May 16th, 2012
Measuring marketing success is like quantum mechanics:
How long is a piece of string?
I have borrowed this image of Alan Davies tackling that old physics chestnut, "How long is a piece of string?", from an interesting site called BrainPickings.org, which I encourage you to check out for all kinds of reasons.
With the Facebook IPO in full swing, it's not surprising that when GM said they were pulling $10 million worth of advertising spend on Facebook, the financial press took note. And of course there was no shortage of commentators ringing the alarm bells about the imminent demise of Facebook's ability to monetize.
I can't help but think of department store magnate John Wanamaker's famous comment, circa 1912: "I know half my advertising dollars are wasted. I just don't know which half."
Marketing works.
It's just sometimes hard to know how or why, and social media is no exception.
The worst part about working in marketing is that 2+2 almost never adds up to 4. Sometimes it adds up to 3, sometimes 10, sometimes a vivid shade of yellow. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either naive or the kind of person who calls themself an 'SEO Ninja' and thinks everything can be measured in clickthroughs.
And therein lies the problem.
Before the internet, we had to measure most advertising exposures in GRPs (gross ratings points), which is essentially a way to measure reach (how many people saw/heard your tv/radio ad, saw your billboard, etc.) and frequency (how many times they saw it). You might spend $1 million buying 400 GRPs for 8 weeks for your billboard campaign, but you really had no way to determine whether all those people speeding past your billboard on the highway were actually looking at your billboard, registering the message, and then making a purchasing decision based on it.
In the meantime, of course, you were probably spending money on other initiatives like tv ads, print ads, direct mail, promotions - all of which have varying degrees of measurability when it comes to purchasing decisions. The only way you could really know whether your efforts had been successful was to wait until the campaign was over and hope there'd been a demonstrable uptick in sales.
The people who say that social media marketing dollars are 'wasted' if they don't generate the right clickthroughs - and there are lots of them - have forgotten that marketing success is generally a result of a complex alchemy that happens when you reach your target market in multiple ways, via multiple channels, over a (sometimes long) period of time.
Why GM's decision isn't that momentous
Though the GM's announcement made headline news, it really isn't that significant in terms of Facebook's long-term prospects or GM's overall strategy, and here's why:
It's a drop in the bucket
Worldwide, GM spends $1.7 billion dollars in advertising every year. They're still spending $30 million on Facebook 'marketing' - they're just not spending $10 million in paid ads. That sounds like a lot to us regular people, but it's nothing for a big-budget advertiser like GM.
Clickthroughs aren't everything
Much has been made of the stat that 83% of people say they don't click through Facebook ads. I'd say the number is probably even higher, but it doesn't matter: No one clicks through billboards or magazine ads, either, but that doesn't mean they don't drive brand awareness, equity or sales in the longer term.
You can't get a 'conversion rate' on buying cars
People who advertise online like to talk about 'conversion rates': The percentage of people who clickthrough your ad, then make a purchase on your site. This can be an excellent measure of success if you're trying to sell something on, say, Amazon. It's never going to work for cars, because almost no one is going to buy a car via a website.
We don't know enough about GM's overall media mix
A senior marketing exec from McDonald's once told me that it takes 4-7 'touchpoints' (interactions with the brand via different channels) in order to get someone to buy an order of large fries. If that's what it takes to generate a $2 purchase, imagine what it takes to generate a $35k purchase of a car.
GM themselves probably don't entirely know what works
Once GM realized that its announcement had caused an uproar, they hastily released a statement about how they regularly review their marketing mix and make adjustments. I believe them: All large advertisers make changes to their media mix on an ongoing basis, based on new information or a change in focus or whatever. GM isn't abandoning Facebook altogether, and plenty of other carmakers are still spending money on Facebook ads.
The bottom line
There's a reason that advertisers are increasingly turning to neuroscience to understand buying behaviour: 95% of human decisions are made by the subconscious mind, so even when you ask people directly, they simply can't tell you why they made a particular purchasing decision. GM's decision to pull a very tiny fraction of their budget from Facebook tells us almost nothing about the true efficacy of Facebook advertising.
