Free the Network

Jonathan Haidt on the moral roots of liberals and conservatives

Data Minining – For my Mom.

Data Mining: How Companies Now Know Everything About You

Read more at Time Magazine…

The Merchants of Cool

Full Episode Here

Best Campaign Commercials Ever!

Exchanges, Behavioral Targeting, RTB, SSP, DSP’s, Dynamic Creative, Ad Verification, Attribution – sometimes I can’t help to think we’ve got it all wrong. Instead of making peoples lives better; online advertising is at best Meta-Advertising. It seams like we spend most our time selling advertising not actually disseminating great ideas / products.

Meta-advertising is at best repeating the same message over and over; at worst personally customized brand messaging based on 400 data points. Technology means nothing without creativity; technology has become our ultimate distraction.

Add Art & Copy to your Netflix Queue.

Hal Riney put out some of the most emotionally compelling advertising that has ever been seen. Like or hate the message the ads are art; they connect and resonate.

Value an Elaborate Prank

Controlling the Point System – Free Ipods for everyone

Joseph Turow – Media buying, privacy, transparency, and the data enomomy.

From “When the Audience Clicks: Buying Attention in the Digital Age” presented at the Oxford Internet Institute.

Check out 68:28 for a lively discussion on my favorite behavioral targeting topic – coffee cup capitalism.

OG – Downhill Skating Old San Marcos Pass

You get what you pay for – are low CPM’s really good for your Brand?

Step 1: Navigate to Crate & Barrel, put an item in your shopping cart and abandon the transaction.

Step 2: Navigate to pretty much any Entertainment site on the internet. The more borderline the better – since these sites do not have their own sales teams and do not have the contextually relevant content that command strong CPM’s from the adnets / advertisers.

Step 3: See a Crate & Barrel ad served from Google (probably indirectly through Adx).

I wonder if Crate & Barrel is ok with their ads serving on sites like Evilmilk.com and wwtdd.com? I’m sure the inventory is cheap to the adnet (facilitated by Google Adx) probably $0.25 – $1 CPM (to Evilmilk.com). At that price and with re-targeting it probably converts incredibly well. Everybody is making money.

What’s the problem?

Crate & Barrel is most likely paying $2.50+ CPM for these re-targeted IMPR’s no matter where the adnet is finding the user. The adnet is likely making a very strong margin between what they are paying for the inventory and what Crate & Barrel is paying them. These being re-targeted users the ads are likely driving strong sales and ROI; especially when compared to a less targeted ad and/or an IMPR at a higher CPM (on a more premium site).

Effectively more premium IMPR’s on safer sites are more expensive and are less valuable in terms of margin to the adnet. These borderline entertainment sites are exactly the site inventory where the adnets make the most money – this is where the most revenue can be captured (margin) between what the advertiser is paying and what adnets have to pay publishers. 50%, 60%, 70% margins – this what arbitrage and being an adnet is all about – this is optimization.

Living with Contradiction

In the offline as opposed to online you don’t find Crate & Barrel ads on the Howard Stern show, Maxim Magazine, Spike TV, or the National Enquirer. You could argue Crate & Barrel customers read Maxim, listed to Howard Stern, watch Spike and read the National Inquirer; and with a little data Crate & Barrel could reach their customers here. But Crate & Barrel does not buy advertising on borderline entertainment content in the offline.

Why not?

Is this just a technology thing? Once radio / TV / Paper / Magazines all have an IP addresses and Cookies will content no longer matter? Hello Ipad, WiMax, 4G, Boxee, and Internet Radio.

Maybe there is something else / Maybe brand matters?

From what I can tell Crate & Barrel has made a tremendous effort to keep their brand premium in TV and Print mediums; I wonder if Crate & Barrel knows that their display ad strategy (by design) pushes ads to the lowest common denominator / lowest CPM content.

The question has to be – is it worth risking your brand image running brand ads on borderline content if this is where your audience is / if this is where the best ROI can be achieved?