Smoke, Mirrors, and Advertising

Oh, oh.  George is on a Saturday morning rant:  Once in a while, a story comes along that is so fundamentally important, yet covered by so few in MainStreamMedia/LameStreamMedia for its true significance, that it demands a further airing here along with a little personal commentary and common sense.

Such a story, and quite well written at that, is found under the AP headline "Execs: Web Ad Spending Should be Higher:' which then continues, as Internet ad market grows, Advertisers want better Audience Measures.

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Now let's do what a TV producer would call a jump cut.  What I do for a living, when I am not writing about the pending problems for the economy, is serve as a sales and marketing consultant for a couple of really neat companies (as well as a few individuals)  - including the world's first online machine shop,. and a dandy new high-end tequila.

No, this is not a chance of do a free ad for my services (well, OK, it is...) but I want to explain that one of the key values I bring to my clients is the simple notion that good management, of the "what gets measured gets done" type, argues that if money spent on advertising and public relations doesn't result in a measurable improvement in sales, then it gets axed.

Needless to say, this viewpoint has gotten me into many a long and sometimes heated discussion with advertising and PR firms who have worked for past consulting clients, but the evidence is very clear to me that we now live in what I'd label as a "direct response" world, and the days when a company could engage in 'institutional advertising' are long gone.

The difference between direct response and institutional is worth noting.  There was actually a time in the US when people did business with companies because they were institutions.  My parents, for example, had two bank accounts when I was growing up;  One at Washington Mutual's West Seattle branch, which was close to the fire station he ran.  The other was the old Seattle First National Bank, which later became one of the umpteen Bank of America acquisitions.

These banks were local "institutions" in Seattle in the 1950's and 1960's.  They would advertise not so much to drum up new business, but to continue their 'institutionalness" if I can coin a word properly at this hour.

At the other end of the spectrum, we had direct response marketing beginning to appear in the 1960's.  The objective of direct response is to get a consumer to take an immediate action right now and it was best demonstrated with the huge success of gadgeteer king Ron Popeil's firm Ronco, and the "Call now, operators are standing by, this is a free call" pioneering of Philip Kives' K-tel.

Having spent years in the broadcasting business, I was always fascinated by the adroit way that slick media salespersons would justify a particular ad campaign's NOT working.  "You can't expect a large response on Seafair hydroplane weekend," or "It was raining, and you know people don't come out when it's raining..."  In Seattle?  Gimme a break!

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Returning to the point (as I try to, now and then) the ad execs of today who are pimping online advertising seem to be trying to get past the absolute accountability of the Internet.  If a client starts up a Google Adwords campaign, there's little doubt about whether it's working or not.  The number of impressions, the number of clicks, and the number of sales conversions is easily tracked.

Click scams, however, abound.  The simple way to track these is to set up a landing page for each media.  Quite simple.  Each media, with very little testing, will show a unique cost per click and a unique cost per sale.  The ONLY thing to look at is cost per sale.  Period.  The rest is advertising woo-woo.  Let me explain:

When I read articles like the well-done AP piece, I am reminded that advertising sales types are always trying to find some meaningful way to charge for 'impressions".  Think of these are clicks that don't buy, ears that don't buy, or eyes that don't buy.  Their value to any business?  Just about zero. 

As a marketing/management science fundamentalist, I hold that impressions which don't result in a click aren't worth a dime.  If they are, then at some point, the customer will click and buy, and the advertiser will get their due upon delivering the actual, measurable, results.

"But what if they buy elsewhere, yet they heard about your whiz-bang product two or three times via our great (plug in a media type) campaign which got them thinking 'front of head" about buying your product?"

