The Fragmentation Of Online Marketing

I’m giving this keynote on monday morning at OMMA Global. It’s my practice to showcase a draft of all my talks here and get feedback and suggestions from the community. So comment away.

#Web/Tech

Comments (Archived):

  1. Wells Baum

    You should also include a snapshot of real-time advertising via Twitter.  Promoted TrendsPromoted TweetsPromoted AccountsExample:  Promoted Tweets:  Fragmented b/c another brand can outbid another brand during a real-time event, with the former riding the real-time buzz of the latter to market a product.

    1. fredwilson

      i showed a promoted tweet in the presentation. are you suggesting i do more than that?

      1. Cam MacRae

        The tweet stream around promoted trends seems that much more powerful than promoted tweets. I’d want to show them both.

        1. Vineeth Kariappa

          That would also mean an extra slide. As long as he mentions twitter, think it should suffice.

          1. Cam MacRae

            Not necessarily.

          2. fredwilson

            agreed

      2. Wells Baum

        Yes – Agree with Cam MacRae, see below:)

  2. leigh

    I would add some context around the focus of paid advertising (vs. other types of online marketing).  Speaking of which, might ad in game and cross-platform entertainment (branded content)

    1. fredwilson

      in game is interesting. i will try to add thatdo you think branded content is “native” to the medium?

      1. Laurent Boncenne

        didn’t used to, it is definitely something to consider now, zynga for instance, but there are much more.In a native way, the way teams advertised in counter strike’s map a long time ago was something similar…

      2. leigh

        cross platform is – but probably better examples for unpaid media then paid

  3. Laurent Boncenne

    It’s a bit hard to tell by just watching the slides, what point you’re trying to make imo. I’m assuming this will be one of those presentation where the talking will do most of the job and the slides are here to support your point…PS: I don’t know if the orange lamborghini is here for something very specific, but if you need something more “bling and luxurious and exquisite” I have a few pictures of new and old bugattis I took some time ago and i’d be happy to give them to you! (if you take a gorgeous car, might as well pick the best of the kind 😉 )

    1. fredwilson

      that is “performance”the next slide is “reach”i think the second slide is more obvious

      1. Laurent Boncenne

        second slide is definitely more obvious, i’m going to dig through the pics I took of bugatti’s on my hard drive to give you one appropriate, how does 257mph sounds like for performance? (yeah, i’m a bugatti addict, I know…)

        1. fredwilson

          that sounds like a lot of performance!

      2. Laurent Boncenne

        what do you think @fredwilson:disqus of one of these?

        1. fredwilson

          the middle one is great. thanks

          1. Laurent Boncenne

            no prob =)I have a higher resolution if needed, i’ll send it to you by email (as disqus doesn’t allow for higher filesize…)

          2. fredwilson

            pls do

      3. ShanaC

        i’m finding them not obvious if I had to sit there and read through them.  There isn’t enough text to help me key into why you chose a photo

      4. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        USE GRAPHIC PROGRAM, ADD WORD OVER PHOTO.

    2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      OVERALL POINT UNCLEAR. THIS IS INSTRUCTIONAL TALK, JUST TELL EVERYONE ONLINE MARKETING EXIST?

  4. Vineeth Kariappa

    Perfect. Can I use a few slides for my presentations?unrelated question, do you think that banner ads is old, as in pointless? (You placed it in “the early days of the internet”)

    1. fredwilson

      i don’t think it is pointless but i do think it is less effectiveand yes, you can use any or all of this

      1. Vineeth Kariappa

        There can be a product which displays only banner adverts to a social audience. (As in if your friend visits a brand page/app on a site frequently. The brand wants to target friends of visitors. You are shown the banner advert and no other advert on the page.)Don’t you think that might work?

        1. fredwilson

          it has been tried. it’s not a game changer

    2. leigh

      Totally pointless.  Maybe brand building from an awareness standpoint but otherwise pointless.  CPC much better but has it’s own issues (ala integrity of the ad networks etc.)

    3. testtest

      If I was doing lead generation and the cost of the banner ads leading to a conversion was less than the value of the conversion it’s a no brainer.I feel it’s a poor way to brand — banner blindness. They’re more suited to direct marketing techniques IMO. 

      1. ShanaC

        I honestly think that is the fault of the way most sites are designed….  Banners everywhere lead to banner blindness.  Take some down, internets…

  5. tg

    Can’t view on iPhone – is it just me or a known issue?

    1. fredwilson

      flash

  6. vankula

    I think the important measure will be the extent that certain ads add value to the user. Google ads (as you pointed out) sometimes add more value than the content (organic results). Foursquare has a fun game component and tips (the content) but the local ads are just as important as a reason for me to use the product. In contrast, with TV, the content is 99% of the value and ads are just interrupting me (you could argue I do find some products or events in TV ads that add value to my life which is the 1%). I am betting that with the collision of social and TV that we not only see apps (Miso etc) that allow people to engage “around” high quality TV content, but apps and TV programs that allow the users to engage “inside” the content. Youtube is the obvious best example so far, but there are some other early stage examples like YouAre.tv and TheBigPlayoff.com where the ads are native AND can be the content itself.

  7. awaldstein

    Marketplaces are aggregated commerce. Seems like a counterpoint that deserves a spot.Futures…hyper local as the new yellow pages? Where are people looking for new economic streams?

    1. markslater

      or consumer controlled arnold? i am in the market for product or service XYZ. Message me please. this is the VRM vision. Entirely new Ad-networks based upon entirely new algorythms will be created,  and innovation will flourish on top of this. 

      1. awaldstein

        Ahh…thought about you when I dashed my comment on the way to the farmer’s market.I need a deep dive int VRM.

        1. markslater

          think about this:a person gestures their interest to service XYZ (ibviously i am biased and will say GETABL).2. Service matches request against with merchants using prorpietary criteria.3. user selects merchants to engage and engagement process begins.4. cost of the engagement to the merchant will vary based upon (how quickly they respond, how well they convert and on and on – this is the proprietary algo – the reverse of the adwords algo.)5. user chooses merchant, merchant converts.here you have a consumer initiated advertizing model that will convert 10 times higher than the inverse or CRM method.Build these blocks, open up the API’s and let people innovate on top.this is what i believe to be a transformative next wave.the opportunity and challenge are equally compelling. Companies that are CRM anchored will find it a challenge to evolve. Companies that approach this from the point of consumer control will explode.there are 4 companies in the space right now that we know if – we are all tracking at about the same speed (financing, testing etc) and we all have a slightly different take on this but its going to get interesting in the next 3-6 months and its my guess – there will be alot more investment attention that will follow.

          1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            MATCHING CRITERIA NEED COME FROM USERS, NOT MERCHANTS. API NEED TO WORK IN OTHER DIRECTION.MERCHANTS HAVE API, EXPOSE DATA TO USER. USERS DECIDE WHICH PRODUCTS FIT WHAT CRITERIA.WHY? BECAUSE MERCHANTS WILL LIE.

          2. JamesHRH

            And users will all be perfect at assessing their needs!Its just not this static a process.And, the WHY & HOW are far more powerful in creating an action, than the WHAT.

          3. ShanaC

            so will users, which is why us merchants like inflating the sizes of their clothing….

        2. markslater

          go here:http://cyber.law.harvard.ed…this is the space i am talking about that we participate in.also go here and subscribe https://cyber.law.harvard.e…you want a deep dive, strap in – you wont believe how fast this stuff is moving and this opportunity is forming.

