Ad notes
: Damn, I wish Ad Age would put up its content so I could at least quote it. The last two issues had some interesting stuff:
: Starcom, a smart and big agency, wants more accountability data from magazines about reader engagement.
For “connectivity,” Starcom asks magazines to show how publications provide the right environment for marketers to connect with their target. The agency looks for alignment of context, contact, and content, according to a consumer magazine executive who’s familiar with ACE.
To measure “engagement,” Starcom asks magazines to show that “readers regularly interact with your publication and internalize its information,” the executive said.
Well, now, doesn’t that sound like a perfect prescription for the value of citizens’ media… We provide context at a very personal level, contact that is provable, and relevant content and we demonstrate that our “readers” interact with our “publications”: look at the comments, look at the links.
: Out of last weekend’s Association of National Advertisers’ confab in Florida, came a dawning realization among advertisers that they aren’t in control anymore and neither are media companies. Consumers are.
“The consumer is the official programmers,” Yahoo CEO Terry Semel told the group. Well, yeah. See:
Jarvis’ First Law: Give the people control of media, they will use it.
The corollary: Don’t give the people control of media, and you will lose.
Yes, control is what media is all about — has been since the invention of the remote control and on through the cable box, the VCR, the TiVo, and now media-creation tools. It hit TV first thanks to those electronic devices. It hit print media next, thanks to citizens’ media. And now it’s hitting advertising.
And it’s fascinating to see the industry grapple with this. Grabble, they did, at the ANA as some advertisers embraced this idea of consumer control — “Truly the consumer wants to be in control and we want to put them in control,” said Roger Adams of GM — while others resist. Again, I wish I could link to and quote from the AdAge stories (hint, hint).
: The new populism in advertising is reflected in an ironic way in eBay’s new campaign. Says AdAge:
Following a rash of news stories about the potential for fraud, eBay is shifting strategies with a new campaign centered on one of its cultural tenants: “People are good.”
Yes, we are.
