7 Comments Add your own

• 1. Aaron  |  May 2nd, 2008 at 10:09 am

  “Of course, it won’t replace people-powered TV ad sales…”

  OK, I’ll bite: why wouldn’t auction-based pricing replace live salespeople?

  If demand is high enough, isn’t there significant cost savings to be had in not paying commissions to your sales force? (Yes, I realize that’s the big “if” — auctions are only profitable when there are enough bidders. But if there’s that much unsold inventory, then TV has bigger problems to worry about.)

  The bar just got raised for sales departments — you have to do better than an online program that has unilimited reach, unlimited hours in the day, and can provide detailed instant, detailed metrics to an unlimited number of clients.

  If I’m an advertiser, why would I go with a human salesdrone who’s just going to interrupt my day and keep me from doing real work? My time is more valuable than that.

• 2. tdc  |  May 2nd, 2008 at 10:15 am

  good point #1-

  i never liked the idea of “numerous customer touch points” anyway…. sounds kinda kinky.

• 3. tdc  |  May 2nd, 2008 at 10:31 am

  i knew lr did a piece on this about a year ago… click tdc.

• 4. Aaron  |  May 2nd, 2008 at 4:25 pm

  I missed this important detail this morning (click my name for the source):

  “Understand tuning behavior during your ad via second-by-second data from millions of set-top-boxes”

  Think about that. Second-by-second data, returned to advertisers the next day. Not a Nielsen sample of a few hundred viewers who know they’re being watched — real-use data from millions of regular people.

  Traditional broadcast sales staffs have nothing that can compare with those metrics. The numbers and promises local sales teams have are smoke and mirrors compared to honest-to-God viewership data. That goes four-fold if you rely on diaries for your demos.

  If you’re an advertiser, where would you spend your money — on the black hole of diaries and households, or next-day, second-by-second data?

• 5. db  |  May 2nd, 2008 at 4:56 pm

  Salespeople will always exist, although their numbers may shrink. Look at Cisco, for example: you could buy almost any product from them online, but a huge portion of their sales go through live salespeople. Why? Because if you’re spending $50,000 on something, you like having an expert involved who can help you figure out how to maximize your investment.

  So in the case of a TV web site, a salesperson might work with the biggest clients who spend >$100,000/year. Their job would be to help them figure out the best type of advertising to do on the site, how to adjust their ads to increase responses, and ferret out any concerns that they may have. An automated system, although very valuable for reaching your small and mid-sized advertisers, would not be able to provide this service.

• 6. Dan  |  May 3rd, 2008 at 9:11 pm

  Aaron, won’t People Meters provide similar minute-by-minute information to advertisers?

  Obviously, Google is a game changer, but methinks that db is onto what will happen, at least in the near term as Google continues to refine an auction marketplace.

  The question: How quickly will the auction model move to networks?

• 7. Aaron  |  May 5th, 2008 at 8:42 am

  People Meters will provide similar data, but with less accuracy — it’s still a very small sample, and those being sampled know they’re being watched, which affects their viewing habits.

  db is probably correct — there may still be a place for human contact above a certain spending threshhold, for clients who want it.

  The big game changer is that Google just brought the long tail to advertising. Before, TV was only interested in big advertisers with a large budget. Now anyone with a few hundred bucks to spend can get on TV.

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