          1. markslater

            finally – read thishttp://blogs.law.harvard.ed…Doc talks about foursquare. Its not a fluff piece put it that way.

          2. testtest

            From: http://cyber.law.harvard.ed…”The customer can also provide a sum he or she is willing to pay”Prices are set by the market. Supply and demand, competition, willingness to pay, need for a given resource.Pricing is one of the most powerful and elegant aspects of a market economy. They find there own equilibrium, and this creates efficiency, and the distribution of scarce resource under conditions of asymmetrical and dispersed information (everyone in the economy has different knowledge).I’m genuinely curious if there is any economic basis in customers trying to set prices? Companies can’t set their own prices — if they could they’d set them indiscriminately — markets do.

          3. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            YES. EBAY.

          4. testtest

            Thanks @FakeGrimlock:disqus done a bit more reading on this. i was way off the mark. need to grok some more microeconomics.

          5. ShanaC

            @FakeGrimlock:disqus and @markslater:disqus : technically speaking, wouldn’t ebay (without buy it now) be the truest expression of a market? (I mean, I think an auction is the strictest form of neoclassical markets)if you don’t make money as a seller, you pull out of the market.  If you don’t find something as a buyer, you pull out of the market.  Isn’t that what an auction does?

    2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      NEW YELLOW PAGES IS SOCIAL.SOCIAL TO DEFINE CONTENT, SOCIAL TO SERVE CONTENT.WORK LIKE THIS:1. USER DECLARES INTENT, WANTS THING X. 2. SOCIAL SYSTEM FINDS DEFINITION OF THING X FROM USERS (NOT FROM OWNERS OF PRODUCTS).3. USER SEES OVERLAPPING DEFINITIONS. PEOPLE LIKE YOU WERE MOST  HAPPY WITH THING Y WHEN SAID WANT THING X.IT PERFECT SYSTEM FOR USERS.APOCALYPSE FOR MARKETING.

      1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        HMMM.JUST REALIZE EBAY HAVE 80% OF THIS.IF ONLY THEM HAVE BALLS TO BUILD OTHER 20%, DISRUPT ENTIRE WORLD OF COMMERCE.

        1. ShanaC

          so, build it on their new api….

          1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

            BUSY BUILDING MORE IMPORTANT THINGS.

      2. ShanaC

        Meanwhile, social has yet to help me find a really good tailor in NY (if the internets see this, umm help?)

  8. andyswan

    Missing email marketing?  Text?To me, permission-based marketing (I WANT to hear from your company!) is king…

    1. fredwilson

      email marketing seems very 1990s but i agree that there are native uses of iti will figure out how to includethanks

      1. andyswan

        word.  

      2. leigh

        use a mommy blogger example (paid sponsorship on their blog and then they have email newsletters that they send out… totally 2011 🙂

      3. markslater

        email marketing is the 800 pound gorilla. 

        1. testtest

          In marketing the product is the 800 pound gorillaIn advertising it depends on the category

          1. testtest

            Thanks for the link. I’m not really sure of its relevance; is it the correct one?When I read your first comment I asked myself: what is marketing?I think marketing happens in the mind of the consumer. And the greatest impact in the battle for the mind is at the point of consumption — does the product do what it said it would?And then everything is worked back from there. 

          2. testtest

            And to expand (thinking as I’m going):During the industrial complex mass produced products were mostly the same. Which worked well when you could advertise to large groups of people via mass media — they had to be similar to suit the needs of the largest possible group of customers. If all products are the same how did companies win the battle for the mind? It couldn’t be at the point of consumption, after all, the same solution yielded the same results. The battle was fought at the start of the process with the USP, the position of the product was hammered in to the heads of the masses via repetition.As options became limitless, and the friction to learn about the product, try the product, ask others about the product became essentially zero, the product itself became the battle field. After all, in a networked society there’s no hiding the product. If it doesn’t do what it said it would do there’s no hiding place. And if it does fulfill its promise there’s just as much upside.And of course marketing is more than this. However, if I have to pick the most impactful aspect it’s product.

          3. JamesHRH

            Argh! Its distribution! Which, ironically, is what Doc Searles is talking about in your linked article. He’s wrong BTW, just to make it funnier.GOOG – distributes pages via keywords and links.FB – distributes social status via pics, updates and unresolved high school insecurities.Twitter – distributes ego gratification via 140 characters.@chrishuntis:disqus marketing does live in the minds of the market (see anything by Trout & Ries – http://en.wikipedia.org/wik… ).There are a lot of variables, but, in the end, you are correct: the brand experience either meets/exceeds expectations (perception) or it does not.Product is a big deal when it comes to branding, but distribution (getting the product in front of the customer) is the 800 pound gorilla.

          4. testtest

            @jameshrh:disqus i’ve read 3 or so of their books. it was a while ago now.

          5. testtest

            @jameshrh:disqus On the internet distribution is manifested by attention.If people talk about you your site gets backlinks/inlinks, thus distribution via Search.If people talk about you on social properties you get enhanced distribution via sharing. People talk about remarkable products. They don’t talk much about average products.Building distribution for a weak product is expensive. It’s expensive to artificially create link profiles. It’s expensive to get people to share a product they don’t want to talk about.In the age of mass production distribution was king: it was about who could get access to customers. Now everyone has access to customers: it’s about attention. And remarkable products get attention.

          6. testtest

            @jameshrh:disqus On the internet distribution is manifested by attention.If people talk about you your site gets backlinks/inlinks, thus distribution via Search.If people talk about you on social properties you get enhanced distribution via sharing. People talk about remarkable products. They don’t talk much about average products.Building distribution for a weak product is expensive. It’s expensive to artificially create link profiles. It’s expensive to get people to share a product they don’t want to talk about.In the age of mass production distribution was king: it was about who could get access to customers. Now everyone has access to customers: it’s about attention. And remarkable products get attention.

        2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

          EMAIL MARKETING WORKS BECAUSE USER IN CONTROL.CAN CHOOSE WHAT MESSAGES TO READ. CHOOSE WHICH TO NEVER SEE AGAIN. CHOOSE WHICH TO SEE IN FIRST PLACE.

      4. Dale Allyn

        Email done right can be very effective. I just now spent approx. $200 because of an email I received. The key is to deliver what people want, and respect them as valuable customers. Make it easy to opt in or out at will, etc. It’s my preferred way to receive such materials. 

    2. markslater

      absolutely.I want something…….market to me. I decide. turn off marketing. its VRM.

      1. JamesHRH

        This sounds like the way Bill Murray managed his movie career.FYI – there were some parts that he missed – because he was unaware that the movie was even being made – that he would really liked to have gotten.

  9. jay janney

    Fred:All of this is of course my humble opinion, feel free to cheerfully ignore what I am saying.I love your work, but I had trouble seeing how Prezi improved this presentation over Powerpoint (or for that matter, converting PPT slides to jpegs, and using the “view slideshow”  option in Windows.  Prezi is best at making an exemplar point–this seemed too much a typical powerpoint deck, using a new software package.  In terms of content, the slides show  lot of examples but don’t really connect to a general theme in  a way that is easy to follow.   If you had sent me this deck and asked me to tell you what the theme was, I would have simply said “Internet advertising is growing”, more cynically “new wine old wineskins”I hope my words do not come off too harsh–I wanted to be honest, and to commend you for putting it up there for your loyal following to see.  It’s tough putting yourself out there, and I respect that you do it, and do it well.

