digital axle

Not Your Grammy's Media Buyer

When I started my career at age 20 in the pre-fax, pre Internet, almost pre-fedex days on the eighth floor of Grey Advertising's 777 Third Avenue office building, not only was my calculator chained to my desk, (really. It was) but seemingly, the Grey spot media buyers had been chained to theirs for several decades.  They were let loose to plop (they all plopped or plotzed) into the waiting limosines of the slick-suited salesmen (the buyers were all women the sellers were *all* men) from the spot media rep houses like Katz, etc.   Off they went to the Yankees game or 21. They bought impressions and negotiated rates by parceling out percentages of their budgets. Send me my tickets. Over and Out.

My sources tell me things haven't changed all that much. Within the last year, I heard of a San Francisco- online buyer on the phone with spot buyers at a major buying agency (not Grey or Mediacom btw) in New York who was told point blank, something to the effect of, "if you don't stop talking about accountability and measurement in front of the client, we'll take your entire budget away". They weren't kidding and they still had that power. 

Dave Morgan's column in MediaPost today, about "Minimum Motivational Frequency "reminds me that these days may finally be coming to an end.  It is becoming increasingly possible to measure the sales impact of specific television spots (see Morgan) as well as the impact of an entire medium on actual behavior. Check out Wes Nichols' company Marketshare Partners if you don't believe me. It's no longer fantasy, it's happening.  At the AAAA's meeting last week in San Francisco, I talked to an agency CEO who had yanked the media business away from one of the big media buying agencies with a proposal that  actually cost more in fees than the "we negotiate the best rates and offer the lowest commissions" media houses by proving better effectiveness.  Even more impressive, he had won the argument with the purchasing department.

Buyers of all media are going to look more and more like digital buyers and less like spot buyers.  It's going to get harder.  Data, rather than limo length witll drive decisions. Yes, it's taking forever, but it is still going to happen. They find their own limos and they get off on spread sheets and pivot tables.  Ain't nobody going to chain them to their desks either.

About time.

Superbowl Ads Confirm Loss of Faith in Mankind

Superbowl Ad Roll-up!

The Snickers ad was a clear winner this year, because who doesn't want to see Betty White taken down into a mud puddle? The moment was almost as good as when Bob Barker gets sucker-punched by Adam Sandler, "The price is wrong, bitch!"

But with the exception of Denny's screaming chickens, Doritos and Budweiser took ALL of the remaining spots in the Nielsen IAG Top 10 Best-Liked 2010 Super Bowl Ads chart. Same thing for the most-recalled ads, with Go Daddy's terrible-as-always spot grabbing the No. 9 position.

The sad part is, with the exception of Snickers, not a single one of these commercials had any spark of creative excellence. The comments on the Ad Age article back this up:

Just proves that pie-in-face, burlesque and a banana peels will always get a laugh, maybe even get you liked [...] for advertisers, being liked for a brand value that creates a lasting, emotional bond is far more important. Not sure any of the spots did that. - Phillip from eswpartners.com

The amount of out-and-out violence in this year's SB spots was disturbing. - Chuck

I'm so, SO tired of "men are idiots" advertising that has grown so popular. If aliens landed and watched the Super Bowl ads to get a sense of who we are, they'd conclude that we're pantless, drunken, insensitive, partying louts. Such advertising seems to appeal to our baser selves. Can't we as an industry do better, gang? - Mike Lauber, Tusco Display

So, best commercial? AUDI's Green Police, by far. Creative, snappy, effective. I('d) buy it.

Live From ad:tech NYC

Floating bits of wisdom from today's Media & Entertainment panels:

On creating customized content for online channels: "Is it expensive? Yes. Not huge, but way more in proportion to the revenues. It's get better though, as soon as it scales." - John Stinchcomb, Publisher at Conde Nast Digital

"How do you decide where to distribute...widgets, TV, websites, iPhone apps. That's easy: Just fill in the data where the consumer is." - Matthew de Ganon, Senior VP, weather.com, The Weather Channel (NBC Universal)

"How do you compete with free?" - Patrick Moorhead, Director of Emerging Media, Razorfish

"Don't just dive into mobile. Figure out your business goals first, then map your emerging media products and measure your investment based on that. Don't try to do everything." - Paul Jelinek, Senior VP, A&E

Brits May Go Where Americans Dare Not — DRM TV

They did it to music - now what about TV? ReadWriteWeb reports that the BBC wants to prevent piracy, ad removal, and illegal copying by encoding all listing metadata and using a compression algorithm to limit playing abilities. In other words - DRM for TV content.

Danny O'Brien gets into the details of the "crazy" plan over on the Electronic Frontier Foundation blog, but the gist is this: the rightsholders want copy-protection technology built into every TV receiver device, and make manufacturers sign an agreement that would ultimately limit their ability to innovate, for fear of violating the "metadata compression parameter" license.

Rewind 5 years and change continents: here in the US of A the same measure was suggested by the FCC and the Motion Picture Association of America, trying to force HD encryption on digital television, before we transitioned from analog. The court wasn't convinced, and the idea was thrown out.

Even if they had succeeded, the rise of open source TV services like Boxee means that people could watch protected programs at home, just not via their HC receiver. A Boxee spokesperson remarks, "The way for content owners to make money is to cater to their audience, not to stifle innovation by creating a DRM racket like what's proposed here." Square off, guys.

Money for nothing and...

Gearing up to spend those big bucks on television advertising? Sure, TV's doing just fine. Just look at the nearly one hundred million votes they got on American Idol. Obviously people are watching.

Except when they aren't. Within 2 years, nearly one out of five television ads will be skipped due to DVR usage. And American Idol? 3.3 million people watched this season on a DVR. That sounds to us like 3.3 million people skipping ads.

Diminishing returns, for sure. The good news? TV advertising is about to get cheaper. The prediction is that CPMs will start to come down after this year. But of course, you get what you pay for. And those eyeballs are fewer every day. Time to turn on the ol' ROI calculator and figure out what's next.

Here's one idea: Ad Age has some tips for effective viral videos. Get your 10,000,000 views online instead, like this T-mobile video has done since January. And just think of all the fun metrics you get when your advertising is online.