May 9th, 2012
Saying "It's for charity" doesn't solve the problems in this ad.
As I said the other day in my post about breastfeeding, I'm all for advertising which normalizes bodily functions that we've historically seen as something 'shameful'. And the need for adult diapers fits nicely into that category.
But this ad is beyond me.
The expository dialogue ("I know you don't need them" and "Come on, it's for charity") seems like it's been awkwardly squished in there; we never get told what the 'charity' actually is; and the 'celebrities' they've chosen are so far out of the demographic that they seem unrelated to the product. I'm left wondering whether they're promoting figure skating, or charity, or Depends. The tight camera shots make the whole thing seem like it's been filmed with a $23 budget, too.
Upon reflection, I considered that my mother (who is, given her age, presumably in the target demographic) does love figure skating, so perhaps using Isabelle Brasseur and PJ Stock makes more sense than I think. And I get that maybe the point is to show that you can wear Depends and still lead an active lifestyle. But why is the 'charity' never identified? Why are they putting the product on people who, as they say, have no need for it?
When I look at the comments on YouTube, and the other videos from this channel, I see that they're trying to make the point that there's no shame in trying on a pair of Depends - and, again, I think that's a worthy goal. I just think that there must be a less awkward way to do it.
April 25th, 2012
Proof that the most creative advertising happens when committees aren't involved.
It may have taken 10 writers and 3 producers to come up with Jennifer Lopez's hit, "Jenny from the Block", but I've long been convinced that when you look under the hood of really fantastic, creative advertising - the kind that can't help but go viral - you'll find that it was the brainchild of one, or maybe two, people who didn't have to cater to a whole boardroom full of 'stakeholders'.
Behold:
This ad originally appeared on Craigslist (where it is, inexplicably, currently flagged for removal), but has gone viral simply because of its unadulterated creativity.
Turns out the ad is the brainchild of a couple of 23-year-old friends, Joe (the owner of the car, and an aerospace engineer) and Kyle (a designer who works in marketing). Actually, according to the interview with Jalopnik, I'm pretty sure the ad is almost entirely Kyle's brainchild.
I don't know where Kyle works, but I sure hope he just got a big raise and a promotion. I myself would be happy if I'd just written the copy for this piece, let alone been able to do the copy and the design. But the word 'Jesus' alone would have had this piece kicked out of contention in an 'agency' setting.
BONUS OPINION: While my kneejerk response is to wonder why 'big brands' can't do this kind of creativity, I do wonder whether one of the reasons this ad works is precisely because it's not for a big brand, and you know it was done by 'some guy' on his home computer, just for fun. I suspect that if a mainstream brand tried to do this, and tried to push it through broadcast media channels, it might come off as trying too hard - even if the copy and graphics were exactly the same. Hhmmm.
April 23rd, 2012
Has 'stuffed crust' finally gone too far?
Normally I wouldn't just post an advertisement without having some kind of ostensibly insightful opinion to offer about it, but this new Pizza Hut Middle East offering frankly has me speechless.
For your delectation: The Crown Crust Pizza.
April 21st, 2012
When are we going to stop having to talk about this?
So this week, Kraft Foods and ad agency Cheil Worldwide had to do some damage control when this ad, for "milk's favourite cookie", went viral:
The Mommyblogosphere lit up with rumours that this was a print ad designed for the Korean marketplace, but Kraft and Cheil quickly announced that this wasn't a real ad, only some kind of 'spec' ad they created for use at an advertising forum. (To be fair, having worked in agencies, I can totally see how an ad like this would have been trotted out in a limited forum as an example of Creative Thinking. And the Photoshop job on the hand holding the cookie is so amateurish that I can't imagine that it was ever intended for widespread use.)
Now, I'm no Mayim Bialik when it comes to breastfeeding - I think it's great if you can do it, but I'm not in the 'breastfeeding until the kid is 5 years old is your bounden duty as a mother' camp - but I have to say that what really bugged me about this particular tempest in a teacup is how many websites covered up the 'nipple' in the shot, like this:
or even this:
Are we really still implying that a glimpse of some breast and a nipple in a breastfeeding context is somehow controversial?
