We all talk about online being such an accountable medium, but are we accounting for the right things? Like the dark suit auditing in an office near you – some advertisers measure conversions and sales like pros, but many are still relying on click-thru data to derive the success or failure of a campaign.
The fundamental flaw with clicks is their inability to measure latent intent to take action; like visit a site, store or film as a result of seeing an ad. Clicks provide an immediate measure of some sort of call-to-action, but that’s where their value ends.
How many times have we seen a film preview within a banner and decided it was a must see? No clicks, no action, just a firm resolution to make that flick a priority at the cinema. We’ve all seen the Cadbury gorilla but did he make us immediately leap out of our chairs and produce a fist full of dollars at local 4Square? Probably not, but my personal love of the purple/brown goodness demonstrated itself tenfold the next time I was store-side.
So – please take a look at this article from AdvertisingAge and let’s wake up next week in a world where web metrics, good old fashioned audience targeting, environment and creativity are the words on everyone’s lips when discussing display advertising online:
Peter Hodge. February 24th, 2009 at 9:31 am.
such a good point Josh. The artilce on Ad Age makes some really solid points about how we look at online advertsing as an industry.
I think most fascinating is the desire by advertising agencies to ignore what they can’t measure, as you have pointed out.
It seems that after having such poor measuring tools for print, the ad industry has gone to the oppisite end of the scale with online and forgotton the reasons for justifying value of advertising in the print market do apply online.
Maybe there is way to much emphasis on the medium and the desire to reinvent the wheel. Whatever the reason for the ad industries desire to reinvet itself online, the principals are still the same as they have alwyas been. except now the ads are usually better and more creative.
This article needs a lot more attention.
Steve Davies. May 15th, 2009 at 4:50 pm.
Ad agencies should focus on click-throughs (in my opinion).
BUT, focus on implementing creative that is noticed should the offer not be relevant the current reader (brand awareness).
Mold the 2 together and everyone is a winner!