Comments on: blogs as mass-advertising medium?

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Mon, 31 May 2004 19:51:05 +0000

Charter, what are you saying? That one will never be able to buy large audience numbers via blogs?
People are already doing exatly that, though granted, the schtick is still in its infancy.

By: charter

charter — Mon, 31 May 2004 00:34:35 +0000

hugh, you're too close to the subject of advertising to see the big picture. You can't see the forest for the trees. Tobyz made a totally valid point. "Audience" will never get to see the advertising on individual blog sites, exactly for the reason that tobyz states. Lack of exposure. Who knows you're here? 20 or 30 people with an affinity to you or your topic and who have mrked the blog as a "Favorite". Maybe 100 or 200 others have found a link and clicked. If they don't bookmark the blog, they'll never find it again. You are but one blog in a sea of blogs. If you have delivered even one "new" customer to an advertiser, you've beaten the average. Don't let that get you down. Even Budweiser, spending millions on SuperBowl ads, knows they get few "new" customers. They advertise only because they know they can't let the competition get their own ad exposure uncontested. Disconnect 'advertising' from what tobyz said. A typical blog has a handful of loyal fans. Aside from those few from a 9-figure internet audience, literally no one (statistically speaking) will ever find a clue that the blog exists. Do you know the number of individuals who have ever found this blog ("unique" hits)? I betcha it will never get to 250. That's why tobyz's comment is right on. So how did I find this site? I relax and waste time by looking at pages that a web randomizer pops up for me. There's no way I'll ever be able to find it again.

By: hugh macleod

hugh macleod — Fri, 02 Apr 2004 19:07:52 +0000

Yeah, I think you’re on to something there, Roland…

By: Roland Mueller

Roland Mueller — Wed, 31 Mar 2004 17:56:59 +0000

Hm, hm, but aren’t blogs successful just because they’re NOT advertising but producing a kind of personal added value for the visitor? See Macromedia’s blog-strategy f.e. having five of its “community managers” create their own weblogs. Providing a forum for the managers to discuss the new products, show developers how to use some of the new features and answer questions — all with a typical blogging-style, and no advertising approach at all. The dialogue itself is the advertising force behind

By: Danny

Danny — Thu, 18 Mar 2004 06:16:01 +0000

Except that a blog environment has a potential to have the effectiveness of Mass Media advertising through adspace in the blog, and as Direct Marketing THROUGH the blog.
That is where I think the eltimate evolution of this concept will take us. Let’s say Ford creates a blog for F-150 enthusiasts. Ford gets to take advantage of a DM setup with the added advantage of actually creating relationships with customers and potential customers–it’s a cheap, effective way of creating buzz among a highly targeted audience for your new projects AND a simple way to gather highly targeted market research.
Plus, automotive accessory manufacturers, hunting/fishing/outdoors manufacturers and retailers, and probably a hundred other tpyes of companies can place an ad in an environment where easily 80 percent of its readership is in their target market as well. (Isn’t that pretty much what happened with Hugh and AdRants?)
In this light, credibility and readability are going to be paramount concerns when companies set out to create a blog for self-promotion, as opposed to the “I wanna be like Jennifer Anniston” complexes driving the ad placement for TV.

By: samantha

samantha — Fri, 12 Mar 2004 02:45:34 +0000

Are you being entirely honest, though, about how advertising really functions?
Doesn’t it have to tap into fantasies, desires, insecurities, etc. in a way that is maladapted to the blog medium?
I’m sure you’re a great guy and all, but I just don’t want to be you the way that millions of people would like to be Jennifer Aniston– or, at least, the JA we see after a cadre of people has prepped and scripted her, y’know?
Doesn’t all that sort of lay the groundwork for an ad’s efficacy?

By: hugh

hugh — Tue, 02 Mar 2004 05:38:50 +0000

I agree with a lot of what you say, Dennis. Yeah, measuring one’s effectiveness has always been a problem, as has targeting, as has getting good demographic feedback on one’s website.
But there are ways. Depends on how determined you are.
Can I see an advertiser who, instead of blowing a million dollars on a Superbowl ad, opts for ten-thousuand dollar buys on 100 different blog? Or hundred-dollar buys on 10,000 different blogs? Certainly. The technology to set it up isn’t that hard, theoretically.
The thing is: it’s not about “blogs”. It’s about finding ever more sophisticated and cheaper ways to advertise. That’s what the client is buying, regardless of media.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Mon, 01 Mar 2004 11:43:36 +0000

Blogs can certainly be an advertising medium. Whether they can be a *mass* advertising medium is another matter.
Blogs are the next big Internet thing. I used to say “Everybody and their dog has a website!”. Now, it may be “Everybody and thier dog has a blog!”
Back in the 1960s, SF writer Norman Spinrad ranted that there ought to be enough magazines and the like that *everyone* could get published. Now, via the wonders of technology and the Internet, eveyone *can* get published. The question is, who will read it? I can’t agree with Henry’s comment for that reason. Sure, anyone with a laptop and an ISP can publish on the Internet. Getting anyone else to *read* it is quite another matter.
Yes, you can advertise in blogs and draw traffic. The trick is the age old one of marketing: defining who your customer is and figuring out how to reach them. Which blogs attract what readers? How do I target X market? What do I have to offer them?
I see blog ads as an effective method of targeting niche markets with a specific message, based on the readership of the blog, but finding out who that readership is is a thornier proposition. Who reads your blog? What do you know about them? Can you provide demographics? Can you specify age/sex/income distribution? Most blogs can’t. Those aren’t questions they ask, nor do the posters generally care to answer if they are asked.
Is there a credibility and loyalty effect Christine mentions above? Perhaps, if the owner of the blog has any say over the ads that get placed. The vast majority of ads seem to be sold by the owner of the sites that host the blogs, and the blogger may have nothing to say about placement.
I don’t see TV, newspapers, radio, billboards, and other ad forms going away any time soon. I *do* see a continuation of the trend that has been going on for some time, as advertisers search for greater effectiveness, and figure out that there may be better ways to spend the ad budget than 30 second spots on the Super Bowl.
______
Dennis

By: Christine

Christine — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 06:46:54 +0000

I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a credibility and loyalty effect as well. Readers of blogs will hit those ads out of a sense of loyalty and willingness to a help the blogger pay the bandwidth fees. The credibility comes in because we assume (rightly or wrongly) that the blogger would not allow a product or service to be advertised that causes an ethical dilemma. If we trust the blogger’s opinions and adherence to principle, we will most likely trust the advertisers that offer goods and services on that blog. If market researchers looked at the demographics of different types of blogs (i.e. political, personal, tech, etc)they could probably offer the pooled blogs as a target audience to whichever ad pools it fits with. Of course, they probably already do this and I am just pulling shit out of my ass . Hey, love your drawings though! They always make me laugh, sometimes too cynically for my own good but there it is.

By: henry

henry — Fri, 27 Feb 2004 02:32:10 +0000

There’s no difference between mass and micro market on the internet. Great point Hugh.
Reaching the mass market used to hinge on distribution; few organizations could afford the means and publishers built up local monopolies around their economies of scale. Now those economies of scale are available to anyone with a laptop and cable subscription; the individual has the only monopoly around — on his/her own talent.