How The Pandora Model Would Save The Advertising Industry

Scott Bishop — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:15:55 +0000

Can a Simple Like Button Change Advertising

I sat in a mobile marketing presentation at SXSW excited to hear the presenters vision of where the mobile space is headed.

On the surface, mobile advertisements are a marketers dream. The advertising services are location based and activated via geographic location. Sounds great, right…If I’m driving by McDonald’s, I get an ad for McDonald’s.

The crowd really got jazzed up with the results that mobile advertisements get. Mobile ads get a 7% Click Through Rate (or CTR). Meaning, for every 100 impressions, 7 people click on the ad. Compare that to an averaged click through rate of 2% or less and mobile location based advertisements sound like a dream come true for marketers.

All hail mobile ads!

Judging by the thunderous enthusiasm at those results, the crowd agreed. Unfortunately, the presentation and reactions let me know what I already assumed…advertising will never get better. (Insert deep sigh)

Am I the ONLY one who thinks 7% sucks!!

Is 7% really the future we can hope for? Is it so glorious when a few more than 9 out of 10 people hate your ad?

Why Only 7%

It makes sense that mobile advertising gets a higher click through rate because they’re based on location. If I drive through a McDonald’s, a coupon for the their new Latte pops up on my car’s GPS. What more could I want? I’m driving by a McDonald’s, and poof…an advertisement for McDonald’s.

But just as telling is why mobile advertising is only 7%.

What happens if I don’t drink coffee? What if I don’t like McDonald’s? As advanced as an ad that knows your location is…it’s not smart enough to know what you like. And that is where things go downhill fast. As much technology as we have available today, how can our ads not be smarter than that?

Shouldn’t Advertisers Be Better At Guessing What We Want?

How To Make It Better

At the very least…shouldn’t a user be able to select whether or not a particular ad hit the mark or not. Why not a “Like” or “Dislike” button, such as what Pandora does.

The streaming music service allows its users to create their own radio stations based on preferences they select. Every time a song is played, a user selects a “Thumbs Up” or a “Thumbs Down”. As the Ups or Downs are selected Pandora’s algorithm can more intelligently choose a song you will like, and it’s amazingly accurate.

Why Can’t We Apply Preferences To Advertisements?

I understand that we’re always going to be living in a world where ads are everywhere. But as the world of hyper-marketing allows brands to speak to the individual, why doesn’t this transcend to the advertising model in most mediums?

If I have the ability to select whether or not an advertisement is relevant to me…the more relevant the ads can be.

So while mobile advertisements are an advancement in the industry, there is still a long ways to go.

(Note: This post comes from a conversation I had with @Pragerd)

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Scott S. Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and a marketing strategist with a specialty in social media. He is an avid blogger and active across the net. He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

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The 2010 Super Bowl Ad Winner Was Pepsi…For Pulling Out

Scott Bishop — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:19:43 +0000

To the advertising world, the Super Bowl has always been known as…well the Super Bowl for advertisements. It’s the one time per year that people actually look forward to watching commercials. The hype has in some way, gotten much of the public as excited for the commercials as they are for the actual football game.

Each year the day after the Super Bowl, USA Today always has a poll of the best and worst advertisements. Regardless of how much or how little these ads have on ROI or the companies strategy. This is how the advertising industry decides who wins and who loses. So rather than wait for USA Today, this year I’m selecting my own advertising / marketing winner for the 2010 Super Bowl.

The Real Time Marketer’s winner for the 2010 Super Bowl is…Pepsi.

Yes, Pepsi. I can already see the puzzled looks on many of your faces because you probably didn’t remember a Pepsi commercial this year. Good memory, because Pepsi decided to sit this one out.

In December, Pepsi announced that they were pulling out of Super Bowl sponsorships and advertising for instead…social media campaigns.

Why Pepsi’s Strategy Will Pay Off

Nothing Was Memorable This Year

Was anyone blown away by any commercials this year? I smiled a few times at talking babies and even chuckled here and there at screaming chickens. But there was nothing really memorable. It’s tough to justify the 2.5 – 2.8 million dollar price tag for a commercial that no one will remember two weeks from now. In fact they were so unmemorable, if you did a survey about the best Super Bowl commercial this year and included Pepsi on the list…I am willing to bet they would still get a lot of votes, even though they had no participation.

An Active Community Will Always Trump An Event

The future of marketing will be less around a single event, and more about sparking and engaging with a community, or “movement” as Pepsi spokesman Nicole Bradley calls it. Pepsi pulled out of this year to put their money into the Pepsi Refresh Project.

When I checked for this post, the Pepsi Refresh Project’s Facebook Page has 496, 690 fans. While this is peanuts compared to the +95 million people that watch the Super Bowl, Pepsi is creating a community that will grow throughout the year. These are 500k passionate people who are interested in getting involved in Pepsi’s project. I’ll take an active, motivated, engaged community any day of the week compared to a 30-second advertisement, no matter how good it is.

Colas Have Loyal Customers

I’m drinking a Diet Mt. Dew as I type this post. I’m willing to bet that Pepsi drinkers aren’t switching to Coke anytime soon. And Coke drinkers aren’t bailing on them even with the lame commercials they produced. Coke and Pepsi fans are passionate about their favorite soft drink. Super Bowl ads or no Super Bowl ads are not changing peoples tastes.

Pepsi Got A Lot Of Publicity Anyway

Pepsi received a lot of publicity just for pulling out. The announcement of the company who has spent $142.8 million on the 10 Super Bowl ads from 1999 to 2008, second only to Anheuser-Busch, created a title wave of buzz on it’s own. The announcement that much of the budget will be spent online, only makes people that much more curious to see what it is.

The Advertising / PR / Marketing big dog firms will try and take jabs at Pepsi’s decision because they don’t yet understand social media. To them, Twitter is just a place to tell people you’re sitting on a porch (just watch this Verizon commercial). The old giants are afraid of the future and not sure how exactly to navigate in social media’s cloudy waters. For that, they will wait for Pepsi’s results rather than jump in.

The old guards of the marketing / PR world are stale and afraid of what the future holds. Their fear shackles their creativity and innovation. Pepsi has decided to take the torch and lead the way.

For that alone, I think Pepsi has already won.

This is DAY 7 of my “28 Day Blogging Challenge“