Tacoda CEO Responds to Network Transparency Piece

Curt Viebranz from Tacoda also called out Advertising.com's Mollie Spilman, bringing up some interesting points about transparency in a piece on iMedia today. And, unlike me, he did it without saying the word "horseshit," which is admirable. Curt did, however, say the s-word (spyware), which is something I didn't address in my rant. I'm sure Spilman would respond by saying that good ad networks don't have spyware affiliates, but without transparency, how would a media buyer know? Certainly, ad networks in the past have bought inventory on spyware apps in the past, taking some agencies and advertisers by surprise. There's no reason to think a blind buy wouldn't represent a signficant risk of placing ads with spyware companies. A "no spyware" clause in the contract can't protect you if you have no visibility into network affiliates.

Kudos to Curt for responding in a very intelligent way to a very self-serving piece (of horseshit).

PeaceMaker Campaign Launches Tomorrow

I'm happy to say we're launching a campaign for our client, ImpactGames, tomorrow morning. The campaign is for their first game release, PeaceMaker.

PeaceMaker is modeled around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and portrays the dynamic of the conflict very realistically, using real footage from real events. You can play as either the Israeli Prime Minister or the Palestinian President. In either case, you have a number of diplomatic/political actions, construction initiatives or security measures at your disposal, and your goal is to solve the conflict by establishing a two-state solution to the conflict.

I played as the Palestinian President a couple days ago on a demo version ImpactGames sent over. For me, the value stemming from the game comes from understanding the dynamic of the conflict and how decisions will affect the stances of the various stakeholders toward you and your policies. And you can't please everybody. For example, when I played, there was simply no pleasing Hamas. No matter what I did, they hated me and what I was doing. I won't spoil the surprise by telling you how I resolved that - you'll have to play yourself. (The game costs $20, which is a lot less than I pay for games for that XBox 360 Lauren got me for Christmas.)
As far as the marketing goes, we're taking an approach that's consistent with the Conversational Marketing concepts I've been discussing here and elsewhere for the past couple years. That is, we not only want to sell games, but we also want to emphasize the value of the community that's springing up around the game. We're advertising with blogs and with news sites, and while we are advertising to drive sales, we're advertising also to drive participation in the community, specifically the blog ImpactGames set up to discuss the development of PeaceMaker and the gameplay experience.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict (IRL) is something that generates a lot of conversation across the blogosphere and online forums in general. It seems every political blogger and message board poster has their own ideas about how to solve things. We're hoping that our campaign will encourage people to play the game and discuss their experience with the game's developers and ImpactGames' founders. They all blog and they're listening to what people are saying about PeaceMaker.

If you're interested in hearing more, check out the PeaceMaker site, or read this review of PeaceMaker.

Anti-Transparency Horseshit

Mollie Spilman from Advertising.com argues in a piece on today's iMediaConnection that insisting on network transparency hurts advertisers.  Thus, I fisk...

The fact is, there's nothing nefarious about non-disclosure. Some of the best and most reputable networks don't offer full transparency-- but it's not because they have something to hide.

The fact is, there IS something nefarious about non-disclosure.  Networks have abused non-disclosure by buying out of network when inventory is tight and running advertisers in unexpected spots.  They've also abused it by running ads in areas that are risky or detrimental to brands.  How can someone say with a straight face that there's nothing nefarious about non-disclosure?  We know that not to be the case with many networks.

Premium publishers are willing to sell ads via a network, but they don't want them to compete with their own salespeople. (It's the same reason designer fashions at deep-discount retailers often have their labels removed.)

This is almost certainly true in many cases.  However, it's also true that crummy publishers and sites that are inappropriate for many brands hide behind non-disclosure and receive ads from advertisers that they wouldn't have a prayer of getting from a direct sales effort.  How is an advertiser or agency supposed to make an accurate value judgment if they don't know whether they're getting premium or junk?

The truth is, full transparency can actually be a sign of lesser quality. It could be that sites willing to disclose through a network may not be able to get advertisers any other way and have nothing to lose by throwing their names around.

