The advertising industry had a mixed September.
Gallons of free alcohol contributed to record attendance at sessions of the third annual Advertising Week gathering in New York City. Who knew folks would show up early and stay late in exchange for free booze? Brilliant!
After a slow upfront — the annual rite of Spring in which broadcast networks presell packaged advertising deals to big buyers — a lot more money showed up just before the new TV season. The reason: somewhat more reasonable rates plus better-than-usual programming from the networks (who spent big production and talent dollars to attract audiences large enough to pay their freight this fall).
In an interesting turnabout, television is currently positioned as more edgy than movie-making and big-name talent are happy to work for what AdAge characterized as "the risk-taking broadcast networks rather than toiling on any of the narrow range of vanilla movie scripts offered by Hollywood."
The early season numbers, if they prove sustainable, suggest that people on both sides of the small screen will show up for what they believe will be a quality experience. Again . . . who knew?
The fact is, overall television audiences are declining year over year but they are still the largest crowds available at one sitting (more or less, where the less is determined by time-shifted viewing via digital video recorders and streaming online video — not to mention DVD releases right on the heels of the current season). Which may be why AdAge quips: "At least one beleaguered ad buyer said the effort and cost involved in keeping on top of new media has his agency questioning whether it’s just simpler and cheaper to target the mass audience and live with the waste."
Living with the Waste
While all that was going on in New York, 30 top market research executives gathered in Chicago for something called the Research Industry Summit for Improving Respondent Cooperation to talk about — I’m not making this up — Opinion Fatigue.
It seems almost no one wants to participate in opinion surveys anymore. And no one knows why because the people who don’t respond to surveys don’t respond to surveys. Rates of response under ten percent are increasingly common and researchers are finding the same pool of respondents showing up over and over — mainly when there is money on the table.
Fifty percent of all survey responses are supplied by fewer than five percent of the population according to research consultant Simon Chadwick. "We’re perpetuating a fraud," he said at the event.
The alleged fraud — selling less than reliable research — appears to be an inconvenient truth since almost no one is willing to pay more to acquire better research. "It’s like the hole in the ozone layer," IBM’s Shari Morwood said. "Everyone knows it’s a growing problem. But they just ignore it and go on to the next project."
According to AdAge, Bill Lipner of Insight Express recommended funding a $50 million war chest to market the importance of participating in market research. . . . Talk about living with waste . . .
What Have We Learned
- Free alcohol still draws a crowd
- Demonstrated quality still draws a crowd — albeit a smaller, more expensive crowd
- People are tired (wary perhaps?) of giving their opinions to pollsters
Does that about cover it? Not quite. Guy Kawasaki points to the future — as he often does — in Is Advertising Dead?