    1. fredwilson

      i need to learn how to use prezii’m just using it as a cloud based ppt right now

      1. Mark Essel

        way to take it on the chin Chief. I’d have feedback but the presentation is blank on my phone. html5 yo

        1. Cam MacRae

          word. flash be teh suck.

        2. Aaron Klein

          Not to be cheeky but it worked on my Android 🙂

          1. Mark Essel

            It works on a desktop too.Web publishing should work everywhere a browser does.

          2. Aaron Klein

            Not to disagree but that’s Apple’s choice. What if a browser refused to support <video> in HTML5? Not the content’s fault.

          3. Mark Essel

            You mean like IE 🙂

          4. Aaron Klein

            Yes, totally! I agree Flash isn’t the future and we won’t use it in our product but you can’t quite blame Prezi when their product works on everything BUT iOS.

        3. LE

           Same.  I was standing in line at Starbucks waiting for a drink and couldn’t bring it up either. (And I remember a post about how many of your users are on mobile.)

      2. Luke Toland

        If your presentation is simply going to be text or pictures, I would respectfully suggest Slideshare for this presentation. Prezi does not appear to add anything here.

      3. Mahmoud Hashim

        I’ve been a long time reader of the blog and the comments section, but I’ve only commented once in the last 3 years. However, I had to let you know that if all you are looking for is a cloud based presentation software then Sliderocket.com is the way to go.I’ve been a user for more than 2 years and their presentations come out crisper than ppt while work smoothly on all devices.Definitely worth checking out

    2. William Mougayar

      It’s not Prezi vs. PPT. It’s the fact that Fred chose Images as the cues to his talk, rather than bullet-heavy PPT. That could have been done with PPT as well. But the difference between an Image-based preso and a bullet-driven one is that with Images, you need to hear it to make sense of it completely, whereas with the bullets one, you can “read” the PPT and pretty much get the whole gist of it.

      1. Vladimir Coho

        There’s a helpful dichotomy that explains what’s happening here. A lot of people — enamored by Steve Jobs’ unique style of showmanship — have started to to emulate a “ballroom” style of powerpoint presentation that’s image heavy and text light. This is an appropriate style when you’re presenting to hundreds or thousands (or tens of thousands, via audio/video-enriched webcast) of people at once. Ballroom style presentations fail miserably once you remove the showmanship and audio/video soundtrack. They don’t really stand on their own. Boardroom-style presentations hold up better without an audio track. They’re data-rich and reward close reading. Tufte’s presentation style is probably closer to the boardroom ideal. That’s what I wish had been provided here, as I think that the thesis Fred’s making would be better supported by information-rich slides, not information-poor ballroom-style slides.

    3. Matt A. Myers

      “If you had sent me this deck and asked me to tell you what the theme was, I would have simply said “Internet advertising is growing”, more cynically “new wine old wineskins””You might not have been his target audience. And presentations are generally meant to plant a seed IMHO, or reenforce your own current beliefs and strengthen your ‘trust’ that Fred either knows or doesn’t know what he’s talking about based on your own beliefs/theories/understandings..I understood quite well what Fred was showing – the evolution of advertising and where tech is bringing us; There are underlying theories as to why this is that can be discovered and not shown in these slides..

    4. Jon

      Prezi is almost amusingly awful on the iPad. Requires app download. Then requires a log-in. Then allows you to FB Connect, but doesn’t offer that option on app start-up, so you cant view the link. I gave up.

      1. Dale Allyn

        Flash vs. HTML5 is an issue for many applications, and iOS devices not handling flash-based sites is real, but developers would do well to throw an alert upon detecting iOS as a courtesy to visitors. It’s not high-science and should simply be part of complete web application design. It’s part of the user experience that speaks to the compassion and consideration for each visitor. I’m not picking on Prezi as there are so many things that small teams must address, but it should now be part of the goal, as well as part of the design spec of any web application. 

  10. Elastic Doc

    Do you think the move to real-time bidding in display is going to increase the importance of banner advertisements?On the one hand, retargetting and audience buying could lead to more relevant ads but numbers show a year on year decrease in CTR as people become even more banner blind.

    1. fredwilson

      no, it’s just allowing a commodity product to scale

      1. ShanaC

        I still think it is worth it to discuss how buying a display ad is moving in the direction of buying a search ad.  Also, once you use the word commodity – be careful, cause are you sure you want to make the mental connection to say oil or steel.

        1. testtest

          A commodity is a product with little differentiation. It’s fungible, and often purchased on the basis of price.

          1. ShanaC

            There is price differentiation based on run length and audience choices…..

        2. JamesHRH

          In the words of Phineas Flynn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…, “yes, yes he does.”At no point in history has the supply side of the advertising / marketing industry ever been UNABLE to meet the needs of the demands side.Traditional media buying – at all levels – is a massive exercise in adding value on a micro (read personal relationship) level.

          1. ShanaC

            For personal and professional reasons, I personally think he is right to talk about ads as a commodity, but not in the same sense as oil*, steel, gold, wheat.  The move towards RTB and DSPs to check different exchanges effectively means all ads are the same, but all demographics and some spots are more special than others.  That fact should be radically changing media planning and buying, and from what I can tell, it isn’t quite.  You should be able to do micro-arbitraged ads.  And I often wonder for top tier ads in the world of online demand may not be satisfied eventually….*oil actually may be somewhat of an exception because of the structure of light sweet crude futures.  There are actually multiple kinds of lsc with slightly different sulfure contents (it affects  how much energy has to be put in to distill into various oil products) that float with/against the derivative, and if you use pairing strategies, you can cover the costs of them all(yes I’ve been overthinking this for a while)(and now you make me want to babysit…I would watch cartoons with kids…cute)

  11. Pete Griffiths

    It is hard to review a presentation in this style.  There is so much you could say in talking to such images.

    1. fredwilson

      I know. Sorry about that

      1. Pete Griffiths

        Don’t get me wrong.  It’s a very effective way to present and standing there like a parrot as your audience reads your bullet point slides ahead isn’t.There is an alternative I have found to be effective which is to prepare slides with bullets but go have multiple slides for each complete slide so you can bring up the bullets one at a time and talk to them.  I hope it is clear what I mean by this – it’s a bit like animated bullets.  You only bring them in as you talk to them and typically highlight the one you are talking to.  The advantage is the audience can’t read ahead.  Obviously – can intersperse this with purely visual like yours.One last point – it is of course possible to have slides like yours with speaker points – probably bullets – below.  This makes them much more readable and hence they can be usefully uploaded to somewhere like slideshare.

        1. Pete Griffiths

          forgive me if teaching grandmother how to suck eggs

        2. Dale Allyn

          The points made about PPT and bullets by you, Pete, and William above, are valid, but that’s largely due to how people use the application (PowerPoint and Keynote, etc.). Bullets tend to get over used because it’s easy (read: people are lazy or not skilled and willing to learn, etc., including me at times). I use Apple’s Keynote some, and there are some great tutorials online that can really help one create interesting presentations with animations, incoming bullets and sub-bullets associated with image replacements, etc. We didn’t see many of Steve Jobs’ Keynote decks suck, so I guess he checked out those tutorials before he made his presentations… ha ha. I make this comment irrespective of Fred’s choice to use Prezi or any other tool. Just expressing my agreement with your point that PPT/Keynote decks need not be just pages of bullets with static images.

