Thanks. I think we’re getting to agreement. The core issue you wanted to raise — “does targetted advertising really work” — should be examined thoroughly.

(I likely won’t make your talk in June– I’m in NYC much of my time now.)

I will listen to the PlanetMoney piece — their reporting team is razor sharp.

Jon

As usual, a lot to respond to here.

You’ve responded to my critique of your book chapter (and blog post) by asking me to spread the word about your talk?

I responded in more ways than that. Why would disagreement disqualify you from attending? Since you seem to like talking here, why not do it in person?

What I want is for somebody with access to your sources to put it in a much more clear analysis. I continually find you still leaning on these broad statements with the flimsiest of backing.

Noted.

Two years ago, on this blog, you wrote a post titled “Brands are Boring.” You undermined it by summarily recalling fifty year-old beer jingles. And your actual point on that blog post was not that brands are boring, but they’re antiquated — ideas that worked in an age of limited channels. On another post (“Brands are Bull”), you remind readers about the genesis of branding from the cattle industry. And the Project VRM wiki follows along, in defining itself as a system which rejects “the language and thinking of slave-owners when dealing with customers.”

Hope you don’t mind me adding the links.

Today you are telling us not only that brands are important, but that they are the most important thing, because of this signalling theory. You had no idea what the actual source of this was, trusting that readers would be content that it was an academic journal article that they would probably never read.

I’m not saying they’re the most important thing. I am saying they matter.

What is it? Are brands antiquated, evil, or… essential?

In some ways antiquated, in some cases essential, in others important, in others not.

My case in the book is against excesses and assumption errors behind much of what we see with online advertising. And for new approaches that come from the demand rather than the supply side. I think there are many things that advertising is good for, and that advertising does best. I also think it’s very early in the evolution of online advertising, and much discovery is happening along the way. I just listened to this Planet Money program on Facebook’s future, including what works and doesn’t with its marketing engine (advertising, plus fan pages, plus “likes” and the rest of it). Good stuff. I recommend it.

What I tried to do with this post is get people to think more about the current (though fast-changing) default assumptions about online advertising, Facebook’s in particular, and to look at the work being done already by VRM developers. I also wanted to help those developers by pitching any investors who happened to show up. As usual, I cited others as best I could. Citations matter to me. My book is thicker with footnotes than most other business books you’ll find. If you have problems with those, and with the case I build on them, fine.

Likewise, are consumers better served by economies of scale (which can underwrite larger advertising campaigns), or by smaller vendors which can engage in more direct conversations?

Easy answer: it depends on the industry and type of good.
Follow-up question: in which industries & goods, how do these different drivers apply?

FWIW, I visit some in the book.

great article

The point for me is… I believe that the efficiency of advertising is not the right question, nor is the targeting, not segmentation, nor value for money, nor ROI. Advertising cannot simply be boiled down to such a one dimensional ratio as there is more than one reason that Brands do something.

The observation is that the internet can be both more effective and less efficient at the same time, this does not make it a winner or a loser.

My insight would be that digital services bring what other non-digital services cannot bring – Digital delivers a closed loop feedback system and that is where the value is…..

You’ve responded to my critique of your book chapter (and blog post) by asking me to spread the word about your talk? What I want is for somebody with access to your sources to put it in a much more clear analysis. I continually find you still leaning on these broad statements with the flimsiest of backing.

Two years ago, on this blog, you wrote a post titled “Brands are Boring.” You undermined it by summarily recalling fifty year-old beer jingles. And your actual point on that blog post was not that brands are boring, but they’re antiquated — ideas that worked in an age of limited channels. On another post (“Brands are Bull”), you remind readers about the genesis of branding from the cattle industry. And the Project VRM wiki follows along, in defining itself as a system which rejects “the language and thinking of slave-owners when dealing with customers.”

Today you are telling us not only that brands are important, but that they are the most important thing, because of this signalling theory. You had no idea what the actual source of this was, trusting that readers would be content that it was an academic journal article that they would probably never read.

What is it? Are brands antiquated, evil, or… essential?
Likewise, are consumers better served by economies of scale (which can underwrite larger advertising campaigns), or by smaller vendors which can engage in more direct conversations?

Easy answer: it depends on the industry and type of good.
Follow-up question: in which industries & goods, how do these different drivers apply?

That research would be worth buying, and promoting.

Thanks,

Jon