Advertisers Starting to Demand Results?
Posted on January 24, 2008
Filed Under Marketing 2.0 |
While going through the closets at my new home away from home, , I noticed that discusses some recent comments by one of Proctor & Gamble’s marketing executives. Emma Jenkins, Head of Interactive Marketing for the consumer goods conglomerate, the following comments about online advertising and agencies:
We absolutely do want big ideas, but in the end the creative needs to deliver. Business objectives need to be embraced all the way through the creative agency from the account manager onwards.
We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, but I’m not convinced the tease-and-reveal marketing approach, as used in TV advertising, works online. You need to be much faster at getting to the ‘what’s in it for me?’ or consumers will walk away or jump to their own conclusions, which may be wrong.
We absolutely want to delight viewers but sometimes we need to cut to the chase. We rely too much on the goodwill of the consumer and they have a lot vying for their attention online.
As my new brother from another mother, , at E-consultancy.com points out, “In an industry so accountable and measurable, it seems that some are using the excuse of delivering ‘brand awareness’ to avoid the need to prove results.” He also correctly observes that “The challenge in measuring campaign performance for FMCG brands such as P&G is that the sale is not completed online, so there is no sale conversion rate.”
This discussion highlights several important points:
- More advertisers are clearly starting to ask “Shouldn’t we be getting more?” when it comes to their online advertising campaigns.
- Publishers and agencies have been trying to distract from delivering tangible results by talking about things such as “engaging creative” and “brand awareness.” Much of the time, .
- Despite the fact that, in theory, online advertising provides a means for greater tracking and accountability than other mediums, this doesn’t necessarily apply to large brands like P&G.
P&G is one of the world’s largest advertisers and one of the marquee consumer brands that every online publisher hopes to do business with. And for good reason: the amount of money they can drop on a deal is enough to bring a smile to the face of even the grumpiest person. One of my business ventures has been fortunate enough to call P&G a paying client for the past two years and I have a lot of respect for the company. If P&G is starting to ask for more, my prediction is that more and more advertisers are going to be demanding more as well, especially as the economic landscape necessitates it.
Publishers and agencies are on notice: the money is there but you just might have to start delivering something for it.
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delivering what though? truth about impressions? click through rates? So much of that is dependent on the message and the market, so will be interesting to see if with allllllll this aggregate data the marketers are collecting if they can deliver. I think the focus is going to be back on the advertisers themselves to deliver - getting the right message to the right audience. Now marketers can get away with simply gloating: our ad was seen 250M times on Perez Hilton, and get a raise for it. But if not one person clicked thru because the ad was for AARP and the typical Perez reader is not close to retirement then the 250M impressions are useless. I think a lot of advertisers are just dabbling right now and the wheat/chaffe separation on the advertisers’ ability will need to happen soon.
ROI, plain and simple. Click-through, impressions, and reader base numbers are really all smoke and mirrors. It’s a basic concept, here, people. A company spends money on ads. They want to see a spike in sales based on that money that they spent.
Antje: if you are an agency, the advertiser is paying you to make the right decisions regarding targeting, etc.
If you are a publisher or ad network, you have probably sold the advertiser on the fact that you are the conduit to the audience they need. I honestly don’t believe that, outside of cheap RON ads, the major advertisers are just blindly throwing money at the wrong targets. Obviously, advertisers play a role in achieving the desired results but I think the biggest problem is that far too many publishers oversell and underdeliver. Publishers and advertisers need to look at their relationship as a partnership. Publishers that understand advertisers’ goals and work with them to deliver real results (and value) will thrive while those that are in it for the quick hit will eventually start to see advertisers go elsewhere.