I did a project on addressable advertising for a
large media client a couple of years back and would like to
share some of my learnings.
1. Brand advertising vs. lead generation are distinctly
different.
2. In brand advertising,
a) the attribution chain from impression to transaction is
very fuzzy and not measurable.
b) The value of qualified vs. unqualified impression can
vary from same ( mass market product in brand building mode)
to 10 X (presidential campaign trying to reach undecided
independents 10 days before voting day) depending on context.
3. In lead generation, Joyce is indeed correct that a
qualified lead is worth its weight in gold. Which is why
google generates $120 M revenue every day.
4. Customers are not interested in selecting ads they would
like. They really don't give a damn and it is not a "job" they
want to do. They may do it when forced to ( like in the case
of watching Hulu) but any business built on the assumption of
customers self selecting advertising interests is not
realistic.
5. As much as we all love intent-casting, it is really not
clear to me that a new service can achieve the scope and scale
to perform the role of a generic demand aggregator. Making
liquid markets across categories is pretty damn hard.
6. It is more conceivable to think of smaller ( but still
huge) plays where customer demand pulls supply in real-time.
Like ordering a taxi (uber), ordering a private jet
(blackjet), renting a tuxedo ( blacktux), getting legal help
(upcounsel) etc. In each of these categories, the
demand-supply dance is being orchestrated in a beautiful
dance. When operating at scale, the new model will be 10x
better and will eliminate or minimize the need for marketing
done in the traditional sense.
7. In the long-term, as individual markets get efficient
with collecting demand, they may not see as much value in
investing in "spray and pray" marketing and creepy advertising
based on crude cookie based guesses. But it does seem a long
journey from here to there, market by market.
regards, AJ