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Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Using Content Instead Of Advertising To Deliver Audiences
by Jaffer Ali
"It used to be the Web's only real killer app was communi-
cations ? email. But these days people use the Internet
for content consumption more than anything else."
-- Business Insider
Some people whisper under their breath. Others like Bob
Garfield of Ad Age scream from the top of their lungs.
But most choose to stick their heads in the sand when the
topic arises. What is this subject that dare not speak its
name?
The advertising model is broken across all media.
Is this really a controversial declaration? Not from where
I sit it isn't. Newspapers are in free fall. So much so
that legislation will soon come before Congress to bail
them out (no doubt so our "free press" can continue to
promote government agendas).
TV Guide, once with a circulation of 9 million strong, now
claims only 2 million per its latest rate card. In Hawaii,
the NBC and CBS affiliates have merged news operations
because neither could sell enough advertising to go it
alone. Radio stations are convulsing under the current
model.
The online advertising marketplace has beaten an inexorable
path from 5% click thru rates in 1997, to near zero today.
According to comSCORE, CTRs have declined to less than .1%
(statistical zero). Results are so miserable that the
digital metric cognoscenti are developing new ways to
measure what isn't there; news ways to describe the naked
emperor's wardrobe.
Audiences are avoiding advertising with increasing
frequency. We have equipped ourselves with the tools to
avoid ads at almost any cost, and so that's exactly what
we do. Add the fact that what passes for advertising today
has become more an exercise in stalking consumers than
romancing them, and you have a model that begs for an
overhaul.
We all recognize that we live in an "on-demand" world. The
painful verdict is obvious; nobody is demanding more advert-
ising. Present advertising methods are no longer effective
in delivering messages. Once upon a time, advertising
effectively stood between audiences and brands. Ads were
the intermediaries?the carrier waves if you will.
And yet if we scan the horizon, we see a new dawn in which
content replaces advertising as the only logical way to
both attract and deliver the audience.
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What do I mean? Consider the fact we don't avoid content
like we avoid advertising. In fact, we search for it.
We want it. We demand it! We have now reached the point
where content can build and deliver huge online audiences.
But deliver them where, you ask? To the only place where
advertisers can truly control the exposure and performance
of their own brands: on their own sites. In the current
advertising-as-intermediary model, advertisers rent space
on someone else's site, adjacent to someone else's content.
But it simply doesn't work anymore.
The same content that attracts consumers to a publisher's
website can be negotiated to appear directly on an
advertiser's website, with far better results and far less
risk for advertisers and publishers alike. People just
don't care where they consume media as long as they get
what they want. Presently, most media consumption occurs
on publishers' sites with fewer and fewer actual visits to
advertisers.
This has led to an unhealthy, inefficient ecosystem. There
are exceptions, however. Drudge, for one, gets about 7-9
billion visits a year, yet few stories are viewed on his
site. That's because Drudge knows that his visitors don't
care where they get their content fix. They want the
content and if it means clicking through to Newsmax,
Breitbart, NY Times, or USA Today to get it, they will...
and they do!
But now let's take matters a logical step further. Imagine
for example that you see a link on Drudge to a Sports
Illustrated article on Tiger Woods. You click on the link
and find yourself transported to Nike.com where your chosen
article awaits you. Does it make the article any less
appealing, or is it simply a higher, wiser, and healthier
use of the media ecosystem? Ask any advertiser and they
will tell you that they would gladly pay more for content
and visitor bundled together.
In this scenario, content providers would get a small
royalty for product consumed on an advertisers' site...
regardless of where the click emanates and/or who sent
the visitor to the advertiser. Content networks would
replace ad networks, with publishers appropriately
compensated as content intermediaries. Content demos,
not site demos, would determine audience compatibility,
just they did (and still do) back in the good old days
of sponsored content on radio and TV.
Such a paradigm shift will require publishers and advert-
isers to adjust their thinking accordingly. Publishers
need to see the wisdom in giving up their traffic (because
that's what ad-supported media is all about), and advert-
isers need to know how to engage that new-found traffic
once it arrives.
The bottom line: Advertisers need to become destinations.
What better place for an advertiser to romance and engage
a prospective customer than within the exclusive confines
of its own branded surroundings? In so doing, advertisers
become media curators. Likewise, publishers need to serve
up great content but also be prepared to serve up their
traffic for the media food chain to come full circle. By
bundling content and visitor together, and sending them
both to a paying advertiser, everybody can make money.
Advertisers will pay more for content when it is bundled
with a real person who wants to read an article or view
a video. Then it's up to the advertiser to construct a
welcoming environment to buy that further engages the
visitor.
The Internet is nonlinear and the time has come for content
creators, advertisers, and those who aggregate content
(publisher sites) to send traffic where it can bring the
highest ROI. Once we understand that audiences care more
about what they see and read than where they see or read
it, content will replace advertising as the intermediary
in delivering the right audience to the right place every
time.
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Jaffer Ali is CEO of Vidsense, The Video Snack Network.
With more than 100,000 advertiser-friendly video clips
licensed from major film and TV studios, the Vidsense
Video Snack Network of more than 50,000 safe-for-work
websites delivers millions of qualified visitors directly
to advertiser websites on a pure Pay-Per-Visitor (PPV)
basis.
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YOUR VIDEO SNACK BAR
Top Viewed Videos...
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6. Celebrities: Before and After Make-Up
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