Online advertising and the New Consumer
p2pnet news view Advertising | P2P:- Google has just officially announced it’s bent on becoming a full-fledged member of the browser fraternity, claiming, “we believe in access to information for everyone”.
It’s all about capturing even more surfers than it does already so they’ll be exposed to even more Google ads and advertisers than they are already.
There is, however, a problem.
Most of the people who comprise the so-called lowest common denominator, the bottom-line target, are these days often smarter than the advertisers and their various agencies. Each new generation is more intelligent than the previous one. It’s nothing original and somehow, the Net seems to have magnified that. But advertisers don’t seem to have realized there’s this whole, new breed of savvy online consumers who’ll respond only to equally new and savvy ways of presenting products and services.
So, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, et al, isn’t it time you started treating the people you’re trying to sell to as intelligent human beings instead of gormless marks?
Slow-building privacy storm
“It sounded like a winning proposition – free money – for Internet access providers,” says an Associated Press story, going on »»»
By tracking their subscribers’ personal Web surfing habits, they could help deliver ads targeted to the consumers’ interests, and claim a share of the burgeoning online advertising market dominated by Internet search companies. But those efforts to sniff out consumers’ interests are running into the ditch. A slow-building privacy storm moved in on NebuAd Inc, the Silicon Valley startup that can facilitate the Web tracking. And its potential partners, the Internet service providers, failed to make the case that they should be in the ad business at all, rather than simply being the pipes that pass Internet traffic back and forth.
One by one, cable and telephone companies that had conducted trials using NebuAd’s ad-serving system have indefinitely suspended expansion plans. In interviews, executives at the Internet access providers blamed an unfavorable climate as Congress considers tightening federal oversight.
But NebuAd isn’t alone. Nor is the ’storm’ localized.
British DPI company Phorm, said to have tried its arm in the US, is also struggling to survive the privacy hurricane.
“The newspaper industry’s downward spiral is accelerating as the weak U.S. economy depresses already-tumbling advertising revenue and forces more rounds of job cuts and other trims,” says another AP story. “The developments of recent weeks come in a season when newspapers normally can anticipate boosts from upcoming holiday promotions and ads for new car models.”
“The decline’s severity makes it even more difficult for newspapers to hang on while they figure out how to generate enough revenue from growing Internet audiences to make up for lost print ad sales.”
Continuing to consume
We ‘consumers’ are what it’s all about. But to read the stories cited above, and others, you’d think we don’t even exist, let alone comprise an integral part of the equation.
Advertisers believe it’s carved in stone we’ll continue to buy their ‘product,” which increasingly looks the same, sounds the same, smells the same and tastes the same, no matter how they treat us.
But we’re not buying it, in any sense.
The print and electronic media as they used to exist, and as they still exist in the eyes of most people who are in charge of them, aren’t merely in the doldrums: they’re dying. And it has nothing to do with the “weak U.S. economy”.
The “downward spirals” and “tumbling advertising revenues” are due to the fact consumers are customers again, and discerning ones at that. The cheap tricks routinely used by the advertising, marketing and promotion industry just don’t work anymore.
The Net is to blame. It’s having a major impact on traditional advertising and news delivery systems because as more and more men, women and children open online accounts, they’re increasingly becoming their own media providers on an individual and group basis. So who needs the heavily biased, often inaccurate, advertiser-controlled corporate press and their allied ’services,” as they are at the moment?
We homeschool our 12-year-old daughter, Emma. The Net comprises a major part of her education and she researches topics of interest. But just as importantly, she shares what she finds with her friends, who similarly share what they find with her. At length and in detail.
That’s viral advertising and if it’s true for homeschooled kids, it’s just as true for children in traditional teaching environments.
And who do the kids tell?
Their mums and dads.
People tell each other what’s hot and what’s not
Advertising is no more than another form of communication. But in the 21st century, services and/or products are so similar, and there are so many of them, that finding a way to entice people to choose one over another has become an industry in and of self.
That’d be okay if the sales industry took ‘consumers,’ the most important element of all, into account.
But they don’t. Instead, the people who are expected to buy whatever’s on offer are viewed as mindless cash-cows who only deserve to be treated with extreme contempt.
Ask the movie and music moguls who are actually trying to sue ‘consumers’ into buying their product, and only their product, and who are now suffering an enormous backlash of resentment as a direct result.
To make things even worse, they’ve succeeded in creating brand-new client bases made up of people who’ll go to any lengths to avoid buying branded corporate ‘product’.
People of all ages and from all parts of the world use the Net and other P2P technologies such as IM, chat, blogs and even cellphones to communicate with each other, leaving the traditional corporate mainstream news and information retailers languishing in the dust.
