hobbyist, not a business-
person. This is not to denigrate your hobby or passion.
But there's no excuse for not knowing what business you're
in. For online publishers who depend on ad revenue, your
business is advertising, and to not understand this is an
exercise in vanity, nothing more than self-indulgent dream-
ing at night.
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Like the slew of folks peddling narcotics to keep you
sleeping and dreaming at night, one-to-one marketing gurus
promise publisher and advertiser alike that they have the
magic formula for delivering the right ad to the right
person at the right time. Their claim is to offer a better
return for all parties.
Wake up! One-to-one marketing (and all of its derivative
cousins like behavioral targeting) is based on the false
assumption that human behavior is rational and that
purchasing decisions are rational. Furthermore, these
technologies want to turn your advertising ad space into
direct marketing inventory.
Opening your eyes to companies turning your entire business
into a direct marketing medium requires you to understand
what is going on. Sleep walking your way through the day
will not get you out of the mess. Few, if ANY, publishers
can survive by turning their entire media inventory into
DR media. Intermediaries can make a killing, but not you,
the publisher.
I can hear the niche publishers now: "But long-tail market-
ing will save me." At least that's what Wired's Chris
Anderson (author of The Long Tail) would have every
marketer and publisher believing. But the era of super
niches and self-indulgent narcissism is eroding far faster
than you can chase your own long tail.
Publishers catering to that "long tail" must wipe the
sleep from their eyes and drink some coffee. We are at the
dawn of a return to mass marketing. And this marketing
imperative means dollars will go to those who understand
what business they're in and who their customers are.
What? Sacrilegious!
Brands with huge budgets that have also been distracted by
"conventional digital thinking" and offered a bed they
could never be comfortable in will once again assert their
needs.
But necessity is more than the mother of invention. It is
the driving force of nature and the folks with the most
money to spend on advertising -- large brands ? truly
want and need to reach the masses, no matter how much lip
service they pay to things like CRM and social marketing.
Publishers better wake up. Solutions begin the moment we
open our eyes and dream in the full light of day.
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