We've seen this nonsense before
In 1992 I spent a month in England, and the big advertising story at the time - which I can't find online, unfortunately - was a big debate over whether commercials for feminine hygiene products should be shown on 'family' channels before the watershed hour (9pm, I think it was). The implication being that 8-year-olds shouldn't be traumatised (scandalized? confused? freaked out?) by having to recognize that women get their periods.
Just what we need: To raise girls who think that their periods are somehow shameful, and boys who remain clueless about it, as though it's never anything to do with them.
(It's bad enough that I was almost 20 years old before I understood that laxatives were to help with bowel movements. All those soft-focus Correctol ads with shots of droplets of water made me think that it was somehow supposed to make you pee more.)
I really think that the sooner we can get over the notion that there's anything scandalous about breastfeeding (or menstruation, or constipation), the better off we'll all be.
BONUS OPINION: It's Oreo's 100th anniversary this year, and it would not surprise me in the least to discover that this ad had been 'leaked' entirely on purpose. It's given Oreo a huge amount of publicity, and the mommybloggers have been mostly in favour of it - and if you don't know how powerful mommybloggers are these days, you haven't been paying attention.
April 19th, 2012
...or am I just getting old?
The other day, my friend and former ad agency comrade Alanis and I were talking - via Twitter, of course - about the dismal state of television ads for yogurt, with specific reference to that terrible 'Find Your Source' series.
Alanis was referring to a fresh new disaster in this line, featuring a bizarre fruit-surrounded woman DJing her way to yogurt happiness, but I can't find it online. No matter, because the one I could find is just as representative of the genre:
However, the yogurt commercial that's been driving me nuts lately is the one for Yoptimal yogurt, which uses what must be the oldest trope in the commercial business: The star of the spot keeps 'ruining' each take because she's enjoying the product so much that she can't stop eating it.
Unfortunately, everyone involved with this spot is apparently so embarrassed by it that the best I can offer you is the thumbnail above - even the production company (Spy Films) doesn't have it on their website, and the ad agency (Bos) doesn't have it in their portfolio.
Why did this one stick in my mind? Because I remember this actress - Natalie Brown - starring in one of the most 'iconic' tv commercials of my youth:
(I do give her credit for looking almost exactly the same as she did 20 years ago. I don't know what she's doing, but it's clearly working.)
Those of you who are a certain age will no doubt remember this Heinz commercial. Slightly cheesy, but with a little story and a nice idea and decent casting.
But that's the thing: 20 years later, we can still remember this spot. When I went looking for her current yogurt commercial, it took me ages to figure out it was for Yoptimal - I finally had to find a list of Canadian yogurt brands and search each one of them until I got a hit. When people can't remember the product, and can't find the spot even when they're looking, your commercial has failed.
I know that television advertising has had to change in the past 15 years: When I first started working in ad agencies, 15 years ago, clients didn't blink at forking over $350,000 for a commercial or two, because everyone was watching tv and that's how you reached them. And everyone knew that, between ad agency fees, ACTRA contracts, and studio time, the costs just mounted up.
These days, everyone has a high-quality digital camera and iMovie on their computer, they're watching tv shows online where they can avoid commercials - so what company is going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a tv commercial when they can crowdsource something for $1000? But while 'crowdsourcing' your commercial sounds like a fantastic idea when you're in the boardroom trying to impress everyone with just how iHipster you are, it very rarely translates into an iconic ad in the end.
Don't worry - I haven't turned into a curmudgeon here. There are plenty of interesting commercials happening - they just aren't making it on to television. They're living on the internet:
But it's kind of a shame, because it's making television even more annoying to watch than it already is.
April 4th, 2012
People who think advertising is a new thing that is somehow 'evil' haven't read any history books lately.
I've borrowed this excellent image from Zazzle.com, where you can make customized stuff in small quantities. They'll be less annoyed about this if you click here to visit their site!