In other words, P2P (people to people) systems changed the way news and information are communicated.
R – E – S – P – E – C – T
IMHO, to survive, manufacturers and service providers and the people who represent them must learn new ways of doing things: they have to treat customers of all ages as intelligent, responsible people who can become up-front components in the development, sales and marketing processes.
They can no longer ignore them, taking it for granted they’ll do what they’re told and behave in the way they’ve always behaved.
In the 21st digital century, advertisers have to talk to people, and talk to them honestly.
Pablo Soto, who’s currently under attack from Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony, runs Blubster.com and he’s always been a lot more than just a p2pnet advertiser.
The same can be said for Chris from AntiSpyware.com.
And p2pnet has two new advertisers who’ve also taken things a lot further.
Says Rocky Gaudrault who runs TekSavvy, an ISP client based in Ontario:
“When approached to advertize with p2pnet, we weren’t sure of what to expect as a return on our investment, mostly due to the many online news sites. But after spending some time reading through and participating in the multiple forums within p2pnet we jumped in a gave it a try.
“And we’re glad we did.”
The key is “participating in the forums,” by which Gaudrault means the comment sections under each p2pnet story.
They allow advertisers to talk one-on-one with the people they’re trying to reach.
Ask MP3Rocket.com’s Paschal. The application, say its developers, can block Media Defender-type spoofed Gnutella files.
Paschal engaged in a lively dialogue with p2pnet readers which resulted in the company changing its approach.
Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, et al, are synonymous with bamboozle. They’re spending literally millions of dollars trying to figure out how to get hold of users’ personal information so they can decide how to (try to) influence them —- whether they like it or not.
Maybe if they were upfront and honest, we, the people, might simply give the data to them — some of it, anyway.
Aretha Frankly said it best.
All we want is R – E – S – P – E – C – T.
A little of that, and the sky’s the limit.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
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September 3rd, 2008 at 7:13 am
It’s Patently obvious why Phorm & Nebuad are in trouble, despite all their PR firms & hype!
When asked any type of Question Legal or Technical they seem to have no idea of how to answer the question & no answer as to why anyone should accept such a massive loss of Privacy; plus the total loss of the basic integrity of the Internet Structure!
{FORCED Packet Injection into a TWO WAY private conversation is to be honest an ABOMINATION, which could lead to total control of the Two way conversation by a THIRD party!}
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Well said. But they will not pay any attention.
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:38 pm
If only ONE of them listens then it will have been worth saying!
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:04 pm
The first thing to say is that if people have to toot their own horns through advertising then there is something wrong with the product that it won’t command sales on the basis of it’s own products performance. If it is worth the money and does the job as expected, your neighbor will tell you about it for free. They will also happily tell you what doesn’t work. It costs nothing in the form of advertising dollars to do that.
Anytime I go into a store to buy, the very first consideration I have when I walk up to the display, is how has this maker bothered me with advertising? If I see one that has, next item. There is a hidden surcharge in each and every product to pay for all that advertising. That extra money doesn’t buy you more product, it doesn’t buy you better materials that work more efficient. It costs you more for the same product than one that doesn’t advertise. Why should I pay for what I see as at best an annoyance and at worse an intrusion into my privacy?
I hate advertising with a passion. You can’t sell me what I don’t want. Showing me something I am not interested in will not bring me to the store. Showing me something I am interested in will not guarantee a sale. If I recognize the products maker as the one that ate up my time, without my approval, I will pass it by on that basis alone. I do not reward those that tee me off. Get over the idea that advertising works. It has exactly the opposite of the desired effect on me. Makers are spending money to ensure I will not buy their product.
When I see a product at eye level in the store, it’s not the product I want. Those makers paid money for it to set there on that placement, I get nothing for the eye level stare that improves the product. I want a product that works and is reasonable in cost. Not one that has an inflated price or has been diluted to make you use more and get you back in the store for another. If it does not preform as expected I will not purchase a second at any price.
Targeting me, will not have the desired effect. I will remember while standing in front of the store display who bothered me and it will be reflected in my purchasing habits. I do not pay for those items that the makers do not adhere to my ideals on. Get used to it. You can not force me to pull money out of my wallet, only I can do that. I make decisions before I buy and my dollar is a vote for whom I do or do not believe in. So do I spend my money. As the major labels will continue to find out about over time.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Actually, good advertising can be fun, and effective. I was born in London and I’ll never forget the old British Heineken beer (the beer which reaches parts other beers can’t) ads featuring Victor Borge.
There are some clever ads here: http://uaddit.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=642
A little humor goes a long way but Google, et al, prefer sneak attacks, or the sledge-hammer approach.
Cheers!