I joined the Seattle Ad Club late last year with the intention of getting more involved in the broader marketing + advertising scene (particularly locally). However, my first meeting with them, at an evening social, was somewhat offputting - very cliquey, trendy and a feeling that newcomers were not entirely welcome (although the host of the event tried her best to help me fit in).
Today, however, was a more formalized event and it certainly felt more appropriate. The subject of the luncheon panel was "Media Matters" and it consisted of primarily advertising industry executives with impressive client lists. I was excited to see what the take on the Internet & New Media would be.
Sadly, I was to be dissapointed. Although web was mentioned as medium, I got the distinct impression from the panelists and the moderator that the web was, as one panelist termed it "not yet a good platform." Here's a few of the explanations I gathered:
- Hard to measure branding value
- More of a direct marketing channel
- Demographics fluctuate
- Web users ignore ads
- Too hard to locally and geographically target
I can't entirely agree with all of these, but I was forced to think about the advertising industry in general and the common goals of big brand advertising. Most of the speakers served brands like BMW, Group Health, Starbucks, Washington Mutual, etc. Fortune 500 companies are the standard clients of ad agencies and even small agencies generally serve well known and sizable clients - clients who can afford a few million dollars on TV ads every week.
So... rather than pontificate on my own feelings, let me ask what you think. Does the web hold branding and ad value for big firms? Are the reasons the ad execs gave for avoiding work on the web accurate? Will the worlds of advertising and web marketing ever mix?
I agree with many of these responses, but I still feel that there's an important lesson here - big companies have not yet taken the plunge into the web.
To me, their eventual entrance could be a threat to many of our smaller efforts in the SERPs. Imagine results getting clogged by hundreds of pages on sites launched by big brands - consolidation of viewing eyeballs onto the "short front" and fewer users and less user time spent on the "long tail." Is it a possibility?
You bet!
And there is the danger of waking the "sleeping giant" that is big business. The reality is most of these companies don't know how to adapt web tech to their 50 year old business model.
A lot of small businesses have taken advantage of that but at some point the big boys will move online and in a big way. For some it will be coming full circle. The catalog retailers of the 1800s that have failing storefronts now but big names could do an amazing job online.
Imagine big companies deciding to stop hedging and go all in with multimillion dollar budgets...
It would advance things and make a lot of us uncomfortable.
At that point we'll see how good we really are. It;s possible that blanket coverage through PPC and similar programs could devalue SEO.
rmccarley: Imagine big companies deciding to stop hedging and go all in with multimillion dollar budgets...
Whoaa! That is gonna be like surviving a buffalo stampede - on foot.
IMO the key is getting out of their direct path or be big enough that their masses will flow around you. I am trying to do both.
Anybody who lives through it and holds high rankings is gonna make an awful lot of adsense money. :D
EGOL: IMO the key is getting out of their direct path or be big enough that their masses will flow around you. I am trying to do both.
Online business seems to get more like offline business every day, doesn't it?
I'm with Pleb (and probably eveyone else) on this. It's clear they don't know what they are talking about.
The web is one of the most brandable mediums. It does require a good designer and that usually costs a bit extra.
I pick up business through my site and I have not listed any services on it. I have not sent mass emails to get attention. In fact, 99% of my traffic is passive or "pull" based. And mostly targeted at other SEOs. So with that model, how do people find my site and call me? It's not through direct marketing!
Demographics fluctuate... this one has me stumped. With technology changes and trends I can see this as being a small (very small) issue but all demographics change! Baby Boomers aren't what ther were 10 years ago. Neither are Gen-Xers. I would say most demographic changes are positive on the web as more people learn how to use it and get comfortable purchasing through it. This has only been a growing change and only serves our best interests.
EGOL summed up the ads thing nicely.
Geotargeting is easy. I was doing it on accident before I learned about SEO. I had a client that was a start-up who got 50% of her business through her site. Competition for local terms is usually much lower than for generic terms.
What I really get from all this is that we take it for granted what we know and when we get into a situation like Rand's we may not always know what to do.
My instinct would have been to jump up and yell "Bull *Something*" but I'm sure my better business sense and diplomacy would have prevented that.
One thing is clear, considering who was represented we have a lot more work to do to get the word out about what we do and what is possible.
Branding is not measurable in any medium. That argument does not hold a drop of water.
There are some very interesting Branding and PR measurement tools out there such as Cymfony. As far as ads go, there has never been a more measurable way to advertise.
This reminds me of a Fortune Magazine article a month or so back called: "Madison Ave. Lights Up: Upstart ad agencies bring creative sparkle back to New York."
For the most part, the big companies carried their brand to the web. But they are largely second movers and sluggish movers and work at home mom and pops are kicking their butts in their PJs.
Branding Value = how many type-ins I get
Web users ignore ads = heh heh... they should see our adsense checks
Too hard to locally and geographically target = huh? that's the easy KWs
Funny you should mention that Rand. I live in Knoxville and recently joined the Knoxville Marketing Association. I have been going for a few months now. I have met a few nice people there but it is definitely very cliquey. I always feel out of place when I am there. I still don't have an official name tag that members are supposed to have.
I've also gone to Knoxville Advertising Federation events and they are pretty much the same.
Most of the members are in broadcasting around these parts. One of the biggest country music stations in the country is located here. There is not much focus or awareness of the web around here. The prices we can charge reflect that. Companies here think nothing of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising but cringe over spending a few thousand dollars on a web site. We pretty much have to go out of the area to get the bigger better paying jobs.
"...very cliquey, trendy and a feeling that newcomers were not entirely welcome..."
Hey that sounds like SEO :)
From what you have said it was clear they dont understand the potential of the web. Ignorance about what we do is still rampant in a lot of places. Remember that you were the web expert in that room and you live and breathe seo and internet but they will have been `old school`.