What the media industry can learn from online shopping
Zalando went from startup to multi-billion Euro IPO in just 6 years. What can an online shopping giant teach the media industry?
The user experience of online shopping created a new standard for every industry. And since then, we are all just playing catch up.
Zalando was an inspiration as I built my first venture, miinto.com, a dropship fashion marketplace for mom and pop stores. We kept a watchful eye on fast-moving players like Zalando because we realized early on the experience they were creating was developing a new standard for how people (that’s you and me) browse for products online.
There is a standard for online shopping 🛍
If you think about online shopping, there are telltale design cues with things like a left side filter, a dropdown menu and a page filled with pleasing content. Consumers have expectations about how we want to browse. Since this shift in shopping behavior, everyone else is trying to live up to the new habits e-commerce has set. I mean, you don’t see new e-commerce platforms in 2019 trying to reinvent the way we browse.
If leading retail giants have established a user experience that has changed our behavior, they’re doing something right.
Browse for a t-shirt or a tropical vacation online. Each browsing experience shares a lot of commonalities. If a consumer browses online the same way 9 out of 10 times, you would be lost in that 1 that chooses to lead you differently. So why is buying advertising any different? 🤔
I have been an active advertiser for years — searching far and wide for verticals and audiences I wanted. I know the media industry is behind the times — besides audience segmenting on large platforms like Google, Facebook or programmatic tools — browsing media and audience info in traditional media like print, DOOH, digital, etc., is not a walk in the park.
The media industry has ignored their customer experience.
While other industries get the experience matters, to me it’s clear the media industry has ignored it and simply lacks an intuitive, positive experience from the first point of contact, the media kit, with customers.
By sticking with PDF product catalogs, we are collectively forcing consumers to browse in a way that isn’t natural. And therefore, ineffective.
Through my eyes, it’s ineffective for everyone — for advertisers and all the way to media agencies. They stick to what they know because of the struggle of browsing new verticals and outlets.
We’ve found that from 5000 European media publishers, around 70% use PDFs as their product catalog or media kit. That is like asking a customer to download the product they want in a PDF on Zalando.
It’s time to change our behavior for the sake of sales.
Media needs better ways to drive sales and increase brand awareness. Advertisers want their campaigns profitable, quality high and information attainable. So why are we not offering a user experience that mirrors online shopping? Finding a print product with segments shouldn’t be any different than finding a t-shirt in the color you want online.
I believe ad sales deserves better.
Advertising sales needs to start from a good place. This starts with the key points of your sales — products, segments, packages, audiences — found in a digital media kit. Your inventory deserves being found and your advertisers deserve a browsing experience they recognize.
Inspire advertisers with the right user experience.
It’s time to move away from PDFs and think about the customer's user experience from discovery to purchase. Would you want to buy products from your media kit? Better question — If you were an advertiser, would you even find it?
There’s no need to reinvent the wheel of online shopping — but we can adapt the wheel to fit the media and ad sales industry to create a smoother ride for a world-class experience for everyone.
👋 // Mike Radoor, CEO, Ocast