(Today I ran into someone I knew in high school and they seemed appalled that I'd ended up in marketing, so I dug this up from my old blog on ERE.net and I've reprinted it here. It was originally part of a series on personal branding, but I think it works fine by itself.)
Advertising: The profession everyone loves to hate
I've spent my entire working life in 3 industries that people think are filled with cheats, charlatans and idiots: Real estate, advertising, and recruiting.
So I'm used to the faces people make - as though they'd just sucked on a particularly sinful lemon - when they hear what I do for a living. Many people can't restrict themselves to just the faces, either, and are happy to tell me that all real estate agents/advertising people/recruiters are shallow, materialistic, fake, incompetent, mean, and self-absorbed.
If I'm meeting them at, say, a dinner party where the other guests work in non-profits, government, academia or healthcare, there often ensues a lengthy discussion on how advertising types - and the evil corporations they represent - is pretty much responsible for the downfall of society.
The anti-branding position goes like this:
"If marketing people didn't keep trying to convince people that they 'needed' 8 televisions, 3 cars, a 4000 sq foot home with a 100-ft frontage, several $1000 handbags and a perfect size 2 figure, we'd all be much happier, society would be a meritocracy, eating disorders would be eliminated, and China would have uncensored internet access."
Thanks to the popularity of Mad Men, this is usually followed up with some comment about how shady advertising types are a recent invention of the past 50 years, and that we need to be stamped out before the sky actually does fall in.
Except that's not really true...
Let's just break it down:
"...8 televisions, 3 cars, a 4000 sq ft home, etc."
Guess what? Once you have enough to eat, are safe from predators, have a roof over your head and sufficient clothing to keep from dying of exposure, everything else you own is just stuff you want, not stuff you need.
"...with a 100-ft frontage..."
The human desire for land precedes advertising agencies by about 10,000 years, as evidenced by about a zillion wars over various patches of ground throughout the whole of human history.
"...we'd all be much happier, society would be a meritocracy..."
If there were any actual examples, in all of recorded human history, of societies in which happiness was rife and a meritocracy prevailed, I'd have an easier time believing this.
"...eating disorders would be eliminated..."
I hate unrealistic airbrushed models as much as anyone, but eating disorders have been documented since the Middle Ages, and there's evidence to suggest they've been around for more than 10,000 years.
"...advertising types are a recent invention of the past 50 years..."
Advertising and marketing has been around as long as humans have - archeologists have found evidence of marketing messages in Ancient Greece and the Middle Ages, and classified ads in Ancient Rome. The first clear-cut examples of 'modern' advertising in the 15th century, and the first newspaper ad appeared in 1622 or so.
In other words: As soon as the first human wanted to get other humans to 'do stuff' (help with the boar-killing expedition, believe in their god, buy their corn, or fight their war), marketing's existed.
What have we learned?
Since human society has managed to survive - nay, thrive! - 10,000 years of marketing and 500+ years of advertising, I feel certain that society is in no imminent danger of collapse.
March 30th, 2012
Ads for big brands are touched by a lot of people before they're released.
How come no one noticed this one was terrible?
This week Belvedere Vodka got in a lot of trouble when it posted this print advertisement on its Facebook page:
Maybe the person who wrote the tagline thought it would be a 'cheeky' double-entendre - in questionable taste, but maybe okay if it was used with a photo of, say, two obviously gay men and used in the bathroom of a downtown dance club.
This, for example, doesn't bother me (or, probably, anyone) nearly as much:
(The line here is "There is nothing more satisfying than Effen on a plane.")
But when you stick a "going down" line on a photo of a man apparently forcibly restraining a woman, and neither of them are displaying facial expressions consistent with lighthearted, consensual fun, you've got a problem. When posting it on your Facebook page brings a firestorm of comments about how it depicts rape, you start to look like you've lost the plot.
