Yet another article asks if we should measure online the same way we measure TV. Meaning, should we package online impressions and present them as Gross Rating Points, the way TV and radio people have been doing it for decades? This kind of thing usually causes the hipster crowd to spit their triple venti sugar free no foam skinny extra caramel macchiato all over their Macs before collapsing into paroxysms of rage at the thought of degrading the integrity of online accountability with such an old-school measure.
Problem is, accountability is online advertising's own worst enemy. There, I said it. Don't get me wrong; accountability is a great thing, but as I pointed out in my first entry to this blog, the rush to accountability has caused the industry and those who support it with advertising to focus only on direct responses and on conversions at the bottom of the marketing funnel. There are other measures of accountability, equally as valid and valuable under many circumstances, such as brand preference, purchase intent, search term volume, social chatter, and so on. But they don't focus on clicks and conversions, so they are dismissed out of hand as the purview of old school hacks intent on wasting clients' money before hitting the links for the 3rd time that week.
This focus on clicks and conversions actually, and paradoxically, works against the movement of money from offline to online media, because:
It keeps the people who have that money from seeing online as a viable top-of-funnel medium.
Embrace the paradox. If we want to accelerate the movement of TV dollars to online, then for the time being we have to get it from those that control the TV money. That means selling it them on a basis their processes and systems are built around: Points.
The benefit is four-fold: 1) We will accelerate the growth of online ad dollars 2) We will decelerate or reverse the decline of the inventory's value 3) We will start to free online activity from the unfair and often misdirected chains of Direct Response Accountability, and 4) With the increase in money will come even higher-quality productions...and with those will come viewers. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Online is capable of helping fill the top of the marketing funnel the same way TV does, but not when the industry continues to insist on measuring it and pricing it based only on the conversions it generates.
One respondent to that article asked "Must we really dumb-down digital marketing to meet the old model of GRPs in order for us to succeed? We can keep rolling our eyes and asking that until the cows come home, and the answer is "yes, little Fauntleroy, we must".
I am not suggesting online and all the things that make up that space be packaged and sold this way. Far, far from it. But the sooner the industry gets over its collective distaste for "old school" metrics, and packages some opportunities (particularly video) using metrics and terms familiar to those who hold the old-school purse strings, the sooner the industry will get a bigger and well-deserved chunk of old school money.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Ice, Ice Baby...now ANOTHER recall for Toyota
OK, this has nothing really to do with marketing, but it's relevant to my last post about the damage to Toyota's brand that will be caused by all its recent recalls.
This time, MSNBC reports that on top of the massive gas-pedal recall which was on top of the massive floormat recall, which was on top of the rusting-truck recall, Toyota is recalling 270,000 of its Prius model due to "allegations of momentary loss of braking capability while traveling over uneven road surfaces, potholes or bumps."
I'm here to tell you, this is VERY common among cars with Anti-Lock Brake systems (ABS) and unless the Prius is really, really bad for it, I submit that it's unfair to single out Toyota. I've had it happen to me in several cars with ABS, across a wide variety of manufacturers, and I guarantee the problem people are experiencing is due to what's called "Ice Mode" in the ABS calibration.
You see, ABS works by monitoring the speed of each wheel on the car, and when it detects that any of them is decelerating much faster than the rest, it interprets that as the wheel being in a skid, and momentarily releases the brakes on those wheels. Skidding tires don't slow the car as well as rolling tires do, and they don't provide any steering capability at all, and ABS is there to ensure that the tires stay rolling. That's its job.
But there's a darker side to this: The ABS system doesn't just compare the speeds of the wheels to each other. The ABS is programmed to know what rate of wheel deceleration is even possible under the highest-deceleration conditions possible for the car. If the deceleration of all the wheels exceeds the rate the ABS thinks is possible, then it assumes the car is on a very slippery surface, and that all the tires are locking up. So what does it do? It pretty much takes your brakes away for a second or two. On ice, this is not a bad thing. It'll make sure you have whatever traction ice will afford so you can still kinda steer the car.
But there's something else that can trigger the same kind of wheel deceleration, and put the ABS into Ice Mode: Going over a bumpy surface while braking...such as approaching a stoplight on a poorly maintained city street. Every time a wheel hits a bump, it very briefly bounces up and loses traction, and if the brakes are applied at the time, the wheel will decelerate briefly and quickly. Behold, the ABS thinks it's on a slippery surface, and pretty much takes the brakes away from every wheel exhibiting the same behavior. If all of the wheels are doing it, it takes the brakes away from ALL of the wheels. You could Fred Flintstone the pedal right through the floor of the car, but the ABS thinks it's smarter than you are, and you're not asking nicely, so...NO BRAKES FOR YOU!
At a minimum, this is maddening to experience when you're by yourself on the road or track. It's downright frightening, and frankly dangerous, to experience it when you're faced with a stopped car 15 feet in front of you and you're still going 20 mph, with no brakes.
I hope this issue is found to not be unique to the Prius or to Toyota, so that it exposes the issue as the practically industry-wide problem that it is.
Ice Mode. Mark my words. You heard it here first.
This time, MSNBC reports that on top of the massive gas-pedal recall which was on top of the massive floormat recall, which was on top of the rusting-truck recall, Toyota is recalling 270,000 of its Prius model due to "allegations of momentary loss of braking capability while traveling over uneven road surfaces, potholes or bumps."
I'm here to tell you, this is VERY common among cars with Anti-Lock Brake systems (ABS) and unless the Prius is really, really bad for it, I submit that it's unfair to single out Toyota. I've had it happen to me in several cars with ABS, across a wide variety of manufacturers, and I guarantee the problem people are experiencing is due to what's called "Ice Mode" in the ABS calibration.
You see, ABS works by monitoring the speed of each wheel on the car, and when it detects that any of them is decelerating much faster than the rest, it interprets that as the wheel being in a skid, and momentarily releases the brakes on those wheels. Skidding tires don't slow the car as well as rolling tires do, and they don't provide any steering capability at all, and ABS is there to ensure that the tires stay rolling. That's its job.
But there's a darker side to this: The ABS system doesn't just compare the speeds of the wheels to each other. The ABS is programmed to know what rate of wheel deceleration is even possible under the highest-deceleration conditions possible for the car. If the deceleration of all the wheels exceeds the rate the ABS thinks is possible, then it assumes the car is on a very slippery surface, and that all the tires are locking up. So what does it do? It pretty much takes your brakes away for a second or two. On ice, this is not a bad thing. It'll make sure you have whatever traction ice will afford so you can still kinda steer the car.
But there's something else that can trigger the same kind of wheel deceleration, and put the ABS into Ice Mode: Going over a bumpy surface while braking...such as approaching a stoplight on a poorly maintained city street. Every time a wheel hits a bump, it very briefly bounces up and loses traction, and if the brakes are applied at the time, the wheel will decelerate briefly and quickly. Behold, the ABS thinks it's on a slippery surface, and pretty much takes the brakes away from every wheel exhibiting the same behavior. If all of the wheels are doing it, it takes the brakes away from ALL of the wheels. You could Fred Flintstone the pedal right through the floor of the car, but the ABS thinks it's smarter than you are, and you're not asking nicely, so...NO BRAKES FOR YOU!
At a minimum, this is maddening to experience when you're by yourself on the road or track. It's downright frightening, and frankly dangerous, to experience it when you're faced with a stopped car 15 feet in front of you and you're still going 20 mph, with no brakes.
I hope this issue is found to not be unique to the Prius or to Toyota, so that it exposes the issue as the practically industry-wide problem that it is.
Ice Mode. Mark my words. You heard it here first.
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