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March 31, 2008

When advertising becomes information...three blogger's opinions

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A few months ago in a blog post about Google OpenSocial, Internet pioneer Dave Winer said, "Advertising will get more and more targeted until it disappears, because perfectly targeted advertising is just information."

A few days ago Blog Business Summit blogger Jason Preston echoed Dave's sentiments when he said, "One of the things about advertising on the internet is that it seems to blend more and more with marketing and with content. Good, relevant advertising is content."

Today CMSWire blogger Gerry McGovern said, "Google has become one of the most successful companies in the world by selling lots and lots of these 17 words of text that help us find what we are searching for. In a money-rich, time-poor economy, helping busy people complete their tasks is the new advertising."

What is it that each of these comments have in common?

Let's look at the heart of what each said...

Good advertising is just information. Good advertising is content. Good advertising helps busy people complete their tasks.

The thrust of what each has to say can be summed up thusly: Advertising is good only when it is contextually relevant.

I don't need to watch ads for children's toys. They have no relevance for me, as my children are in their 20s. I have no need to listen to a commercial touting a certain brand of auto insurance. I'm quite happy with my current provider. I've no need to see an ad for a certain brand of mobile phone service. I'm locked into my current carrier's plan for another year.

You might suggest that, while none of those ads have relevance to me, they might to many people. That's true, but at what cost I would ask? Who has a budget big enough to interrupt me times enough via various forms of media to get my attention long enough to have an impact? How much better for advertising to be there only when I need it, as opposed to when I don't. That's the promise Internet advertising holds.

For example, McGovern praises the benefits of PPC ads...

Google, Yahoo, and many other websites survive very well on advertising, but it is a very different form of advertising. When I’m searching to rent a recreation vehicle (RV) in the United States, and I see a list of RV companies in the right hand column of my search results, I don’t see that as advertising. I see it as helpful, useful.

Google has become one of the most successful companies in the world by selling lots and lots of these 17 words of text that help us find what we are searching for.

What's to become of traditional forms of advertising?

Winer suggests that advertising is on its way to being "obsolete." McGovern says, "Traditional advertising is broken because it charges us time, when time is becoming our most valuable resource" and that "Sixty-two percent of marketers believe traditional television advertising has become less effective in the past two years."

While I don't see advertising ever going away completely, I do believe that marketers will be forced to find ways to increase relevance and minimize waste. It will be exciting to see what happens over the next 5-10 years.

What do you think? Is traditional advertising becoming archaic? How will it change?   

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