          1. Pete Griffiths

            Thanks Dale.  I use Keynote as well – nice program.  I think the general point is that it is very hard to use any such tool well.  Most presenters tend to end up either repeating what is on their slide or using a slide as background.  Animations etc can be helpful but can just as easily be distracting.  This is worth taking a look at:http://www.slideshare.net/s

          2. Dale Allyn

            I agree, Pete. I’ve seen the Slideshare item to which you linked before as well. I wasn’t suggesting that animations are the answer to everything (and don’t feel you were saying so). Like any thing, they can be over used and a distraction. I’m not great at this stuff, but I do know when I see one that works. And I respect the thought that goes into assembling a successful presentation. Fred does great at interviews and presentations because he speaks from a position of knowledge and passion. He’s not bluffing or posing, so he could stand next to an easel with a single image on it and deliver the goods. Fred does not need slides as a crutch with his gift for precise and succinct statements.

      2. JamesHRH

        Notes view? Or do you have notes 😉

  12. Jeff Richards

    Fred – might suggest you add something about intersection of mobile + loyalty – particularly good examples are SBUX mobile “payment” app (more about loyalty / upsell than payment) and Shopkick.  Both have highly impressive stats w/respect to $ value of transactions when using apps vs traditional.  Gamechanger for offline retail.

  13. Dave W Baldwin

    This is a hard one to do since your talking of fragmented.  Slides leading to the blurry mess leading to “what to do?” might be good.  Since I’m not sure of your text, that may be irrelevant.Good job.

  14. William Mougayar

    I love the Prezi format. 2 areas of feedback: 1) the key elements of your thesis didn’t come across very clearly. Perhaps due having images, and not text. You could turn the dial up a bit on the text, e.g. these  could each be a bullet on a page:- advertising or transaction model that fits seamlessly into the user experience, ideally improving it.- proprietary advertising format that cannot be easily commoditized by competitors2) the transition at the end that’s supposed to cover where this is going is too subtle, and seems equally weighted with the front end. Could you find more examples of companies doing “native monetization”, even if they aren’t part of the USV portfolio?

    1. Francesca Krihely

       I’ve heard you speak before and you’re a great presenter. You don’t need text on a slide. That will take the audience’s attention away from you. The images help illuminate your point. Parsimony is the rule always.The problem is, there’s no theme to this show. I like the screenshots of GoogleAds and Twitter, but the stock photos don’t really fit in with it. I really like using visual charts to share ideas. You can easily make some fresh flowcharts to represent what you’re talking about in regards to performance. If you need some ideas, I’m happy to share a great google doc I have with Nancy Duarte’s slide designs that almost always come in handy for me. 

      1. William Mougayar

        Each slide doesn’t need text, but the right text is needed during some of the transitions, especially the 2-3 key points of the thesis. That’s the take-away…If there are 2-3 points I want to take away from the whole presentation, it’s this:- Native monetization is coming- Need advertising or transaction model that fit seamlessly into the user experience, ideally improving it- These proprietary advertising format cannot be easily commoditized by competitors

  15. Douglas Crets

    My friend has a small blog that gets 12,000 hits a week. She uses it to showcase her dog. She asked me last night how we could work together to help her monetize it. I said, well, look at Facebook. Regardless of what you think of Facebook, they have figured out, or created the future for media monetization. In essence, people are now the remote controls for all media. If you want to watch really good content, your friends are going to be the ones that choose that for you, by virtue of their connection to the tastes that you have in music, video, ideas, whatever.I suggested that it will be very likely that advertising in this era will be as granular as this: advertisers will be able to send brand messaging to ten or twenty people watching a movie or a tv show on your Facebook profile page. They will be able, with the help of your activity on all social platforms, to create ad messaging that speaks directly to your specific ideas and interests in relation to your friends. So I think it is going to work like this, but I am not an experienced ad person, so I don’t know if they think that way. My friend suggested that all media will run through Facebook, or social platforms like it, and that having a native site for media content will be a rare thing for traditional media operations. If media will come to them through apps, on the backbone of semantics, why visit a media site? The new era is: Let the Media Come to You. I also think, as a sidenote, that Fred is right when he said during a debate with Scoble that “it’s a horrible idea” to plant all of your identity on a company’s page or platform. You better have your own identity on the web, and if you want to make money, even if you are not a developer, figure out a way to create compelling content, bring people to your site, and let other media outlets pay you to play to them. 

    1. testtest

      Try testing affiliate offers on your friends site.Reviewing products is good: strong commercial intent.

    2. FAKE GRIMLOCK

      FACEBOOK WILL REVOLUTIONIZE MARKETING… WITH FIRE.ONLY MARKETING NEEDED IS IN NEW FACEBOOK JUST LAUNCHED. WHEN TIMELINE OF LIFE INCLUDE PRODUCTS USED, MARKETING DONE. 

  16. Douglas Crets

    In terms of your Prezi, I thought that I understood the theme, but I guess since you weren’t talking and guiding me through it, I was unsure of what the final takeaway should be. 

  17. Irving Fain

    I know others have said this also, but it’s a bit difficult to know exactly what you’re going to say looking at the images.That aside, it seems important to discuss the convergence of all these different platforms / strategies. Brands today are living in a world where their customers are engaging and interacting with them in so many different ways / places. A presence across the whole media ecosystem is critical; basically the evolution to the Paid / Owned / Earned media equation. You shouldn’t ignore any channel when creating an effective marketing strategy.Seems to me that no one would argue that this transition has occurred, but the golden question is how do you blend the 3 most effectively. Enhancing customer experience with your brand has become as important if not more important than driving customer action.

  18. Swimsmarter

    makes me want to check out clickable…

    1. Francesca Krihely

      clickable is great! their facebook ad management is fantastic. They also have wonderful whitepapers. 

  19. Irving Fain

    As I thought some more, seems that an important theme should be that marketing has become about talking with and not talking at your customer.

  20. Maya

    Fred, I think it would be great to have some of the talking points that correspond to the slides here? Would help give us more context, and provide stronger/more valuable feedback.

  21. Mie-Yun Lee

    Hi Fred-I saw your tweet, was hooked and jumped to see your prez but couldn’t. And so i read the comments to get a flavor for it. As this topic is exactly what’s obsessing me these days, I’m going to push on and share a series of random thoughts that may or may not echo what you’re covering:- I think online marketing is harder now than it was in the pre-internet days. Back then, small businesses had the town paper, the yellow page, valpak and direct mail as their primary levers. Now, there are an overabundance of search engines, ad networks, directories, virtual realities, specialized web sites to sort through. And different KPIs and pricing to consider. And it’s much more complex now than even 5 years ago -Even if you only work with adwords, which is fine for many, there’s all the work needed to make that happen. Eg. Site design, ad copy, analytics, conversion testing, kw strategy, bidding strategy. And once isn’t enough — this stuff needs to be looked at constantly. Compare it to the old days when all you needed to do was create an ad and list a phone number and you can see that mktg execution has has the two dimensional problem of fragmenting and needing to be continuous -To illustrate all this, outsell has a great report where they show that b2b advertisers plan to spend $27b on what I call “do it for me” or DIFM marketing and $27b on what I think of as “do-it-yourself” or DIY marketing like web site design, analytics and SEO. -From what I can tell, agencies don’t have any better sense of the landscape than advertisers. They just have more spaghetti they’ve thrown up on the wall. The thing is: that the spaghetti on the wall changes over time and isn’t right for every advertiser. And of course, the pile of spaghetti to try grows faster -One image that comes to mind for me is the classic Lucille Ball episode where she and ethel are trying to deal with all those chocolates. Seems like the online marketer’s dilemma is the same plus they need to figure out how to make the conveyor belt work.I could go on but will stop now. Good luck on your prez. @myl

  22. Ashish Tomar

    I see your presentation has at-least 3 distinct segments. 1) Online marketing is fragmented & history/evolution of online marketing2) What to look for in a solution3) ExamplesI think by by using a little bit of more text and maybe one more “title slide” you can make it more digestible.Section 1) Why not setup their expectations at the  beginning. Just tell them that there are 20 different mechanisms for online marketing and then take them through the journey/history/story of online marketing.Make the transition from 1 to 2 more obvious: Maybe Introduce a new “title” slide between Campbell soup slide and the command center to clearly convey the transition to help reset audiences mental flow.Disclaimer: I have made lots of assumptions and advise is cheap.