That's a shaky argument if I've ever seen one.  So there are sites that can't get advertisers, so they solve this problem by letting a network throw their sullied name around instead?  This makes no sense to me whatsoever.

If a network has 30,000 websites but 50 percent online reach, it likely contains smaller sites with fewer visitors vs. a network with 3,000 sites and 80 percent reach. Even a network that discloses a huge list of sites may not cover much of the web, because those sites may be small or fail to attract many visitors. On the other hand, a network with a smaller number of sites or one that does not disclose a site list may in fact reach a greater number of unique visitors because the site quality is higher.

I see where she's going with this.  But it's impossible to make an accurate judgment of reach if you don't know where your ads are running.  Supposed a non-disclosure network serves ads into AOL properties (as Advertising.com has done) and I have an existing deal with AOL.  How am I supposed to accurately gauge duplication?

The good news is that even without a site list, you don't have to take a leap of faith. Carefully examine the network's reported reach, its technological and targeting capabilities, and the results it can quantify. These factors can tell you all you really need to know.

When I read this, I couldn't help but think of Obi-Wan Kenobi pulling the Jedi Mind Trick on stormtroopers at Mos Eisley.  Without a site list, a brand takes a leap of faith.  Period.  The "Trust us.  There's nothing to see here." argument doesn't hold water anymore after years of network abuse of non-disclosure.

Fortunately, there's a solution to all of this, and the technology to implement the solution has existed for at least 10 years.  Networks should submit their network affiliates to agency-side ad servers.  Planners and buyers should then un-check any network affiliates they don't want to run with (for whatever reason, including inappropriate environments and duplicative reach, etc.).  Networks then get a special tag from the ad server, which shuts off automatically if the tag runs outside the agreed-upon list of affiliates.  The ad server deactivates tags by watching HTTP referrers to see if they match the affiliate list.  If too many clicks or ad requests come from unapproved affiliates, the tag shuts off and an e-mail is generated to the planner or buyer working the account.

Simple and easy to execute.  We should have this already.  It would cut down on the number of horror stories every online planner and buyer has regarding networks that have abused their trust.

I don't mean to single out Advertising.com with this critique.  Just the opposite.  We've had great successes with selected clients by advertising with Ad.com.  But I don't buy this "trust us" mentality.  The trust has already been abused (not necessarily by Ad.com, but by others in the space) and advertisers can't afford to trust all non-disclosure networks with their brands.

Thanks to Accuquote's Sean Cheyney for bringing this piece to my attention.

On "Eventness"

Brad Berens laments the loss of shared moments in media. He has a point, but I think he attributes too much importance to shared media experiences. A few years ago, I too was convinced the echo chamber effect was quite pronounced, but I saw a glimmer of hope when I took a look at some data from Claria that showed that even political blog audiences cross-pollinated points of view a lot more than I thought possible. I figured that if lefty and righty bloggers and blog readers - who would be my leading suspects as far as crystallization of the echo chamber effect goes - can voluntarily expose themselves to alternative points of view, other folks probably can and do as well. I haven't worried about the echo chamber effect much since.

While I'm at it, since I find it incredibly annoying when people take issue with tangential examples I use in my articles instead of attacking my main point, I figure I'll annoy Brad by ridiculing him for shutting off The Aristocrats after 20 minutes. Like Brad and his wife, I watched this at home and not at a movie theater, but unlike Brad, I LOVED it.

I first heard about the movie from my cousin Al, who appreciated it for what it was - not a comedy, but a documentary about the function that the aristocrats joke performs. At its core, the tragically unfunny joke represents a great way for comedians to compare comedic chops. It's a joke that comedians can take a great amount of latitude with, and the comedy comes from the setup. In the end, the joke is on the person who the joke is being told to, as they sometimes wait 20 minutes for a punchline that punctuates a truly shitty joke. The value is all in the setup, and a truly funny comedian can keep the listener engaged and expecting a big finish. Take Bob Saget, for instance. Most people think of him as a guy who would never say a dirty word in his life. In the documentary, he tells an over-the-top version of the joke that is completely out of character for him, and thus, funny as hell.

That's what it's all about.