The Future of Online Advertising (FOOA) is already in full swing and I couldn't be happier to be here. Here's my quick notes on the morning sessions.
Greg Stuart, author of What Sticks led off with a somewhat unflattering opinion state of the advertising industry. His book and this presentation was based on the John Wanamaker quote, "I know half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted, I just don't know what half." After research on 30 brands, and over one billion in ad spend, Stuart discovered that 47% of advertising is still failing.
"Wanamaker said that in 1890. In 100 years we've been able to improve by 3%." Stuart said. "That's not good."
More interesting to me, was Yahoo's VP of Agency Development, Ron Belanger. One of the focuses of his speech centered on better understanding of the search audience.
"One of the interesting things about online search is that we spend alot of time talking about the medium itself." Belanger said. "We haven't focused alot on the people doing the search."
Belanger went on to describe what Yahoo! considers Consumer 2.0 looks like. These people are:
- Overworked and Overwhelmed -- So there's less and less time to engage them.
- Addicted to Leisure -- So though they don't have time to listen to your message, they are finding ways to entertain themselves. Belanger quoted that Americans dedicate only 2% of income to saving and more than 8% to leisure activities.
- Information Junkies -- More and more information is created everyday, and they want access to all of it.
- Master Hypertaskers -- Marketers need to know that consumers are rarely focused on one item. When watching TV, Belanger made the claim that most people are doing something else in tandem. Whether its checking email, eating or in some cases sleeping, you don't have their attention.
- Community Participants -- Consumers are increasingly passionate about brands and will let people know about this through their blogs and online forums. "Marketers need to tie into this passion and invite them into the fold to be more effective." Belanger said.
Keep these factors in mind before your next ad placement. Belanger had tons of other beneficial information, including a case study on user generated content and the effectiveness of the simple text ads on the side of search. Turns out both work pretty well.
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