Failure of Web Advertising....Is It Really Working??

We're about 15 years into the internet revolution as a mainstream phenomenon and by any measure internet advertising has to be deemed a major failure.

While the web itself has been a massive success (influencing virtually every aspect of our lives) advertising on the web is mostly a bad joke.

Fifteen years into its mainstream life, television had created scores of powerful consumer-facing brands.

The only truly powerful brands I can think of that web advertising has created are native web brands like Google, Yahoo, Amazon and Facebook. It's as if the only brands television was good at creating were CBS, NBC and ABC.

After 15 years, can anyone name even ten serious non-native consumer-facing brands that have been created primarily by web advertising? Is there a brand of coffee, butter, beer, bread, chicken, gasoline, soda, peanut butter, dog food, milk, tires, potato chips, life insurance, lawn mowers...don't make me go on, you get the point...that has been built primarily by web advertising?

Display advertising is a joke. Remember just a few years ago when they were selling us banner ads on the promise that "interactivity" would make these ads so much more efficient than traditional ads? Then they started measuring them and found that fewer than 2 people in a thousand were clicking. Oops.

Now they're making the same lame "branding" argument for online display ads they made against traditional print ads.

Online video advertising is another joke. 99% of all video is currently watched on a tv, not a computer.

Social media is a rumor. Everybody is hyperventilating about it, but nobody has any idea of how you even measure success. Here are three links (one, two, and three) to self-congratulatory videos of social media "experts" that run a total of almost 30 minutes.

In that 30 minutes I can't recall the word "sales" being mentioned even once. They're all about false goals: getting followers; creating "engagement"; creating "communities"; "re-organizing around the customer" and, of course, the ever-popular "blowing up silos." If you can get through this festival of smugness without contemplating suicide, you're a better man/woman/child/pet than I am.

These people are living in a different world.

I don't know about you, but if I walked into a meeting with one of my clients and told them that the purpose of the millions they're spending on advertising is to create "communities," they'd laugh me out of the room. They want sales and they want them now.

It is true that there's data to support the effectiveness of two types of online advertising: search and email. But is that it? Is that all the web is going to be? A medium of tactics? A Yellow Pages replacement and cheaper DM? How many powerful brands have been built by search and email? The answer: Zero.

Believe me, I'd love to see online advertising succeed. I'd love to have another forceful tool to help my clients succeed. But, like I've said before, online advertising is like communism. It's always going to be great some day, it's just never very good right now.

Comment by Brian Pasch on September 26, 2010 at 11:32pm: Bob asks for non-native brands that have been successful and I instantly think of Zappos. They recently were purchased by Amazon for a nice price tag. Bob's rant is loud and might over-power those weak minded car dealers who are not sure that their Internet marketing spend is delivering results but I'm not swayed because I believe in balance.

Dealers need traditional advertising that works in harmony with online advertising. In its basic form, a dealer website is Internet advertising. Bob can spend all the money he wants on traditional media but when a consumer types in a dealer's name to find them and see an average "star" rating one one-of-five from local consumers, Bob's model blows up.

I'm confident that I can divert hundreds of would be buyers a month from calling a dealer if they ignore the power of the Internet. Go ahead an type in Hilltop Nissan" in Google and see that their Google Map listing pops right up with reviews that would scare ANY intelligent consumer away.

The Internet may not BUILD many brands but it surely can diminish the ROI on traditional advertising very quickly.

So, once egos are taken off the table, the traditional advertising model and the Internet advertising model can work very well together once the Bob's of this world retire.

Comment by Mark Dubis on September 25, 2010 at 11:32am: There is a big difference between advertising, marketing, and sales. You place TV commercials and banner ads to build brand recognition and when possible embed a strong call to action, "This lease is only $199 a month, but come in now, this won't last forever."

Auto retailers need to have a media plan to stay visible in the market. Anyone who thinks banner ad clicks mean anything is just fooling themselves. The "big money" is moving into social media channels. You will note I did not say the " smart money" as most auto retailers follow patterns and will do what their competitors do. First they went to flash websites, then banner ads, then pay per click, and now to SEO so they are page one in Google. It's often the flavor of the day marketing strategy. Why? Because its easier than changing the structure, culture or attitude of a dealership to operate more efficiently.

Look for continued spending online, on television, and on radio. These are all part of a holistic marketing program but they are only the icing on the cake.

I'd be happy to share with any dealer owners some alternatives if you are getting tired of the same old, same old.

Comment by Stanley Esposito on September 20, 2010 at 4:00pm: Well I must say I have not taken a credit application where someones occupation was "social media expert". Who crowns someone a social media expert anyway? I have made deals from facebook and twitter. You have to plant lots of seeds and in the end it is still work. You can give yourself titles all they long but in the end you still need to work hard none of these so called experts have found a substitute for hard work.

Failure of Web Advertising....Is It Really Working??

Everyone is jumping up and down about "Social Media" and Online content/advertising....but is it really the benefit that it touts itself to be?? Here's a different point of view.

Reprinted from "The Ad Contrarian"

The Failure Of Web Advertising

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