  23. Erich Wood

    I don’t know if it fits with the presentation, but I’ve also been thinking about *when* to show an ad in a mobile experience. For example, showing ads when users open the app or when they are browsing content will get fewer tap-throughs than showing an ad right after they complete something and have time to pause or exit the app. I have no data to back this up but I’m pretty sure plenty of people have thought about this before.

  24. markslater

    Where are we headed?Tell us about what you see in the future. VRM?Augmented reality?others?i get the history – but where are we going?

    1. RichardF

      augmented reality for sure.

      1. ShanaC

        I’m still trying to figure out what makes reality augmented.

        1. RichardF

          For me it’s something that adds an additional layer (dimension) to the location I’m in.

          1. markslater

            its a heads up display for everything around you

    2. Matt A. Myers

      AI, and then they’re going to kill all of us humans..

  25. Sujay Maheshwari

    Fred : SMS (text) plays a significant role in a marketing strategy. May be in US that is not the case, but even in countries like UK, you would see consumers getting flooded with text based promotions.

    1. fredwilson

      i don’t think that is “native” though

  26. JamesHRH

    Can’t view Prezi on iPad.

  27. William Mougayar

    A picture is worth a thousand words…only if it’s the right picture. I didn’t get the Bugatti pic. I’m sure it’s related to some context linked to something before or after, but on its own dunno what it says.

    1. LE

      It has to do with performance (Fred says). But if that is the case you need an auto or photo that most people will equate with performance. I’m not sure a Bugatti does the trick on that.Or even a Lamborghini.I don’t think the people in the audience (who don’t know cars) will think anything other than “exotic car or expensive car”. The photo needs to be something that screams “speed”.  Attached below not ideal but as an example.

  28. testtest

    It should be titled: The fragmentation of online advertisingNot marketing IMOEdit: misspelled “advertising”!

  29. LE

    “So we all learned how to do this” should be “So we all (tried to learn) how to do this” and dovetails with the Clickable suggestion obviously. Maybe even “um..tried to learn how to do this”.For Foresquare I think you might want to include example photos of the RANGE of merchants (small corner to national chain) to further drive home that point.”Just do it” should add “Now it’s easy to” scribbled across the top (after they’ve been primed with Clickable).Rest as others have said is difficult w/o knowing what you are going to say.

  30. Brian Broadbent

    As an aggressive direct response advertiser, I can say that the most important thing is to figure which of the many marketing channels is right for you and pick the spots where you can drive impact in your business. Very few, if any marketers, can play in all these spots nor should they.Marketing automation is cool, but you’ve got to get your ad messaging (CTRs) and conversion rates right first. Most small businesses fail in this area. 98% of small businesses don’t use landing pages and can’t track results.If I can drive traffic and convert it better than you, I will kick your ass in PPC no matter how slick your PPC management software is. Your automated bidding algorithms will leave you defenseless. Same is true for Display ads.

  31. mattb2518

    Don’t forget about boring old email…still the workhorse of all customer retention!

    1. Tom Labus

      No question.email needs its second or third wind.

      1. mattb2518

        I’d argue that it’s on its third or fourth wind already, and in the middle of a real Renaissance right now.

    2. fredwilson

      yes, when email is native, it is very powerful

  32. Tom Labus

    Where we go from here as last slide.

  33. FAKE GRIMLOCK

    1. SHOW CONTEXT AROUND ADS, IT MAKE MORE CLEAR2. AFTER “THEN CAME MOBILE” WHAT IMAGES MEAN? NASA TUNNEL CAR HAND?3. ADD INTERNET RADIO, CHART UNCLEAR. BETTER IF SHOW EFFECTIVENESS BEFORE AND AFTER ADD INTERNET RADIO. OTHERWISE CONTEXT MISSING.4. WHAT IS STATUE SEX SCENE FOR?5. TOO MANY SLIDES. SHOULD BE 3. ‘<

  34. Ken Galpin

    Fred,Not sure what your future view content is from the slides but here is one that we are getting ready to launch early next year. Unique, real time data feeds that present information relevant to target users interest and location that are sponsored by local advertisers. In our case, we are focused on leveraging our MLS data relationships to enable MLS member agents who want to sponsor real time, local price and sales data feeds that can be embedded in a variety of online media.I doubt that we are alone in pursuing the leveraging of such real time data feeds as a hook for users in an online marketing context. I think this was some of the mindset behind Facebook’s recent redesign but whether they have hit the mark on the specific real time content feed offered seems to be in question at this point.Thanks for all the work you do on this blog and good luck with the presentation.Ken

  35. David Smuts

    Fred, forgive for not being able to add much except that:I LOVED IT!I get it…, I can also “SEE” it. I love the emphasis on a single visual painting following a tagline intro. It enables the viewer to paint their own picture and experience unique to them. Fragmentation, btw…, is exactly what the market needs. It’s a POSITIVE in my view. As Milton Erickson once said: “the power of human inter-communication lies within understanding the individuals’ unique map of the world”. Fragmented marketing helps facilitate a greater outreach to different maps of the world for a very fragmented and diverse population.People are a lot more complex than we (and especially Marketers) give them credit for!Well done Fred 🙂

  36. Carl J. Mistlebauer

    OMMA Global “Hype Is Coming” hmmm…..interesting place to make a keynote speech.I cannot help but quote Fred Wilson, “The hot companies come and go. You can’t create lasting value on hype. It can give you a boost for sure but at the end of the day product wins and that is where all entrepreneurs must focus, particularly when the hype cycle ends.”I am a user of online advertising/marketing and I have come to believe that “advertising” and “marketing” are now two different things.  I think that Facebook is social and thus your strategy and expectations have to be tailored to social; have games and contests….but forget a sale.In a market of fragmented message delivery systems, you have to develop a multi step ROI model.  Certain online venues will net you an email address and others will net you a sale.  Advertising is about a sale and marketing is about an email address.You have to understand your consumer and you have to understand how the users of a particular message delivery system use that system and then work from that to develop a strategy.  I also believe that one has to view the fragmentation as a two way street, its not only what can the internet do to drive my business but what can my business do to drive the internet.  I think gamification is a great idea, but not so much based upon the idea of embedding a brand or a product in the game, but rather as a way to allow consumers to earn points toward products and or to reward purchases with “coins” (using Farmtown as an example) Interaction is a two way street, and we like to use terms like “engagement” but the reality is we actually want to build a better “Skinner Box”  Which requires a brand to determine how much a “retweet” is worth to them and rewarding the behavior.I think the example of AMEX and Foursquare is a great example, if you take AMEX and promote on Foursquare we are going to drive business to your business with discounts and everyone is a winner.  

  37. leapy

    in-game or in-vid product placement?

    1. Matt A. Myers

      Coupons on real-life products (such as Food products branded with Farmville coupon..)