One guy apologized, but creating this ad was a team effort
When the blogosphere went crazy, Jason Lundy, SVP of Global Marketing for Belvedere, issued an apology and pulled the ad. That's fine, I guess, but it misses the point: This ad wasn't the misguided brainchild of a single person, or even a single company. A whole team of people had to create and approve this ad before it ever saw a Facebook page:
- Copywriter
- Art director
- Creative director
- Designer
- Account executive (at the ad agency)
- Account director (at the ad agency)
- Brand manager (at Belvedere)
- Marketing director
- Someone from legal (at Belvedere)
- Social media coordinator (whoever posts to Belvedere's Facebook page)
Having worked in a number of big ad agencies, on big brands, I can tell you that this is probably only a partial list of the people who had input on this piece before it ever got converted into a jpg and posted in public.
So at least 10 people - and probably a whole lot more - who work on the Belvedere marketing account decided that this ad was a good idea. Apparently they still don't think it was a big deal, because Belvedere's ad agency, Last Exit (an interesting name, in the circumstances), still has Belvedere front and center on their website, and they haven't bothered to post anything about the ad on their blog about the controversy, either.
Now the woman in the ad is suing Belvedere and parent company LVMH - she says the photo they used is actually a still from a short film she made with a friend, that Belvedere used without permission.
Kinda makes you wonder what the heck goes on in team meetings over at Belvedere and Last Exit. Perhaps they've been sampling the product a little too early in the day.
February 26th, 2012
Within a week of getting my first job in a big advertising agency - as the assistant to the Creative Director - one of the other assistants said to me, quite casually, "Oh, I wasn't surprised you got the job. [Creative Director] really likes women with short hair like yours - he thinks women with really short hair are more confident."
She wasn't, in case you're wondering, trying to be catty or mean. She was simply stating a fact as she saw it. And as I got to know my new boss better, I decided she was right: my short hair had been a definite plus.
At the same time, I knew the rest of my appearance was woefully inadequate for my new job. Sitting in the lobby for my first interview, I became convinced I'd never get hired, as every single person who walked by appeared to be tall, thin, perfectly accessorized and effortlessly cosmopolitan.
I, on the other hand, have a figure that could be charitably described as more 'Nigella Lawson' than 'Jennifer Aniston', wear the same earrings almost every day because I'm always losing half a pair, and didn't buy my first designer handbag until I was 25. I wasn't completely ignorant of fashion - I'd just lived in the suburbs my whole life, where the standards were lower, and I'd just moved to Toronto on an entry-level salary, so even outfitting myself with MAC cosmetics was a serious budgetary commitment. And the truth is that I'm not naturally gifted with a genius for fashion.
My style soon underwent a transformation: I found out where the other assistants went for jeans, waxing, haircuts, shoes, etc. None of us were making much money, so they had good advice on how to look polished on a budget (protip: if you base all your outfits around black, you can make shoes, handbags and other items work with multiple outfits, while still looking sufficiently cool). I learned a whole new lingo about brands and styles and haircare products, and had a lot of fun doing it.
(At Christmas I'd give my mother, a highschool teacher, a handbag or lipstick from some super-hip new brand, and she'd get a kick out of the fact that the teenaged girls in her class would be impressed with her coolness.)
What's fun in your 20s can pall later on
It's now been 10 years since I've worked in a big agency, but I'm still working in marketing, and as I get older I wonder: Just how long can you continue to work in this industry if you look like you're over 45? And if you do look like you're 45+, do you need to start investing in cosmetic surgery and more expensive clothing in order to proclaim your relevance?
The very fact that I'm reluctant to reveal my age (42) in this blog is perhaps a clue to the answer here. Genetically I've been lucky so far: Neither of my parents look their age, so most of the time I'm still passing for under 40.
I still worry. Sure, I've got a couple of pairs of Louboutins, a few DVF dresses, and my figure hasn't changed much since that first job (thanks to assiduous dog-walking and some yoga). I still base my outfits on black and I've been using a hard-core anti-wrinkle cream for years. But I have little interest in spending days at the anti-aging spa, and every time I have a spare $1000 kicking around, there always seems to be some more pressing priority than syringes of Botox and Restylane. In my 20s and even my early 30s, it was really exciting to get a new Hermes scarf or Armani skirt...these days, not so much.
