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Brand Advertisers: Not Stupid At All

On the face of it, when you look at old vs new media ad spend, the big dollars go to the old media while the bulk of the time and attention goes to new media.  ”The advertisers must be crazy or stupid or both” is the quick, logical conclusion to this paradox.  ”Smart” new brands engage with their customers online employing high-ROI campaigns, while those “dumb” old brands remain hypnotized lackeys of old media and their agency media planning partners in crime, like King Theoden of Rohan under the  spell of Wormtongue.  ”Give the money to TV” they say, and the brands mindlessly obey.  But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Big brands and their agencies, as it turns out, are run by rational, intelligent human beings who are highly frustrated with the ad opportunities web publisher present to them.  CPM banner campaigns running against content of questionable quality to an audience that largely ignores them?  Hardly a great solution.  Mobile ads?  For brands?  I have yet to see a good one in the wild.  CPC?  What good is a CPC campaign for a company building a brand that is purchased 95% of the time at a grocery store for $1.50?  Pre-roll video?  OK, but that 15 seconds feels like a half hour traffic jam to me.  I tend to click out.

So where is a brand to turn?  Fortunately, we can apply my grand unified theory of innovation which is:

Innovation Pace = (Budget + Customer Motivation)^2

And we are talking about an enormous budget and a highly frustrated customer.  So I am now seeing a gush of great ideas for brands to get their message to web users, desk top and palm top.  There are campaign optimizers, transparent/brand-safe ad networks, point-of-decision coupon offers, and my current favorite: new ad units that deliver high engagement and recall.  The money will find its way eventually to the web.  And many entrepreneurs will hit home runs as we are still in the early innings of this game.