Sergio Zyman, in his controversial bestseller, "The End of Advertising As We Know It", correctly pointed out the tendency for advertising companies to emphasize features and artistic merit over the key objective: selling the product. In a similar way, it seems the Online Advertising medium in itself is being sold largely on the bulk of its own hype rather than its clear-cut statistics for product sales: typical boom-bust market behaviour.
Online advertising bears a striking resemblance to the typical boom-bust phenomenon. That’s not to say that it isn’t a long-term viability – it surely is once technological sophistication has caught up with the conceptual pitch, which advertisers are buying into, but there will be tears after all the champagne corks have been popped. It will only take one or two major corporations to declare a significant increase in net marketing costs due to online advertising with no substantial increase in sales and pull out of the fracas altogether for the industry to collapse into a “bear” run, and only then will online advertisement providers have the incentive to spend on tightening up “tracking” sophistication to prevent fraudulence, despite all the current spiel about how much work is being done in this area right now. What Tew has done is what many a savvy entrepreneur does: seize a trend just as it’s rising, and serve it up with youth, attitude and sex appeal. The warning signs are already there however: when Tew's site was hit by a DOS attack shortly after he auctioned off the last 1000 pixels on his website for over $35,000, the bidder filed a lawsuit for the lost advertising he had anticipated to come out of the purchase. When this is the way customers begin behaving, it is usually an indication of industry warning signals.
But for now the internet advertising phenomenon and the sensation of Alex Tew and Google have given a depressed market PR cycle a much wanted glimmer of hope that there are still gloriously quick riches to be found out there. Like all boom-bust trends, this is going to be long party with a giant hangover at the end of it.
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Article comments
1 - DE
I have seen a rising number of click fraud cases from overseas.They are smarter then us at hacking into Google and redirecting the money to their accounts.The money from ads has definately gone down due the number of people trying to cheat the system.
2 - Norm Yerke
Daniel, it's interesting, I found your blog somewhere? I wrote regarding the writings on partial birth abortions.
Now I want to tell you about the latest pixel advertising venue www.pixelblogsoftheworld.com. Try it and let me know how it works for you. Thanks much, Norm
3 - David Anderson
Daniel.
Here is another self-serving comment on the million pixel ad trend. My Shop-a-Rama Family has created a series of one million pixel T-shirt pages which we hope add something credible to the concept. All our content is on a single theme and all the advertisers come from within the Cafepress shopkeeper comunity. There is a touch of guidance for the potential t-shirt purchaser and a bit of interactivity comparable to a rack of t-shirts or a box of old LPs. In the end each page will have just over 1,000,000 pixels worth of T Shirt design images.
It would be great to hear what others more steeped in the advert biz think of our take on the current trend. Enjoyed this blog entry.
4 - Manish Vij
Great Article...Can anybody help me out with points to be kept in mind, to prevent click fraud to maximum, while developing a click based advertising network.
Thanks
Manish
5 - Rob
You've got a really good point, I've often wondered what many companies were really thinking with buying all this adspace, who really clicks ads anyway? Most people like getting things for free. I'm thinking once this huge ad craze is over the internet is going to get a lot more pricey to surf.
6 - Brian
I think alot of times it is not that people "do not click thru ads" people click through ANYTHING that atttracts thier attention. If it is an ad they will click if it is a link to more information they will click. It really depends on WHAT the person is looking for at the time and it all becomes a numbers game. As the internet swells from millions of pages to Billions and then TRILLIONS of pages each individual page is going to have less of an impact and as the EYEBALLS also increase then each page has more of an impact just on a smaller group of people. I think it will all be about NICHE marketing. The person who CORNERS a a NICHE will do well more and more people will feel less inclined to "SURF" and will just stay in thier own safe zone. They will only click on TRUSTED sites and more importantly only click out of those trusted sites to other sites that become trusted because of the first site. I think GOOGLE is going to have to police itself better or it will no longer be a trusted site.
7 - Nancy
My question is, why do advertisers kid themselves that ANYBODY in their right mind is going to click on their ads? Most people - like me - loathe ads in any form and avoid them like the plague. They certainly don't seek them out. Which leads to another gripe: why do advertisers think that obnoxious pop-ups & flashing 'blinkers' are going to sell their crap? I can bottom line guarantee that such tactics are only going to ensure that I DON'T spend a nickel on your goddamned junk or whatever you're peddling. Alienating potential customers by in-their-face ads is NOT a good way to get business. Only someone with a screw loose thinks it will. Personally, I think all advertisers should fry in hell.