portereport: When Online Advertising Goes Wrong

More and more, when advertising products, we have to think of new ways to grab people's attention. The logical move is to 'be where the people are'. This has led to an increasing amount of digital media replacing more traditional print and TV media over the past decade. It's how Google made and continues to make its money. The next step will be a sweeping digital convergence of those more 'traditional' mass channels...that will lead to a resurgence in those spaces. That's really the motivation behind Google launching into the TV space. As Google says, 'Not only are TVs the center of our living rooms, but 5 billion of us use them. That's more than the number of people who use cell phones or computers.' We will see digital advertising pick up more cues from its better looking TV advertising brother...but now those good-looking ads will be trackable and measurable. Hmm...I wonder how that will affect creativity when clients can justifiably say that the funniest commercials don't always convert into the most sales. Uh oh.

Anyway, we have some time before this is all figured out. The algorithms, for example, that serve up digital advertising based on what is relevant to the web site or page you're viewing is not yet a perfect science. Actually, as we can see in the examples below, it's anything but. Enjoy the laugh. Unless you've just pumped most of your budget into online ads...then I'd be calling my media planner to check EXACTLY where they're going to appear. ~ p

Mini-break in Greece