Disney Looks for New Web Ads at Tech Conference

Cited: Reuters

Media executives say that rather than blasting consumers with TV-style ads that are expensive, the urgency of using the Web to glean data and target consumers directly is better financially due to the advertising downturn caused by the recession.  In fact, Walt Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger began a discussion about new ways to market to consumers at the Fortune Brainstorm TECH conference in Pasadena recently describing himself as, “pretty bullish about what technology is going to allow in terms of behavioral tracking.

Executives from AOL, a division of Time Warner Inc, News Corp and IAC/InterActiveCorp echoed similar hopes about the potential to reach consumers online.  As advertising dollars grow ever more scarce, companies have been forced to rethink how they reach consumers and have moved away from the traditional 30-second spot to the kinds of targeted, Internet-driven marketing campaigns that have been talked about for years.

Internet advertising in the United States — a $23.4 billion market in 2008 — was down 5 percent in the first quarter of this year and Iger and other executives say the sector may not return to the historic growth trajectory seen before the recession.

Jonathan Miller, head of News Corp’s Digital Media Group, believes advertising is undergoing, “fundamental changes … and you have to tease them out of the recession effects. “Marketing is on an arc to become more efficient. My dollar should go further. And that says the advertising pool may not grow at the rate that it’s traditionally grown at, even out of this recession.”

Targeting consumers via demographics, profiling, and their social networks, “you learn a lot about people and you can identify them,” Miller added.  The thinking among these media executives is that advances in technology is enabling them to build more detailed profiles of consumers — which can then either be sold as a commodity or employed in their own marketing campaigns.

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AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong, former sales chief at Google Inc, also sees new marketing opportunities from consumer referrals and tracking.

“Where people actually go, what they do, how they do it,” he said. “It’s not just about data, it’s about the insight. If you’re Procter & Gamble, or Kellogg’s, or Coke or whatever, forget all the data. What is the insight you get out of it? How does that actually change your perception?”

However, Ed Moran, director of product innovation for Deloitte, said tracking tastes and developing profiles is fine, as long as advertisers do not make the old media mistake of finding their optimum consumers, only to show them a commercial.  Moran said next-generation advertising will be driven by the tastes and habits of 14 to 24 year-old “millennials” whose lives center on social networks and Internet-enabled handsets.

“A more effective way of reaching these young folks … is to use their social networks as influencers, rather than bombarding them with ads,” Moran said.

Chief executive of Web giant IAC/InterActiveCorp, Barry Diller,  said Internet advertising must evolve from displays and become integrated into the content of websites.  Ashton Kutcher, an actor and media producer, chimed in at the conference, saying the billboard-style ads are already outdated.

“People who have grown up on the Internet have trained themselves not to see it,” he added.

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My Take: I do not care what kind of commercial it is, commercials always interrupt what I am looking at were doing.  I do not like commercials.  I understand what they are for and why businesses use them.  That does not mean that I have to like them.  Do not get me wrong, I have seen some commercials that were actually enjoyable.  However, most of them are stupid in my opinion.

The commercials that are really annoying are those info commercials.  You know the ones, the ones that say call our data center and get this product for a reduced price.  You may be living on the West Coast but you are probably calling a Chicago data center.  These are the ones you have to be very careful of because of the small print you cannot read and they speak so fast you miss it and end up subscribing to a monthly product and paying for.

If I preferred any type of “commercial”, they would be the kind you find on Greek tees.  The advertising you find on T-shirts is so much more enjoyable and you can easily ignore it because you are talking to the person and not the shirt.  Usually, you will see a Greek shirt with the logo of a fraternity or sorority on it or even a corporate logo.  However, you do see them occasionally with something other than a cute saying or phrase.

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