My usual response is something like this:  "It's a closed Universe, you simp. (As in 'simpleton' although the other definitions may fit, too.)   If someone saw my product on some other web site four times, and then called in reaction to a TV commercial, my tight sales-tracking approach will capture that TV 'made the deal.'  On the other hand, it works the other way:  The TV rep comes in and claims when some pair of eyes sees the ad on XYZ cable 3-times that they should get some 'credit' for the online purchase.  So, my client (fill in the name) is only going to pay for actual results delivered by each media.  If I can't measure it, it didn't happen.  Now get out of my office, my egg timer just went off"

Advertising outfits hate me.  So do PR firms.  They don't like the absolute accountability offered by CTR's on the web.  Ergo, today's story.   If the "singularity" means that some of the smoke-and-mirrors of advertising will be blown away by complete accountability, what could be better for business? 

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Of course all this begs a much larger issue, which is not in MainStream/LameStream because it's too difficult to imagine.  Suppose for a moment that advertising and PR did not exist and you were just bringing it to market today.  Or, to make it a little easier, pretend that television was just coming to market as a new medium:  Where's the environmental impact statement?  Would (or should) government allow us to be bombed with high levels of electromagnetic energy 24/7 just so some retailer can reach out and sell us something?  Aren't humans well-enough read to figure out that they are hungry and need some food, or cold and wet and need a house, or walking and need a car?

Advertising in general pulls future demand into the present, and so in a sense, it is always robbing the future, just as runaway capitalism robs the planet of future resources to achieve its highly consumptive, but short-term more profitable goals.  If you aren't getting 100,000 miles out of every car you buy, thank advertising.  The reality is that cars get folks from here to their.  Advertising has created a meta-reality where cars equal sex, image, power, and success.  Gag me.  Someone sees me driving a slightly beat up 8-year old car and thinks they are somehow 'better' is a complete victim of the illusion.  I don't have a mortgage on our home.  I wasn't buying.  Turned off that message.

Think about it:  If you were in a position to vote on television being thrust on the world, or even video games, where would you draw the line?  Is the long-term cultural evolution of the planet to develop blobs of cholesterol-seeking chumps & chumpettes who move seamlessly from the here and now reality into the lah-lah land of some kind of imagined action-figure in sports, or the completely fictitious worlds of video games?

To be sure, there may be some therapeutic reasons for video games and TV, but I've only found three:  When I was getting over my appendectomy a few years back, television was a way to fill the days. Seeing Jim Cramer say "the truth doesn't matter" on Wall Street. And sure, Porsche: Need for Speed has helped me avoid bidding on a number of late 1980's odd-year Porsches on eBay.  But, beyond that?

On the other hand, nice to know that the ad salesmen haven't giving up on trying to take credit for reach and frequency that don't result in sales.  If you are dumb enough to buy impressions that don't have a measured payday, I'm sure you'll get grand holiday presents from your agencies and maybe even a party.  Adwords is so extravagant.

Bottom line: The best advertising advice I can give you, online  or off, is that if you're paying for clicks without measured results, then you're most likely not getting what you paid for.

(If you're a small business owner, think of this as your Christmas present...)

Stock's Valley of Death

Let me see:  Last Friday, the Dow was up 253.86 and this week it was down 285.73.  Yeah, that sure makes me want to run out and throw my life savings into a long shot.  The Washington Post summed up the counter-currents this way: "With Consumer Inflation Up Sharply, Stocks End a Down Week.  I would have spelled it Weak, but, already the happy-talk is gearing up to keep the hypnosis going:  The UK's Guardian is headlining: "Wall St Week Ahead: Housing and consumer data may buoy stocks." Guardians of the paradigm?  Question everything!

Will the stock market rally next week?  Ever hear of the 'Santa Claus Rally"?

Bali High

US has compromised on climate change.

Narco What?

I'm continuing to watch the situation in Bolivia closely as terms like narco-communism are showing up, although narco-corporate might also apply.  That 'revolution' meme coming along nicely.

GCE

On the Global Coast Event a reader writes:

"I’m not tryin’ to bust your balls or anything, but whatever happened to the ‘global coastal event?’"

Oh, it's there, alright, just as the time monks have noted, this is going to be one of those big stories that happens in such slow motion that the general public may not be seeing it.  However, if you are a climate refugee, it's becoming all too apparent.