  38. Vasudev Ram

    I get an IO_ERROR Prezi message when I click on the button below the first slide shown above. Will check the direct link and also try on Android mobile.

    1. Vasudev Ram

      Tried on Android 2.2 mobile. Didn’t work there either. The slide image doesn’t appear at all. Odd.

  39. Matt Straz

    Fred, I’m looking forward to your presentation on Monday — especially given that as the host of the event I will have the pleasure of introducing you.Here’s a recent post on the topic of online advertising on The Makegood that may be of interest to people here given the discussion above:http://the-makegood.com/201

    1. fredwilson

      thanks Matt

  40. Duane Primozich

    Hi FredI don’t think any presentation on advertising on any medium is complete without at least a small recognition of  its general vulnerability in these “consumer in control” times. People are leaving sites with intrusive or irrelevant ads and opting-out of email subscriptions. Trust in brands is at an all-time low and Catalina recently reported that the top 100 brands in the grocery store saw a decrease in loyal consumers of 46% over the past year. The intent of advertising is to compel a behavior. I think the intersection we’re now seeing of technology, new media and an empowered consumer may suggest that advertising is no longer the best, most sustainable and most efficient way to do this. I realize this is tangential to your topic, but it was my first reaction to your slides.ThanksDuane

  41. Ciaran

    It’s obviously incredibly hard to understand such a visual presentation without the script or voiceover, but I do wonder whether you’re over-egging things.Yes, foursquare is very popular. And yes, video and audio are changing web advertising (as is mobile). But, for the big, FTSE 100/Fortune 500, brands out there, it’s simply not viable to try out every single new start-up, and that we should actually try to filter the hype to help them understand what’s worthwhile investing in.

  42. rfradin

    Fred -Obviously hard to know exactly the points you are making without the text to go along with it but I would just make one point because it seemed like a minority of the presentation.  The most important force in online advertising today and for the near-future (at least) is Google.  Google, google, google.  And more Google.  I know the title of your presentation is really about fragmentation and I think you did a great job highlighting all of the engaging ways people can advertise today, but I also think it is good to point out that fragmentation also really speaks to the fact that there are more than 600M english websites today and the vast majority of monetization is coming through Google, or affiliate programs.If you are speaking to marketers I think it is important to highlight how the mass fragmentation drives high costs to actually executing campaigns. Google has done an amazing job driving those execution / back-office costs down with all of their acquisitions and that, more than anything else, has made digital media planning a profitable activity for agencies, but it has also given Google even more control over a massively valuable data-asset.If the goal of the presentation is really just to focus on all of the different types of advertising then I wouldn’t change a thing.  If it is to also focus on the impact on fragmentation and budget pressure inside agencies driving them to pick a set of tools that are as cheap as possible then it might make sense to highlight the faustian nature of the bargain…Russ

    1. fredwilson

      hi russ. thanks for your comments and suggestions. i agree about google. when i was asked on friday on stage at smashsummit where brands and marketers should focus i said Google first, everything else second. and from there its FB, YouTube, Twitter, and Tumblr

      1. FAKE GRIMLOCK

        FACEBOOK MORE IMPORTANT THAN GOOGLE FOR ADS IN NEXT FEW YEARS.OR MAYBE NOW.

  43. DJ 1985 (turntable)

    Prezi’s API for Facebook on iPad didn’t seem to be working, just FYI.I logged in thru new account and it’s an awesome service.

  44. Gal Melamed

    Hi Fred,I believe that visual presentations do the trick since most conference attend aren’t able to read the small bulleted lines in details.Like!One thing that I suggest emphasizing (my humble opinion of course…:) is that it seems that discovery becomes more and  more passive from the user perspective, so the conversion   funnel is relying more and more on specific domains which earned the user’s respect for not spamming its timeline… Online advertisers will need to carefully examine the domains they use (e.g. groupon) and not expose their brands to negative impressions.  My 2c… Gal Melamed 

  45. jpwoodland

    Great presentation.  It seems it’s focused primarily on push marketing channels and leaves out tactics that foster an actual relationship with a customer – which is every bit as important if not more so.  With today’s technology there is a lot of opportunity to maintain a relationship with a customer (i.e. continue to market to them) well in advance or or even after you’ve convinced them to buy.An example that often comes to mind is the Hello Baby app from Pampers.  When my wife was pregnant with our first child we downloaded the app to track the progress of the baby’s development.  Each week Pampers had us engaged for 10 minutes not with a promotional message per se, rather they were connecting their brand with us during a pivotal moment in our lives.  I’m not in consumer advertising, but I’d love to know what the media value is of connecting with me on that level for 30+ consecutive weeks.  Do we buy Pampers diapers now because of it?  Who knows, but I can say with certainty my brand perception of Pampers is higher given the value they provided me before buying diapers was even a need.Nike+ is another classic example of providing value beyond the product itself.  As a marketer, these are channels you have to consider.As a customer your (the advertiser) product is most likely a means to an end for me.  I buy running shoes not because I want running shoes but rather because I want to run and be healthy.  If I am to pay any attention to your “promotion” in an increasingly fragmented world my time is limited so you had better deliver value with that message.  In that respect, apps, tools, trackers, etc. all compete for customer’s time no different than more “traditional” ad messages.  Not sure Fred if you consider this dynamic relevant to your discussion, but wanted to share nonetheless.

    1. ShanaC

      Personal bet – for the diapers, high.  People form feelings about diapers and kids very early on, and keep those feelings through all kids.  Diapers are mostly a commodity market differentiated mostly by brand.

  46. Steve Poland

    This post seeking edits should have been a jig 😉

    1. fredwilson

      good point

      1. Steve Poland

        Btw, go Bills! About to send Brady back to New England with his head down!

  47. Alejandro Cosentino

    For those who are in this internet/online/interactive biz for a while and survived the direct marketing (brick and paper) world, the actual time is fascinating. Not only for the tools available to apply all the creative ideas you may have but we are having a good communication between software guys, media guys and marketing guys. Working in an more communicative environment is not only more pleasant it’s more comfortable and business results are more easy to achieve.

  48. Mark Gavagan

    Fred,I like all the images that visualize a point you will make verbally. The absence of bullet points is encouraging.One small concern, IMHO, is the lone “AMEX users who link w/ their Foursquare accounts spend 20% more” statistic.Is this figure attributable to 5% of people in the linked-account pool who spend wildly above the AMEX average, or are most cross-linked account holders higher-than-average spenders?Also, is the idea that the AMEX/Foursquare relationship is causal (i.e., by linking, behavior of the AMEX account holders then increases 20% because of things that take place on Foursquare)? Or does a pool of higher-spending-on-average AMEX cardholders happen to also link their account to Foursquare?Should be an interesting presentation. Have fun.

  49. Paul Higgins

    Hi FredAgree with some of the other comments re Prezi.I use it all the time now and while I still need to get better at it I think it is much better than PPPT when use in two ways:To show the overall narrative of a presentation so people can follow more easily where the journey is going.To show a thinking framework as a whole and then zoom in and out of it to show people detail but go back to the full context and show where the detail fits. I copied this approach from a Twitter contact (and now real world contact Ross Dawson) who uses thinking frameworks as background images and then inserts images relevant to the specific audience for particular talks.I addressed the National Australia Bank National Small Business Summit here in Australia with that approach and you can see the Prezi at http://prezi.com/at0-8wjo_z…  if you are interested. I hope you find it usefulPaul

  50. Steve Koh

    Hey Fred, if they publish video of your presentation, please post it back here or Tweet a link to it.  Thanks!

