Misunderstanding Online Advertising’s $65 Billion Problem

A huge — $65 billion huge — part of the online advertising problem is that Web marketers know exactly how the Web works and how to engage its users — on their own.

Online Advertising’s $65 Billion Problem

This is true but only to a certain extent.

Mind you, I’ve been known to quote (when it suits me) Trevor Edwards, Nike’s corporate VP, where he says that "Nike is not in the business of keeping media companies alive, we‘re in the business of connecting with consumers."

But let’s keep things in perspective. At the simplest level, an average consumer will not wake up in the morning and visit a variety of brand-developed web properties. It’s just not going to happen, no matter how much they would all want that. 

The now infamous brand utility concept, like Nike Plus, has its limitations and no matter how cool and awesome it is, you still need to draw an audience to it. Which is what Nike has ultimately done, running TV and web ads.

This is somewhat similar to the display vs. search conundrum — of course what you want is clicks on ads generated by actual intenders. But you will never have a huge reach there. The more you put up in display, the more clicks from seach you will generate. Display is for reach, search is for conversions (let’s ignore the last click syndrome).

In this case it’s the same. If you want reach — and you always want reach as a marketer — you will have to piggyback on top of platforms that have it. Once you have reach, good things happen if you have value to add. 

The article also seems to mix up two concurrent trends. The first is that brands develop their own platforms. The other is brands doing their own marketing, including media planning and buying. 

The dotcom analogy in the article is also ridiculous. Eh.