I do take heart from the fact that the Canadian population - along with the populations of most of the developed world - is aging, and being over 40 isn't the career-killer it used to be. I also tend to think that if you stay technologically savvy, you maximize your experience while minimizing the negative effects of age. But advertising has always been a young person's game, and I wonder if the day will come when I'll lose business to some hyper-branded 30-year-old.
(Your insights are welcome!)
September 2nd, 2011
Summer's Eve 'Hail to the V' spots are definitely effective.
That doesn't mean they're a good idea.
Yes, that's supposed to represent a talking vagina.
Earlier this summer, Summer's Eve (famous for their 'feminine hygiene' products) launched their 'Hail to the V' campaign. I strongly recommend you watch the commercials before you read the rest of this post, but since they were forced to pull the ads in July, you're going to have a hard time finding them. I did manage to find them on Adweek, so you can watch them here. The ads promote a special vaginal wash and handy vaginal wipes.
It's always a challenge to advertise 'intimate feminine' products without resorting to cheesy euphemisms, bad graphics, or frankly ridiculous concepts (for years, I was confused as to what Ex-Lax was, due to their use of yellow droplets and terminology referring to 'softening agents'). And, as the recent commercials for U Tampons have demonstrated, women are definitely ready for marketing messages that don't resort to pouring generic blue liquid all over stuff.
But the Summer's Eve ads left me firmly divided: My advertising self recognized they were great advertising in many ways. My personal self hated them.
Why they're great advertising
Advertising for new products needs to do 2 things:
- Create awareness
- Create demand
And on these two fronts, the Hail to the V campaign succeeded.
Awareness: Stephen Colbert parodied the ads on his show, there are other parodies on YouTube (and many others have been pulled), and I'm definitely not the only blogger who jumped on the story. Sure, parodies and criticism won't drive long-term brand credibility, but so what? When you're launching a product in a crowded media market, a short-term viral frenzy is effective - you can worry about brand credibility later, once everyone knows who you are.
Demand: The ads do a remarkably good job of playing on the target market's (women aged 18-34, and probably much younger) existing insecurities about their, um, intimate areas. We've come a long way since Lysol was promoted as an effective feminine hygiene product, but there are still plenty of people (of both sexes) who think that vaginas are somehow 'gross' and 'unclean'.
If you're a young woman already a little uncomfortable with your intimate cleanliness, these ads are almost guaranteed to heighten your concern: "Oh geez, my regular soap isn't deodorizing enough! I'd better keep some of those wipes in my purse because after a night at the club I'm bound to smell funky, and boys won't like that!"
So, as an advertising professional, I have to like these ads - because they do what they're supposed to do.
Why I totally disapprove of them anyway
There are some people who think that advertising in general is evil. I don't. I think advertising can advance technology and art, inform and educate us, change society for the better, and is one of the safeguards of a free market.
But that doesn't mean that all advertising is good, or that advertisers don't have a responsibility to do more good than harm. And that's where these spots (which I really hope you've watched by now) fall down:
- They encourage female insecurity. Do we really need more advertising that implies that women's 'parts' are unclean, or that they are embarrassing, or that they need special attention in order to be socially acceptable? Ugh.
- They prey on our most vulnerable. We already know that girls and young women suffer from the harmful effects of self-esteem issues from a young age. Should we be promoting insecurity about their genitalia in a 'funny' way that seems calculated to appeal to teens? Especially when the company itself admits that these products are only cosmetic, and not necessary? I say no.
- They're racist. While I think it's great that the ads tried to represent women from different ethnicities (something you definitely don't see enough of in feminine hygiene product marketing), they are beyond stereotypical: The 'white' V talks about going to the gym, the 'black' V talks about going to the club, and the 'Latina' V talks like the one-dimensional Hispanic neighbour character in a cringe-inducing sitcom from the 1970s.
So, as a person, I really hate these ads.
