Jim Murray

6 years ago · 2 min. reading time · 0 ·

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An Opinion on Digital Advertising

An Opinion on Digital Advertising

Used Marketing lusightsI sometimes like to go back to stuff I wrote a couple of years back to see if it's still relevant today, And damned if I didn't hit one of the first try.
The digital marketing industry is under intense pressure these days because of issues surrounding fraud and it's kissing cousin, under-performance. A wave of advertisers, led by the world's largest advertisers, Proctor and Gamble, are dramatically reducing their digital ad budgets, due to severe under-performance.
This was not the situation back when I originally wrote this post. It was mostly an intuitive feeling backed up with a bit of fact finding that I was doing for one of my clients.

Here's the post.
Someone in one of the LI groups I belong to started a discussion on the effectiveness of digital advertising. Being an ‘old school/new school’ hybrid, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to chime in. Being a writer, I made it long enough to be a short blog post. Writers will do that.
The topic was “Recent research proves digital advertising doesn't work. Or does it?”
This was my opinion:
Advertising is like dancing, it takes two to tango...if you have your message in the right place and the target has been thinking about buying, then you have a dance.
As I see it, there are two problems with digital advertising. 1. Most of it sucks, and 2. Most of it appears in places where people don't really have their consumer dance shoes on. So what they're really doing is spraying and hoping to hit a few people. Or a few hundred or whatever.
~ Jim Murray ~
Communication Strategist ® Writer ® Editor © Op-Ed Blogger
Art Director ® Project Manager * beBee Brand Ambassador
Partner with Charlene Norman @ Bullet Proof Consulting

With an experience base that bridges
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The main issue here is ROI, which is very low, percentage wise. So when research says digital advertising doesn't work, they don't mean that it's totally useless. They just mean it's potential ROI is very low. After that it's all about targeting, frequency, presence and of course, message.
The big difference between most digital marketers and so called 'old school' marketers is that digital people, at least from what I have seen and heard from others I respect, think that small ideas are big ones. Or they have very little in the way of a clue about what an idea really is.
This could be because most of them have never been exposed to real branding strategies, or have ever developed a multimedia (offline) campaign. It's one thing to be master of the new world of digital marketing. It's quite another to really understand the fundamentals of advertising and marketing in general.
As a hybrid, I was brought up in the business working with people who know big ideas when they saw them. Our skill sets were such that we could easily roll these ideas out into virtually any available media and create the kinds of synergies that allowed impressions to build on each other and truly get these ideas into people’s minds.
Today, especially in the digital world, there appears to be a fundamental lack of synergy between digital campaigns, and their offline counterparts, other than a few token elements. If advertisers started insisting on synergy across platforms, then the digital advertising numbers would start picking up.
You can agree or disagree. It’s still a free world until it’s not. Your comments are always welcome.Jim Murray is a marketer, communication strategist, writer, art director and blogger. His partner, Charlene Norman is a business systems and operational analyst. Their collaboration is called Bullet Proof Consulting, headquartered in St Catharines, Ontario. Bullet Proof is designed to help companies change their thinking for the better, to become more productive, efficient, better branded and successful in today’s highly competitive business world. You can get a very clear impression of how we think by reading our business blogs at www.bulletproofconsulting.ca/blog

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Comments

Jim Murray

6 years ago #7

#5
Thanks Ren\u00e9e \ud83d\udc1d Cormier. You're right about many hands making light work. I would submit that the digital hand is missing a finger.

Jim Murray

6 years ago #6

#3
Thanks @ Paul. I know you are more or less out of it. And I guess I am too, doing more of a communications consulting role these days. But you are right. There are too many people in advertising these days without much of a clue. They thing the smart phone is the be all and end all.

Jim Murray

6 years ago #5

#4
That sounds really encouraging. Jerry Fletcher

Jerry Fletcher

6 years ago #4

@Jim Murray Once again with feeling! I lament almost daily that "They don't know what they don't know!" Strangely enough there is a start up I'm working with that might be able to put a digital call to action button on broadcast media. Early trial in a tiny town knocked it out of the park. Like any good Direct Marketing capability it uses sales as the basis for all the other analytics.

Paul Walters

6 years ago #3

Jim Murray ( sorry this is in two parts as my word count was too long to send. Digital advertising is on the whole rubbish but what about those appalling retail ads for supermarkets or car yards that dominated the airwaves ( prior to ad blockers and watch on demand TV ) And who really watches free to air TV these days? Today, its a little like throwing a dart at the board and hoping it lands in the right quadrant. How do the Procter & Gambles of the world judge sales related to advertising when just a decade ago a huge spend on TV would prompt the media department to say that the ad was "tracking well' or the OTS was growing. My years at Ogilvy taught me a lot and the meglomaniacal David Ogilvy predicted this era way back in the early 80s . I do however believe that long format copy/blogs, call it what you will does have some impact but the trouble is ....where do you put said blog? Whew ...I think this is the longest comment I have ever written on this platform.....Thanks Jim

Paul Walters

6 years ago #2

Jim Murray Interesting piece, especially this bit, "As I see it, there are two problems with digital advertising. 1. Most of it sucks, and 2. Most of it appears in places where people don't really have their consumer dance shoes on. So what they're really doing is spraying and hoping to hit a few people. Or a few hundred or whatever." As I , like you worked with those tried and tested mediums print, radio, TV and outdoor, did we not plaster them with what we believed was brilliant creative. Were we not guilty of "spraying and hoping to hit a few people?" I came to the realisation that I didn't 'get' advertising any more when our biggest client ( a major bank' ) who had just signed off on our creative strategy asked , "So where do we run it " With a couple of hundred TV channels literally hundreds of radio stations, a print media hanging on to a sinking raft and an internet with a few billion users. I truthfully answered.... " Know what....I have no f#@@&%g idea!"

Mohammed Abdul Jawad

6 years ago #1

Going digital is just a needful trend. Not any attractive, but good, convincing advertising works!

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