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Welcome to Ask DL! Q9: "What's your opinion of Doug Weaver's 12 dead Internet ideas?" — John Torre, VP, Media Group, Dynamic Logic (May 27, 2010) Recently, I was inspired by a talk given by Doug Weaver at an iMedia Connection Agency Summit in Austin, Texas. I met Doug in 2003 when he facilitated an ideation session for the Marketing Solutions team at Yahoo!. I was immediately impressed. We came up with dozens of new ideas with his help and it was one of the most powerful off-sites I've experienced to this day. I have not met him since then but I linked with him on Linkedin and even friended him on Facebook. So, when John Torre forwarded me his 29-minute talk on dead Internet ideas, I just had to watch it immediately. Jodi Harris, Senior Editor, iMedia Communications wrote a nice summary of Doug's talk. She wrote that Doug identified 12 "dead ideas" that need to be "retired to make room for their replacements." I will list the 12 and provide brief comments on each. The 12 Dead Internet Ideas: 1) The Web built on the notion of pages. Doug reminded us that the Internet in the very early days (1991/92) was a social network because the only people using the primitive form of it knew each other. But, it quickly evolved into a set of pages where you had "pageviews" and you could "refresh the page". He says we've now come full circle to the social network. I'll go on to say more about this. Technology has advanced to the point where simply tracking a series of URLs doesn't provide the complete picture of one's browsing behavior. "Pages" have become so interactive and personalised that knowing the page someone is on doesn't tell you as much as it used to. You can watch a video, play a game, "like" a brand and more without ever leaving the page you are on. 2) Moving people around the Web. Doug talks about the obsession of marketers to move people around the Web and "drive traffic." We say the consumer is in charge but we force him to come to our house. I often talk about this very idea. At least once per week, I tell marketers that Web 1.0 was about bringing consumers to your content. But, 2.0 is about bringing the content to the consumer. People now realise they don't have to leave the page. Even if your ad is relevant and interesting, they are very unlikely to click on it because they just don't want to leave. If you are smart enough to figure out how to bring the content to them then maybe, just maybe, you'll get a little attention. 3) Optimising click rates. Dead! Don't do it! Instead of focusing on creative and strategy, Doug says that our obsession with click rates pulls talented people away from what really matters. He believes the Internet can be so much more and ads that "it's like watching Secretariat pull a milk wagon" — it's a waste of talent to focus such a great platform on clicks. Ok, don't get me started. I've done so much research on the topic of click rates that I'm now totally convinced that it is about as worthless a metric as is possible. Others agree; so why do so many continue to optimise campaigns based on click? Is it because click data are freely available? If so, that's a terrible excuse. Study after study has shown that click rate correlates with nothing that marketers care about and clickers tend to be less educated, less likely to own a home, use the Internet less and are generally less desirable from a marketing standpoint. 4) Microsites. Doug says that these once served a purpose, but in the modern Web, this goes back to dead idea number 2 — our goal should not be to move people around the Web. Doug said that marketers should take their best ideas from the microsite and put it into an interactive ad. I agree — bring the content to the people — not the other way around. In addition, I've done some cost-effective analyses for advertisers related to microsites and the data generally supports Doug's view. Since so few people are exposed to microsites relative to display ads, the impact of the site has to be many times the impact of a typical ad exposure in order to be cost-effective. Microsites have strong impact but are generally less efficient than display ads. 5) Worshipping the altar of advertising. Doug believes that the important work of marketers shouldn't be limited by the term "advertising" or be further bucketed into "digital advertising." He says agencies should think of themselves as marketing services organisations. I think a key message here is to think holistically. Some people focus on the creative, others focus on the media plans, others on short-term sales and others on traffic. There needs to be more people thinking holistically about the brand and how the goals for that brand can best manifest themselves through digital communication strategies and tactics. 6) The "campaign." Doug believes that campaign thinking is outdated. Campaigns made more sense in the broadcast world when we talked at consumers rather than having a dialogue. Again, I agree with Doug. However, I don't think most marketers have the training or experience to really make this happen. It used to be that the strategy was chosen and the media followed. Need mass reach? TV. In context relevance? Print. Direct response? Direct mail. Now we have the Internet, which can do it all and is also the world's largest data collection platform. The Internet can engage, communicate, listen and respond. 7) Blind RFPs. Doug is fed up with the blind RFP. He says if someone just wants pricing, they should ask for it. He says this creates a horrible reverse auction where no one wins. I have a feeling this is a pet peeves of sorts for Doug and I understand why. Agencies and publishers (and research companies) respond to RFPs all the time. We jump through hoops, put together flashy, glossy PowerPoint decks and generally churn up tons of resources for the small chance of getting the project. This process should be interactive and on a much smaller scale with more ideas and content and less flash. 8) The "right" to target. Just because we have the ability to target, doesn't mean we have the right to target. Doug warns that if we become too cocky about our abilities, we could end up where telemarketing is after the DO NOT CALL registry. We need to articulate better to consumers what they get in return for targeting. In addition, he says, our ability to target has made us lazy about creating contextually relevant content. As someone who was part of the team that built Yahoo!s first behavioral targeting system back in 2000, I had to listen to Doug twice on this one to be convinced. But, I think he is right. We've become over-reliant on targeting and need to put more energy into creating not just more contextually relevant content but also environments that work better with marketing communications, reduced clutter, etc. 9) Agency as velvet rope. According to Doug, the idea is dead that the agency is the gate keeper for marketing. He says that this is because the future of marketing is mostly about understanding consumers and the marketer and media owners are much closer to that understanding than agencies are. Doug is right again. In addition, as he pointed out, the digital world is changing so fast that leveraging and channeling this knowledge through an increasingly underfunded and under-resourced agency is a dead idea. Agencies must work with publishers, marketers and researchers to co-create the best marketing ideas. 10) Advertising and editorial separation. He says that the notion of relegating ads to the border ("advertising ghettos") of a page is a dead idea. Brands need to be integrated into the content for the marketing to be useful and effective. Product placement has proven to be effective in TV — now it must come to the digital world. I do agree with Doug that product placement is a smart idea. But, as much as I enjoy Top Chef and Project Runway on TV, they sometimes cross the line and become annoying with their blatant product placement. Like most marketing ideas, I think it will eventually become commonplace, ignorable and annoying. 11) Silver bullet. Doug argues that we have to stop believing that each big new idea (eg, iPad) is the Silver Bullet. There are no holy grails — they all come and go. Agreed. We need to give up the notion that something will come along and make everything easy. 12) Getting it all figured out. The digital age is a permanently dynamic environment, constantly evolving so we must stop trying to figure it all out. We will never have fixed standards and need to stop wasting time pushing for such. Successful people in the modern world stay focused on solutions and stay nimble in their knowledge of what lies under their feet today. Walk gently on ice. If a skateboard is nearby, hop on and scoot ahead. Stay on your toes, adjust and change to meet the demands of the situation. That's the best way to provide value to clients and project the needed leadership required in the evolving world of modern communications. It's been a real pleasure working at Dynamic Logic for these past 6 years. I've learned a lot and made many great friends. The friendships will last and the learning will continue as I rejoin Yahoo!. Thanks for reading. Ken
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