It's NOT a Slowdown

I've gotta get this off my chest. It's been bugging me for ten years now. If online ad spending grows X% from year to year (or quarter to quarter), and then in the next period the growth is something less than X, that's not negative news. It just means that it's growing, but not as fast as it did last quarter, year or whatever. And the failure for something to grow at a rate that is something less than last quarter is not a sign for alarm.

I don't care what industry it is. Eventually, growth has to become linear rather than exponential. You can't sustain growth in the double digits year after year and quarter after quarter. It's unrealistic for any industry. You're not measuring volume from time period to time period, you're measuring the rate at which volume accelerates from time period to time period. It's incredibly misleading.

So I wish we'd avoid treating a lack of exponential growth like it's some sort of warning shot.

Thought of the Day - Hybrid Buyers and Sellers

The more I talk to people who cold-call the office on the phone, job applicants and other people who reach out to our company with business opportunities, and the more I read blogs and online communities centered around the Cost Per Action space, the more I realize the impact objectivity and ethics have on the online media space. There are people who grow up within the online marketing space never understanding that agencies operating under the classic agency model bring objectivity to their clients.  There are also people who grow up within the online marketing space never understanding the conflict of interest inherent in simultaneously planning media and having your own media product to sell.

To an extent, this is not their fault.  They've come of age in a business climate where there's little difference between selling agency services and selling an advertising product.  They think it's all executed in the name of servicing the client, and therefore there's nothing wrong with it.  They sell their own ad network to an advertiser, and in their own minds, they see themselves as the client's agency, valued as much for their ability to make strategic recommendations as they are for their ad product.  But they're really not the agency.  They're just a vendor applying the same skills an agency would to optimizing communications and squeezing more bang for the buck out of the campaigns they've sold the client.

What strikes me is that they don't see the difference between an AOR relationship where an agency is handling all media planning and buying chores and is being paid on a retainer basis, and a sales relationship where the client is buying media from a seller.  That division doesn't exist in their minds.

To an extent, this division doesn't exist in the investment sector either.  To many investors and analysts, it's all one category of companies providing services to advertisers.  That's why they don't understand the difference between an AvenueA and a DrivePM.  It's why analysts refer to DoubleClick or ValueClick as a digital agency.

It's not that the line has blurred between buyer and seller.  It's that for so many people, both inside the business and out, the line has never existed.  To these people, it's okay for a digital agency to also own an ad network because the traditional advertising mindset of emphasizing objectivity and staying away from conflicts of interest are not core values.

To me, those core values have never been questionable.

Measured Responses, Not Hysterical Ones

Yesterday, I was sitting in my truck in an LIRR parking lot waiting for my train when I heard a story on 1010 WINS about the risk of homegrown terrorists and how the NYPD seems to be making a lot of noise about that risk.  It got me thinking about how state and local governments since 9/11 have been exaggerating threats in order to get funding.  The system rewards hysterical reaction to threats and overblown rhetoric, and it's broken. Today, I read this article, which pretty much confirmed my suspicions about how we approach making the country safer. Our emotional reaction to the notion of never having another 9/11 has led us to misallocate and waste billions.  Our idea of what it means to live with terrorist threats needs to change, and that means not shouting down folks who dare to suggest that responses should be measured and methods for allocation of resources should be strategic in nature.

My Kingdom for a Rock Station

Something is up with my XM.  I suspect I need a new antenna.  For some reason, it won't tune in and it's been on the fritz for about a week and a half.  A cursory look at the wiring turned up precisely nothing.  Now I'll have to go trace the antenna wire from the roof down the weatherstripping, through the firewall, under the dash, etc. On Long Island, The Bone is no more.  It was one of those cool rock stations that regularly played Guns 'N Roses and knew that The Who recorded songs other than "Baba O'Riley" and "Pinball Wizard."  The old standby, 103.9 WRCN, has stopped doing anything cool whatsoever.  No more shows featuring local bands, no DJs with personality.  Just "Get the Led Out" segments consisting of the most overplayed Zep tunes of all time.

Rock is not dead.  But radio stations are certainly acting that way.  Whoever is in charge of formats seems to think it's better to have a station that a million people listen to for background noise than to have a station where 500,000 people listen passionately.  I find myself listening to WRCN and sighing at what seems like the millionth play of "Tom Sawyer" because the alternative is silence.

I tried listening to some of the other stations around the island, too.  WBLI, which used to be a pop station when I was a kid, is now a death-dealer.  No, it doesn't play satanic metal.  "Death-dealer" is the term I use for stations that latch onto anything popular and play it to death until you can't stand it anymore.  In this case, they play "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse, "Beautiful Girls" by Sean Kingston and Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" in endless rotation until you hear Kingston crooning "sooooo-i-sy-dull, sooooo-i-sy-dull..." in your sleep.

I got XM a while back because of terrestrial radio's suckitude, thinking that terrestrial radio couldn't slide further into the maw of suckiness.  Listening to XM pretty much constantly kept me from noticing that yes, it was possible for terrestrial radio to suck more.  Now that I've been forced to go back, it's like I would rather puncture both ear drums with a meat thermometer than let my XM Radio go unrepaired for another week.

There's a special level of Hades reserved for Clear Channel executives.  I just know it.