Then there's the story about the role of extra sunshine in the meltdown that's going on in the Arctic.  And, as I've said before, it's not just that the Arctic is heading for ice-free, it's that as that happens, there are all the glaciers about that will be dumping water into the world's oceans, which will then rise, and that will be our global coastal event.  Oh, did I mention about the impacts of thermal expansion of water just from the warming, too?

Gold Story:

Here's an email of interest:

"I went to my PM dealer (a wholesaler) to pick up a few coins today, and he was out of almost everything gold, with only onesies and twosies of everything but Krugs, which he was totally out of. Since he is the supplier for the county's coin shops, I suspect the "shortage" theme is hitting the gold market too."

Yeah, the headlines go to the idea that gold has hit a one-week low while the dollar has bounced, but in my frame of reference, it's likely the big guys dropping the price so the big guns can load up - I can't be the only one seeing a high inflation rate in Friday's CPI figures, despite the Pollyanna/inflation apologists about.

Restrictions on Travelers Checks?

Odd email:

Hi George,

Don't know how long there has been a limit on AMEX Travelers checks, but now I see that there is limit on how many you can buy every 2 WEEKS!

"There is a maximum order size of $1000.00 that can be purchased within a 14-day period."   (Holy smokes, what next? - G)

I thought this might be an easy way to keep some savings in the home safe in a currency that might survive the dollar devaluation. This seems like another way to keep people from opting out of the USD.

Love the site. Keep up the good work."

Looks that way to me, too.  I'm sure that a claim that it keeps narco folks from using travelers check might come up, but count me as skeptical.

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Coping:  Is a bug-Out Bike a Good Idea?

Some good discussion on this point:

One of the BEST sites for kit lists and REALISTIC equipment talk is the forums at www.equipped.org 

People who not only talk the talk, but walk the walk.

Bugging out should be your LAST option. The very LAST thing you want to be is a refugee. Just look at history.

Avoid the Stadium.

OK, and maybe a back pack is not such a good idea:

The thing that must be considered before all others is this; what is the context? Are we bugging out because we are about to get flooded? Are we snowed in? Why exactly are we bugging out and why can't we drive?

If the situation is really that bad, you should consider some form of self defense or a way of harvesting game. If you go pedaling down the road with your big bag of food, it will only be a matter of time until you meet up with someone who did not think to pack a big bag of food, and they will do whatever they have to do to get yours.

I would recommend the good old 30-30 as a survival weapon, because they are light, a dream to carry, you won't be weighed down by magazines and ammo is readily available. Some form of .22 would be good too.

I do not recommend moving on roads unless you are part of a large group, it's too easy to get ambushed. Use the roads as a "handrail," but stay off them and out of sight.

I would also recommend moving at night. It's easier to stay warm during the coldest times if you are moving. You can lay up during the day and not worry about someone spotting your cook fire (those wood gas stoves that you can make from tin cans come in handy here). Day is when most other people will be up and moving around. If you are keeping still there will be less chance of a surprise meeting. You can't move as quickly at night, but there is less chance of being spotted.

When moving in times like these, speed is not your friend. Slow deliberate movements will allow you to avoid contact with others whose intentions are not clear. When you are walking you can stop and LISTEN. Get up a good head of steam on a bike and you will be in the middle of someone's ambush before you even realize that it's there.

In most cases, bugging out will not help you. If you can stay put, that will be the best thing to do. Staying close to your food and your friends is preferrable to tramping the roads. Having dealt with a few of them, I must say that the life of a refugee is not alot of fun.

Above all, have a plan.

And speaking of ways to move things:

I plan to use a deer drag to tote some stuff if I have to make it on foot. Tie everything down well with rope or bungee cords. Don't bounce it around a lot over rocks, etc.--they do break. But they are easier on the back.

Several readers have suggested that I keep all the snip and saves in a single folder/page - which I will do when I get some time.  Today, busy with finishing up the goat barn and working on the Annual Report and 2008 Forecast for Peoplenomics.com subscribers who make this free site possible with their subscriptions.

Send submissions to the clip and save section to george@ure.net.

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