Friday, November 16, 2007

I must be in the wrong business


Tim Vanderhook writes in his latest MediaPost column about the aftermath of acquisitions (DoubleClick, aQuantive, etc.) and his predictions for the future of portals.

The last paragraph reads:

The biggest winners in this year of acquisitions will be consumers — receiving more relevant ads, at more appropriate times. Experience shows consumers don’t necessarily like advertising but are willing to endure it for free content. If the ads they see are relevant to who they are, what they are interested in, and where they are located, it becomes a win-win for all parties in the chain.


How do we motivate young people to join our industry when our lofty goals are for consumers endure our work? When I started in advertising, I wanted to entertain, inspire and engage people. Question is, if you compare your work to a root canal or an IRS audit, how can you expect to connect with people and, ultimately, sell a product?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

It is a shame to have a career in something that is merely "endured" so that America can get its free content. I signed up to be a part of the creativity, but instead am constricted to a bajillion AdWords campaigns, delivering various banner ads to some blogs and hoping a client will sign up for a Facebook 'Social Ad' (although I know you wrote very dissaprovingly of the latter, I on the other hand am glad we have some somewhat reliable metrics with which to target people). But where does that leave my work? Some text ads in Google; a few flashy .sfw's (pun intended); maybe some text in Facebook next to the picture of a user...

WHERE'S THE CREATIVITY? Where's the really engaging stuff? The kind of thing Myspace would send a 'thank-you' for because the CTR is phenomenal? Where is the truly visionary online campaign? I mean, this is the internet!

How ironic, the wave of the future with yesterday's old junk...

Sorry to be a downer... what campaigns have you come across that were really kick-ass?

Adrian P. said...

Oops, I was logged in as the wrong person for the comment above; I'm actually Adrian Palacios... sorry...