Eyeballs Ain’t Everything
It’s time for brands and publishers to ask whose interests adtech and programmatic video is really serving
A couple of pieces this week <strike>fuelled my confirmation bias</strike> made some interesting observations on two linked issues close to my heart — the broken relationship between advertising and media and the ongoing claims for the superiority of video over text for ‘storytelling’.
The first, from internet grandee Doc Searls riffed off all of the bad vibes surrounding adtech in the wake of highly publicised algorithmic matching of brand messaging with ‘offensive material’. I’m not going to rehash his righteous adtech bashing (you can read ‘Brands Need to fire Adtech’ for yourselves) — what got my attention was the following assertion;
adtech is built to undermine the brand value of all the media it uses, because it cares about eyeballs more than the media.
Traditional brand advertising, or ‘real advertising’ as the Doc calls it, sponsors worthy publications and the journalism they contain because those media also have brand values. It’s brands supporting brands to the benefit of both.
So why are both brands and publishers ditching ‘real advertising’ for the questionable promises of adtech? The clue is in the promises. Granular targeting, dynamic pricing, data-driven efficiency for the advertisers. A rare glimpse of digital revenue for the publishers, just as long as they deliver the eyeballs, of course.
When media auditor Ebiquity urges marketers to face the fact that 60% of their programmatic ad spend is being wasted, when adtech gives FAKE NEWS a business model, when supporting journalism feels like an act of charity instead of a true value exchange, it’s clear that the model is badly broken.
And while the platforms and purveyors of adtech are selling brands and agencies the benefits of programmatic they are also pushing the story that video is the only way to reach and touch an audience. Last year Facebook’s EMEA VP Nicola Mendelson suggested that text would become obsolete, at least on her particular platform. And just last week I heard ‘Founder and Chief Unicorn of Savvy Millenial’ declare that ‘1 minute of video is worth 1.8million words’, to which I can’t even fathom a sensible response.
But as Nilay Patel points out in his piece on Facebook’s copycat ‘stories’, it’s vital to ask in whose interests is the promotion of video uber alles? The answer, of course, is that it’s in the platforms’ interests because it’s far easier to sell ads against video than it is to sell ads against words. Audiences are familiar with video ads — they are after all just like TV ads with smaller production budgets made for smaller screens. As Nilay says ‘Tech companies want cameras to be the new keyboards, because there’s more money there. That doesn’t mean they are.’
So instead of trying to solve the problem of sustainable quality journalism, technology throws the baby out with the bathwater. Not once, but twice! First by pushing video as the only viable digital format and second through the offer of adtech as the only monetisation solution. As a certain reality show host turned US President might say, SAD!
Time, then, for marketers and brands and technologists and publishers to be brave and to be innovative. To turn their intelligence and imagination and savvy to developing new media behaviours and new models. Models where brands support brands for the benefit of each other, the benefit of the web and, vitally, the benefit of their audiences.
