Why broadcasters are not cashing in online

Gordon Borrell on why broadcasters are not taking advantage of online advertising opportunities (from TVSpy):

“The big problem however, is the web is not a broadcast medium. In most cases we are not talking about a $1 million or even a $100,000 contract for advertising. We are only looking at several thousand dollars per contract. Broadcast sales people don’t have the time or interest to focus on those types of deals. The current compensation structure and incentives also don’t motivate broadcasters to focus on web advertising.”

Google disrupting advertising business?

Google is also preparing to disrupt the advertising business itself, by replacing creative salesmanship with cold number-crunching. Its premise so far is that advertising is most effective when seen only by people who are interested in what’s for sale, based on what they are searching for or reading about on the Web. Because Google’s ad-buying clients pay for ads only when users click on them, they can precisely measure their effectiveness – and are willing to pay more for ads that really sell their products.

— From an article in the NY Times by Saul Hansell

Buyers shifting to new media

Story on the Broadcasting & Cable website about ad buyers shifting to new media:

“Advertisers are shifting as much as 20% of their media dollars away from traditional media—TV, magazines and newspapers—and moving them to emerging categories, such as the Internet or movie theater ads.”

Hello? Did you forget radio? Are we not part of traditional media? Or are we not affected by this? (I’m looking for the pony.) And please tell me advertisers are not really taking money out of radio to buy movie theater ads. I refuse to believe that.

Professional Sign-holders Wanted

Former Radio Guy Matt Zeni recalls a radio interview on his station some years back:

“I saw a want ad in the Branson daily newspaper for full-time opening(s) for people to hold advertising signs on Highway 76 and the job included full benefits! The job paid $8.50 – $9.00 per hour plus medical and insurance. You could only keep the job, according to the owner of the advertising business, if you constantly waved to all the cars driving or stuck in traffic.”

Is the advertising pie big enough?

I’ve wondered about this but not as thoughtfully as Ben Compaine, who posts on the Rebuilding Media blog:

Can the media survive on advertising? Lots of folks are counting on it. Broadcasters have always had this single revenue stream. Daily newspapers get about 80% of revenue from advertising and the hot print properties, such as the give-away Metro dailies, depend about 100% on advertising. Now much of the Web is counting on advertising: Google, Yahoo! and increasingly AOL to name just a few of the biggies.

Either the pie gets bigger or somebody gets a smaller slice.

Does your web site suck?

“Agency websites suck, launch a weblog” is the subject of a post at AdRants.com. Replace “agency” with “your company” and see if it still makes sense.

“Right now, agencies might be saying, “What do we need a weblog for? We already have a web site.” Great. Take an honest look at it. Is it much more than a creative showcases (if that) and management bios? Aside from a few short paragraphs on your so-called “proprietary process” is there any value there for the reader? Are you offering anything that gives insight into the way your agency thinks and what your opinion is on the current state of advertising? If so, great. Most likely. though it is not.”

A good example of the difference between a “typical” web site and a blog? AgriMarketing.com and AgWired.com. I think the company I work for could be using blogs more effectively. But “brochure” web sites are safe and blogs are risky. And if they’re not risky, they’re useless and ineffective.

One second commercial

Catering to the ever dwindling attention span and capitalizing on its name, One Second breath freshener has placed a one second commercial during every commercial break on every TV station in Belgium yesterday. I think the blipverts on Network 23 were 5 seconds.

“High-speed commercials condensed into a few seconds that prevent channel changing and embed themselves in viewer’s minds. Sometimes they cause the heads of viewers to explode.”