  51. laurie kalmanson

    Interfaces are songs: Mobile is a beat you can dance to.Ads can be interruptions, or ads can also offer delight. 

  52. Mikev

    i learn 2 things here:1/ mission accomplished: lot’s of feedback / thoughts / other points of view BEFORE you give your presentation > always more handy then afterwards2/ we need another commenting tool: going through all of these comments and comments on comments will soon become a part-time job > isn’t there some startup interested in solving this? I can thing of a lot of ways of doing this better

    1. fredwilson

      Correct on both!!!I’m hoping disqus can solve #2They have to

      1. Mikev

        I checked the disqus feature list, looks quite nice already, but i’m missing features that do sth about root of the problem for the people giving comments which is this very long list. A lot of people don’t even bother about going through all of these comments, it’s just not inviting, although interesting stuff is said. We (the “commenters”) need a totally different view on comments showing us things like: hot topics, “important” people joining the conversation, tags to be able to focus on certain types of comments, some basic “agree / disagree” scoring, some kind of very user friendly system that would help people to add some meta data to their comments so that disqus can make it more digestable. It would dramatically encourage people to comment. I have the feeling now that disqus sofar has been too much looking through the eyes of the site owner, the person/company that initiates the topic for discussions. And why do i have to type in such a small box without any basic text formatting by the way? Won’t look very attractive to read. 🙂

  53. Alper Akgun

    The fragmentation or  the diversification of online marketing?

  54. LGBlueSky

    I like a deck that has few words.  I would love to hear/see your audio or comments that go with the presentation.  I am very interested in this topic.  Thanks.  

  55. Rohan

    Was away for a couple of days. I guess I’m late here. hope this went well.

  56. OurielOhayon

    prezi would be way more powerful if you could join an audio comment to it..hard to understand the context of some slides

  57. Vladimir Coho

    Was there an audio track or a written transcription of the talking points? If there was, forgive me. I couldn’t find it. And because I couldn’t find it, I didn’t understand if there was more to this than “online marketing is fragmenting and here are a few examples.” 

    1. Dale Allyn

      Go here, Vladimir: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/201…

      1. Vladimir Coho

        Ahh, thanks, Dale. I clicked directly into the wrong link from RSS, apparently.

        1. Dale Allyn

          Glad to help, Vladimir. Cheers. 

  58. shaukat hayat khan

    it is very helpfull

  59. corey denis

    the broadcast radio + internet radio combination which yields 3.5x increase in ad response might be worth a few extra slides. Or, rather, that’s what caught my eye and got me thinking…What happens when “broadcast radio campaign” is substituted with “IRL marketing” or when an advert (or song) is played on internet radio without an associated campaign? When the formula is reversed, Is broadcast radio advertising exposure affected at all by popularity online? Memes? In situations like turntable, how does the human ego benefit from streaming radio that includes virtual representations of the self, and what impact might this have on the future of advertising? How has online streaming advertising changed broadcast radio advertising for the better or vice versa (subjective i realize). Pandora’s playlist limitations are stricter than Clear Channel djs in that CC djs have access to millions of tracks, whereas Pandora has only qualified about 900k tracks as “radio worthy” since 2003, and the social network inside the product is basically just an advertising network. Is it working for advertisers? Lots of music discovery is great, but what music is missing and how are other broadcast companies faring when they increase the size of their repertoire – does the size of a streaming radio network’s repertoire have any affect on advertising revenue and/ or success? oh so many questions. Wish I was heading to your Preso for sure 🙂

  60. Brad

    I never click on ads. I have tried using them and have seen very little sales from the clicks.

  61. jm

    If I can provide a counter argument…David Ogilvy is considered a godfather of direct advertising. I’m pretty sure that he would be astounded at the leaps and bounds direct ads have taken b/c of the internet and other channels, the efficiency and reach of which have improved exponentially. Unfortunately, he passed in 1999 right as Google was about to explode.John Wanamaker is the one who said the quote about not knowing which half of his ad money is wasted. And I bet he was talking about traditional above-the-line brand advertising (he died in 1922, well before direct advertising).And while I agree that a vast majority of ads are not clicked, it’s a straw man to use click rates as a measurement of ad efficiency. Ask most marketers and they care foremost about one thing: ROI. Through my career, I’ve measured ROI on both traditional advertising–using advanced statistical modeling–as well as most forms of direct advertising while at a large agency. I can say with utmost confidence that I’ve almost never seen a traditional ad campaign have a positive ROI, and I’ve hardly ever seen an Adwords campaign return less than 100%.Data has clearly leveled the playing field. Advertising will always been about “right product, right time, right place” and the beauty of the 22 yr old founder in a basement is that s/he has unprecedented access to data via APIs and open sources on top of which innovation can be built. 

  62. FAKE GRIMLOCK

    OGLIVY GET NUMBERS WRONG. PART THAT WORK ONLY 10%.ONLY REASON SOCIAL, LOCATION WORK IS SLIGHTLY CLOSER TO BE USEFUL, PLUS NOVELTY.ENTIRE AD MARKET HEADING FOR CRASH, ONLINE OR OTHERWISE.

  63. Vasudev Ram

    On Ogilvy and on reading the old masters — got to agree. I read an Ogilvy book – IIRC it was his classic book Ogilvy on Advertising – some years ago. Lots of good stuff in it, including, but not only, about his and his company’s achievements. One point that stuck in my mind – he did, and recommended, advertising even in a recession, in order to build for the future when recession would be over, and other wise stuff. On similar lines, at a college computer science student exhibition I attended, I heard a talk by a senior exec of ST Microelectronics (one of the biggies in the semiconductor field), where he talked about their investing in research and production; someone asked why they were doing it during a recession (I think it was the one after the 2000/2001 dot com bust). His reply was essentially the same as Ogilvy’s.

  64. adamhanft

    It was John Wanamaker who said that, and based on the disappearance of his brand, I’d say he spent it on the wrong half,  http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…

  65. JamesHRH

    CPC is most typically connected to DM.A massive traditional DM response is 2-3%.But the other 97% is not wasted (totally). It is an impression (even if you are throwing out a coupon for a window cleaner).Advertising is best described, as an industry, (by an author I can’t remember – in the ’80’s) as ‘the dilettante’s last resort’. It was, for a long time, in the top 3 industries for lack of alignment between the supply chain and the market. Agencies cared about being creative; smart clients wanted to move product and position brands.It is actually a lot better now. But…………

  66. jm

    sorry about the lack of paragraph breaks. no idea how to edit a posted comment. :-/

  67. ShanaC

    how about new methods of display buying, and rich media?

  68. testtest

    “John Wanamaker is the one who said the quote about not knowing which half of his ad money is wasted”It’s also been attributed to Ogilvy. Wanamaker said it first though.”I can say with utmost confidence that I’ve almost never seen a traditional ad campaign have a positive ROI”What about direct mail?”I’ve hardly ever seen an Adwords campaign return less than 100%”Large companies often lose money on the front-end via Adwords. And you’ll almost always lose money at the start of a campaign. But I agree with the premiss that it’s more efficient.

  69. Jim

    Great and accurate commentary. Contextual PPC advertising works like a charm, no other media can compete ROI wise. Banners don’t work (see AOL), since there is rarely proper context. Shana, rich media ads seems to be flopping like a fish- note the troubles of AOL and Yahoo.