And sometimes, at the end of the day, your 'personal' self has to trump your 'professional' self. I'm glad they pulled these spots.
August 8th, 2011
There's no more intimate experience than listening to a voice in your ears through headphones.
Think about the passionate relationships you have with the music you love. In most cases, those relationships didn't happen when you were listening to the music in a public setting, or even on speakers - it happened when you were all alone, listening to the music through your headphones, and it seemed so personal.
Podcasts are like that. You start listening, while you're walking the dog or trying to sleep, and pretty soon you have a relationship with this voice in your ears.
Relationship. The magic word that all marketers and advertisers like to hear. And it's a one-on-one relationship, which makes it extra-appealing to marketers, who are always looking to reach consumers in an intimate way like that.
It's hardly ever a one-time thing
The thing with podcast listeners is that they're loyal. Once you find a podcast you like - a voice in your ears that you develop a relationship with - you go back and listen to their whole back catalog, you subscribe to their new podcasts...it's a long-term relationship you're building.
Advertisers are looking for two things: Reach and frequency. 'Reach' is how many people you're reaching with a particular message; 'frequency' is how many times an individual person is getting hit with your message. Podcasts may have limited reach (at least so far) but they definitely have great frequency.
So why isn't there more advertising on podcasts?
I listen to a lot of podcasts. A lot. In fact, I think it's the only reason my dog isn't 102 pounds - it's easier to face a couple of hour-long walks every day when you've got something interesting to listen to. It also helps with the tedium of housework, public transit, insomnia - I'm not sure how I ever got the laundry folded before the advent of podcasts.
I listen to a wide variety of podcasters:
- Dr Karl (science stuff)
- AnswerMeThis (answers to random questions...hilarity ensues)
- The Bugle (Audio Newspaper for a Visual World, with John Oliver from the Jon Stewart show)
- About a zillion BBC podcasts, from Newshour to Friday Night Comedy
- Dave Gorman from Absolute Radio (an edited version of his morning show)
There are lots of others, but this'll do to get started.
Of all of these, the only one that consistently has any advertising is the Dave Gorman podcast - they do a regular segment within the podcast promoting Kronenbourg 1664 beer. The AnswerMeThis podcast had a brief promo for Audible.com (a perfect fit in my opinion, since people who listen to podcasts are likely to listen to audiobooks too) but it's gone now.
It's great to be able to listen to 30-60 minutes of entertainment without commercial interruptions and all, but as I listen to these podcasts, week after week, I can't help thinking that advertisers are mising a huge opportunity.
So what's the problem?
Well, I think the biggest problem is that there aren't any comprehensive download statistics for podcasts. The BBC, as a public company, posts stats for their podcasts, but iTunes doesn't (they have lists of 'top' downloads, but no numbers), and the individual podcasters themselves don't seem inclined to reveal stats (I've emailed a couple of my favourites, asking for info - so far not one of them has responded).
The other problem is that podcasts tend to be very international: One of my favourite podcasts is Scotland's Funny Bits, and it's interesting to note that most of the reviews for it on iTunes seem to be from Canadians. So podcasts are a great channel if you're advertising a product that's available online (like Audible) or internationally (like Kronenbourg), but possibly less appealing if you need to reach a local market.
There's a huge opportunity here
There are lots of podcast directories out there; I don't know why someone hasn't created a podcast statistics directory or advertising agency yet. (Maybe they have. But I can't find it.)
Remember what happened with bloggers? Once smaller bloggers got themselves aggregated into networks, provided statistics and a demonstrated niche audience, they suddenly became much more attractive to advertisers. I don't know why this isn't happening with podcasters. I know the BBC figures aren't necessarily indicative of the average podcast, since they have a certain basal built-in audience, but there are more than 1 million downloads of the Friday Night Comedy show every month - and the demographics for that show aren't 'kids with iPods', either. (Yes, I'm aware that the BBC has stricter advertising rules than other organizations. I'm using these shows as an indicator of audience levels.)
And I wouldn't mind getting my message into 1 million pairs of ears every month.
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