Wake Up and Smell the Revolution!

Servant of Chaos gives what I consider to be a stunning account of a meeting he attended as a guest of his client. When the topic turned to the Web, the speaker made an incredibly ignorant statement that, had he made it at my agency, without inhibition all of our jaws would have simultaneously dropped to the floor. It was, "Ah yes, but you can't measure the web."

In what must have felt like an old episode of The Twilight Zone, the other people in the room were actually nodding their heads in agreement. Nodding! In SOC's words,

I thought I must have misheard. I looked around the room and the nodding continued. Then I realised that I was just living in a parallel universe ... the one where SOME people get the Net and others don't. Unfortunately, my world was the lesser populated.

I suppose the exec in question remains quite satisfied overspending for media that is giving him a lot of cute creative that wins awards but produces inferior results (because that's the way it's always been done), and then crying and complaining to the courts and the FTC when people are following their own instincts by tuning his message out with DVR or whatever else the marketplace may devise.

When that fails, they attempt the same intrusive techniques on the Web that worked quite well for them when we only had three TV stations and consumers had no other options, and then they blame the measurability of the Web when it doesn't go right.

This is the overall problem with a lot of marketers, including the head nodders in SOC's room, is that there are many companies STILL out there who tend to think of the world in terms of what they need, when they should instead be focused on what the consumers want and need.

I will reserve my analysis of why this might be for another day, but let it suffice to say for now that we will never... ever... be able to make our clients' businesses profitable if we (wittingly or not) give them false information. Just because something is difficult to do right doesn't mean we shouldn't be honest about what it will take. - Cam Beck

Comments

[Gavin Heaton]

Cam ... great points! In a lot of ways, the problem comes down to relationships. The interactive teams that are pushing new approaches to measurement and engagement (ie online) are up against long-term relationships that have been built on "industry standards" such as TV ratings and demographic analysis.
There is much vested interest on all sides, and we need to work carefully with clients to help them understand this very different approach to measurement. It is certainly a revolution in ways of doing, as well as ways of thinking/analysing. But the message to us, at least, is clear ... just need to make sure that clients are NOT shooting the messenger because of what they hear.