  70. JamesHRH

    The beauty of the Wanamaker quote is that it is so frequently used by people who don’t get the point – he still kept advertising!Why is that? Because you have to be on the field to be in the game. And his game was traffic through the doors. He was a retailer.Wanamaker would totally disagree with your “right, right, right” line. He would be much more of a ‘all the time top of mind” advertiser.  He would set a budget, allocate it around and tweak it. And he would keep advertising.

  71. leigh

    I totally disagree with you about traditional advertising not having positive ROI.  I think this is the great folly of so many direct marketing folks.  The Web is measurable mass isn’t yada yada. If you are a small start up that has limited budgets – yes of course SEO first and SEM second with a nice big dose of community and social.  But if you have to reach millions of people to launch a major product launch and build a brand or get awareness?  I don’t think so.  There are many brands that have a mostly mass strategy (for very specific reasons) that have done brilliantly.  Audi of America, Apple (almost every product launch that I know of has focused on mass advertising and brand building).Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is a dangerous marketing game.  I personally wouldn’t play it.

  72. ShanaC

    If you register, the like button turns to an edit button for your own posts 🙂

  73. jm

    Really depends on the campaign/advertiser. Diff strokes for diff folks, which is why proliferation/fragmentation is exciting.In general, ROI for display/rich ads were never as good as adwords. This was few yrs ago though

  74. FAKE GRIMLOCK

    ADS ONLY WORK WHEN USER WANT TO SEE THEM.SEARCH IS ONE OF THOSE TIMES.ALMOST EVERYTHING ELSE IS NOT.

  75. ShanaC

    Why, rich ads (video exchanges) are getting more expensive, and we’re seeing topline growth on display…

  76. Dale Allyn

    Fred has been tweaking the settings and the labels, so the original post does not reflect the current state. …work in progress as the experiment evolves. 😉

  77. leapy

    Grim – sometimes you have the real knack of summarising what’s obvious but I hadn’t consciously noticed before. Thank you.

  78. FAKE GRIMLOCK

    @openid-16320:disqus  ME, GRIMLOCK, DUMB ENOUGH TO BE SMART.OR MAYBE SMART ENOUGH TO BE DUMB.

  79. JamesHRH

    Ads work on the 80/20 rule: 80% of the time they work because you want them to work; 20% of the time they work because they intrude with an answer to a problem that you had not yet solved.One of our current vehicles was purchased directly as a result of a national ad campaign promoting a terrific offer. Had not thought of the brand as a solution to our transportation needs to that point.Ad worked. Dealership worked (second one; first one was lame); Vehicle works.Online, it may not be 80/20…….

  80. awaldstein

    Question re: your comment on adwords.PPC at its core is an auction purchase of a click. When you have your integration done you can determine the ROI of each click by geo location by time.PPC in my experience at least is not a marketing expense. It’s lead gen optimized against a set margin. You determine the parameters and spend to your formula once you know your market.There are caps on growth of course, but this is not a nebulous process like evaluating brand growth.So…I agree. You purchase to your formula.Large company/small company seems less a determinant than the goals of the campaign.I know I’m wildly oversimplifying but I must be missing something.

  81. JamesHRH

    Chris – you haven’t seen too many strong campaigns from the inside. When I sold local media, I personally created ad driven events for local retailers that hammered their expected ROI in a single day (usually a Saturday in May, but still).Like everything else, it requires a holistic approach: great idea / offer (why do ads), appropriate budget and operational prep (how to capitalize on ads) & then execution (what – the ads).

  82. Vasudev Ram

    Edit: The STM exec also said that there is a lead time for things to happen, so if they only started investing in research and production when the recession seemed to be getting over, they would not be able to take full advantage of the next upswing, because they would still be building up their capabilities while it was on.

  83. testtest

    i’m a fan of ppc, when i first did it i spent my rent on it. luckily it turned out oknot a marketing expense? AT&T Mobile spend $8m a month. That’s quite a lot.You set the parameters and spend to your forumula once you know your marketpersonally i like to always be testing. ad copy, position, landing pages etc. depending on the market you can get good returns. other markets you can get destroyed. Mixing it with SEO can help

  84. Matt A. Myers

    They can learn if they try and are capable.

  85. Matt A. Myers

    $8? Million I’m guessing you mean..There’s value in simply brand exposure, and that can be measured to some degree by national/larger corporations.

  86. testtest

    @twitter-115424261:disqus yeah million 

  87. JamesHRH

    Bit of a cheap dig here – Wanamaker died in ’22; his only remaining son died in ’28. Tough to build a dynasty with that transition.Dude was a hitter – end of story. That quote was biblical for 75 years – that ought to tell you something – you’d be lucky to match him on that one accomplishment alone.

  88. JamesHRH

    I have held this position for some time.The amount of unused ad inventory online is unfathomable. It might actually be incalculable.What is known is that most of the placements are worthless, because of the number of placements that exist.If MarkZ decided to sell CPMs for a $0.00000000000000000000001 – just because he could – what would happen?

  89. testtest

    i’ve seen some reasonable campaigns. did them personally. experienced 1000% plus ROIThat was local market as well. not very competitive IMHO. i was talking more about competitive markets, insurance, poker etc  

  90. ShanaC

    I want to see that ad….

  91. Adam Hanft

    Yes, I yield on the genetics. But honestly, isn’t this one of those bromidic bullets that falls apart under scrutiny? Even in the 20s, you could do A/B testing in the Philadelphia Inquirer vs. the Bulletin, and compare the results?

  92. ShanaC

    Dude has his name on a street in NY where Nielsen and AOL is for a reason…

  93. Adam Hanft

    The joke used to be that if you had three sons, the smartest one went to law school, the next brightest one into finance, and the least gifted was shunted off to advertising.Back in the 70s, Al Hampel who ran Benton & Bowles defined the agency by “It’s not creative unless it sells” as a reaction to Doyle Dane Bernbach, Wells Rich Greene (where I worked) and other participants in the “the creative revolution.”. Today, the landscape is radically different. The holding companies have hedged their bets by diversifying broadly – in terms of geography, above and below the line businesses, and levels of creativity.

  94. Mike Colella

    You could test in the 20’s, but it was not easy. My understanding is that when Claude Hopkins published “Scientific Advertising” in 1923, it was pretty revolutionary. Advertising men of that era were not practicing proper A/B testing.

  95. ShanaC

    See google.  They’re nervous because search has peaked out on computers, and the Ux for sem for phones is going to be a messy one to figure out (I have a personal bet that Microsoft may do it first…but lose on metro on phones)  And one of things I think AOL is missing is RTB, which from my understanding infuriates media buyers because of control issues.  I also think they are suffering from management issues.  It has been well documented that pre-sale, HuffPost was poorly monetized the deeper you went into it, as well as for international audiences.  I don’t think that has been resolved.   Yahoo has revenue growth in Display that is being wasted by poor management….

  96. FAKE GRIMLOCK

    FACEBOOK GO OUT OF BUSINESS?

  97. JamesHRH

    10,000 other web sites go out of business instead?

  98. JamesHRH

    Adam – I was in the tail end of the creative revolution. I had head writers who were totally disconnected from the idea of selling. Unbelievably unproductive alignment.

  99. JamesHRH

    We did a live remote with 2 radio stations in s 6 station market @ an indent paint store on the May long weekend – bring in your old paint, we will get it recycled, you just have to buy $X of new paint.Blew the doors of the place and people talked about it all summer long (1994 and the was no way to recycle old paint in the market – we shipped it out of the province).B/t the ads and the recycling, we spent $30,000. Did that is added sales on the one day, with ++++ carry (people coming in, buying paint and mentioning the ads as triggering them to do a project, etc.)