The
Battle For Coca-Cola
Rages On.
Ain't
Nothing Like
The Real Thing, Maybe.
I
Don't Mean To Say
I Told You So, But...
Are
Consumers Smarter
Then We Are?.
The
Four Great Myths
Of Global Branding.
Mr
Bevis Butts Heads
At Mitsubishi
The
Best Laid Plans
Of Mice And Men.
Dare
to Be Great:
The Mad Genius of "The Matrix"
Mitsubishi's
New Marketing Boss
Out Of The Frying Pan.
Concept Is Stronger Than Fact.
Value
Perception In A World
Gone Mad With "Cool"
The
Future of Advertising
The Brand
The
Future of Advertising
The Targets
The
Future of Advertising
The Grid
The
Future of Advertising
The Swarm
Technology
Making The Message
Meaningful
The Only Business That Matters Is The One You're In.
What
Ever Happened To The
Big Idea?
The Post-Advertising Era Is Here
Confessions Of A" Liar For Hire"
Good, Bad and Ugly At the Moment of Truth
A Post-Advertising "Big Idea".
The Value Of A Paying Pustomer.
Emergence Of the "Empire of One".
All customers Are Created Equal
Playing God An Other Atrocities
the
City That Spawned
The Age Of Advertising..
Fear And Self Loathing In Advertising.
The Greatest Success Metric Is Sales.
Foot In (Word Of) Mouth Disease
In the Begining, There Was The End.
The Rise And Fall
Of The Creative Class
What's Love Got To Do With It?
Champagne Brand
Beer Marketing Budget
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Divided But Not Conquered. Some time ago I had the good fortune of writing the difinitive text on market segmentation, ("Divide and Conquer: Target your customers through market segmentation" John Wiley & Sons, NY). I made bucketfuls of cash on the speaker circuit and in consulting gigs for being an "expert" on the topic. Life was good. Then everybody jumped on the band wagon and my job as an evangelist was done. The other day my publisher called to ask me how I felt about doing a follow-up. "Divide and Conquer the Internet." was their suggested title. |
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I thought about it for a quick minute and decided that this was a book that had no reason to be brought into the world. Not that there was no reason for the existence of such a book, mind you. I just had no desire to become yet another web expert. The thought of it makes my blood curdle. |
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I really don't like your surly attitude. What makes you think you know so damn much more than those of us who work in advertising every day?–David C., Los Angeles Those of you who work in advertising, every day . – hw |
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What would be the point of dividing and conquering the Internet? It would be like dividing and conquering the telephone. Or the New York City subway system. Or Disneyland. After you do it, what have you got to show for your trouble? A bunch of parts? The point would be to divide and conquor Internet "users", which in and of itself is just wrong-headed. These people have no need to be "conquered". All they want is for their big freakin' webtone switch not to crap out before their porno files finish downloading. Just one more point of difference between "active" Internet users and "passive" televison viewers. Television viewers are just sitting there waiting for somebody to come along and "conquer" their feeble little minds. Internet users don't have the time to be "conquered." They have shit to do. It doesn't take much heavy lifting to figure out who is watching "Spongebob Squarepants." But I defy anybody to tell me who is using Google at any given point in time. So many users. So little user info. "What about WebStats?" says the five web experts that read this rag. As if knowing you came here from CNN.com and spent 19 seconds on currentmad.html was really worth a damn. Will everybody who came here from CNN.com please stand over there, so I can figure out who you are? Hello?! But search marketing or search engine marketing, an estimated $5.1 billion category last year, has been growing far faster than traditional advertising in media like television and newspapers, claim the web experts and SEO wonkers out there. These guys are forecasting that ad revenue alone from search engine marketing would climb to almost $6.5 billion this year, from $5.1 billion in 2005, and reach more than $10 billion by 2009. So what? So far, advertisers love to refer to the ability of search marketing to satisfy their increasing need to prove a return on investment for ad spending. That is because these advertisers pay only when a computer user clicks on a text ad that appears adjacent to search results. Of course the pay-per-click model looks efficient on paper, but it also leaves marketers vulnerable to click fraud, or dubious clicks from unknown sources with no intention of purchasing anything advertised. Such click fraud, often orchestrated from remote sites, drives up the cost of business for a marketer with no offsetting revenue from sales. Did I mention that Google, the hands-down search leader, agreed last week to settle a class-action lawsuit by offering ad credits of up to $90 million to marketers that believed they were charged for invalid clicks. So much for WebStats. So given that, how do you divide or conquer something that may just be an electronic blip created by a rogue computer network in a rogue state like Romania? No, I think I'll pass on the opportunity to write yet another bullshit book on conquering the internet. I'm too busy watching "Desperate Housewives." Stay tuned.
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