Adver-Whatever

90's flashback

So, did you know that there are still retail companies out there that don’t have their products available for sale online? Because I had no idea. I thought that selling things online was such a basic Web 1.0, 1990’s concept, that it would be impossible for any national retailer to have missed that trend altogether and just decided that their randomly scattered “stores” would be enough to meet demand.

World, meet Express Fashion. It comes from a dark, pre-internet era where people have to take the time to physically drag their bodies away from a computer and into a brick and mortar “store” where piles upon piles of goods must be searched through for the right color, size, and style before they can be purchased.

As if this weren’t bad enough, their stores are not located conveniently enough for me. Back in the shopping paradise that is California, I never had this problem, but right now, I am in Ithaca, New York. For the 5.999 billion people in the world who have never heard of it, I believe I have finally found a place that can correctly be called “The middle of freaking nowhere”. Ithaca itself may be a bustling metropolis (by upstate New York standards), but it is surrounded on every side by approximately 50 miles of NOTHING. Possibly needless to say, there is not an Express “store” in Ithaca. (Despite the population of about 30 thousand college students, who would all love one.) The nearest “store” is in Syracuse, exactly 62.79 miles away.

My favorite pair of black pants got torn yesterday, and because they were such fabulously comfortable, stylish pants, that lasted me nearly two years, I would really really like to get another pair.

Thank you, Express, for making that entirely impossible.

*Update from Express:
Thank you for contacting Express, we are excited that you are interested in purchasing merchandise from our website.  What you are seeing online right now is phase 1 of our work to build you a website that will fulfill online sales.
The launch of the site will be Fall ’08 and will initially only ship merchandise within the continental U.S.
To be one of the first to know when we go live, visit email sign up at Expressfashion.com and submit your information.
Again, thank you for your interest in Express, we value your business.


*My response:
You should have had this up and running either before or shortly after Y2K. Still angry.

AOL is at it again...

As if to prove what I said about the company's entire business strategy yesterday, they have gone and bought another company, Beebo. Watch as this previously popular social networking site languishes into oblivion as AOL does absolutely nothing to either market the site, or integrate it in with it's brand as a whole. AKA: Userplane.

The Problem with Mobile Ads

...Everything.

My phone beeps at me - I've gotten a text message. 9 times out of 10, that will be my boyfriend saying something sweet, or a friend from home updating me on a new game release. Or...Carrie asking me if I have an orange... But no, this time it's an ad. I'm not 100% sure, but I may have just had to actually pay 10 cents for some jibberish text message that not only did I delete immediately on principle, but which I never read. I'll be annoyed at the world of advertising for the rest of the day. That's right, mobile advertisers - you have successfully ruined my day. And because of this, I never buy the product or service that you are physically shoving into my pocket, and you can be 100% assured that whatever you spent on getting my personal telephone number, writing the ad, and sending it has been utterly wasted. Congratulations.

I am very much not alone in my undiluted hatred of  having marketing messages sent to my phone. According to the honorable New York Times, about 13 percent of people said they they would be open to ads if they improve the mobile content available, while about 14 percent said they were open to ads as long as they were relevant to their interests, the survey found. So, a resounding 87% of people DO NOT want to see mobile advertising, even if it meant that it would improve the content available, and 86% of people don't want to see it even if it is relevant to their interests.

By the way - the ads that I have been receiving have absolutely nothing to do with my interests, and in no way improve my mobile content, as I don't use the internet on my phone. I don't have any statistics about how many people want to see ads that don't relate to their interests, and give them absolutely nothing in return, but I'm going to guess that it's somewhere down around 0%. When I'm watching television, I can accept the commercials, because they are sponsoring the program I'm watching. The same is true of online ads, for the most part. But these mobile ads are not bringing me anything - in fact, they are actually making me pay for them - and that's what is so unacceptable.

But does it matter that so few people want to see these things on their phones? No - of course not. Mobile ads are on the rise! About 23% of U.S. mobile phone users have seen advertising on their cell phones in the last 30 days, which is up by 38%! About 11% of people even responded to these ads. (89% did not.) The Times says Service providers such as AT&T Inc <T.N> and

Sprint Nextel Corp

<S.N> have long-discussed the concept of augmenting revenue with mobile phone ads and have been easing into the market slowly for fear of bombarding customers. Be prepared for bombardment in the coming months.

Dealing with people who don't care

After two weeks of stress and the worst weather imaginable, I'm finally back. Sorry about the unexpected hiatus. So - to what I was going to say today:

"The EXPECTATION ECONOMY is an economy inhabited by experienced, well-informed consumers from Canada to South Korea who have a long list of high expectations that they apply to each and every good, service and experience on offer.

Their expectations are based on years of self-training in hyperconsumption, and on the biblical flood of new-style, readily available information sources, curators and BS filters. Which all help them track down and expect not just basic standards of quality, but the 'best of the best'."

The above is a quote from this months  trend briefing from TrendWatching.com. Apparently, someone else has attempted to dig into the inner core mentality of my generation. (Well, not only my generation, but they always seem to be very focused on what the Gen-Y-er's are doing. BTW - I hate the term Generation Y - they really couldn't come up with a better name for us? Just because we came after Generation X? And I don't like the term "Millenials" either - I was born in the 80's - I lived more than half my life so far in the last millennium, so I don't want to be dumped in with a group who never saw or don't remember the 20th century. Please think of something else to call us. Thank you for bearing with my generation rant.)

Fine - so we'll go with it. The article basically talks about how we as consumers have set impossibly high standards for every product or service available, and get bored and irritated with anyone or anything that doesn't live up to those standards. In addition, all new websites are dedicated to nothing more than making those standards higher.

It also states that we don't care what industry the standards were set in. For example: “Tomboy Trades, a Canadian start-up aimed at DIY for women, has developed steel-toe boots in pink, green, blue and red. Matching tool belts, safety glasses and hard hats soon followed, as did retail partnerships with Home Depot and Zellers, a Canadian department store. Expectations being set here? Female versions of everything and anything!”

It is supposed to serve as a warning for companies who otherwise might not be keeping up – assuming any of them actually care – and it’s advice that should be carefully considered. I’ve been reading Joeseph Jaffe’s latest book, Join the Conversation (more on that to come), and in it, he talks about the importance of brands to form actual, meaningful relationships with their customers. He’s been busy proving that it can be done by using these methods to promote the book.

However, what this article comes back to is that if your product isn’t living up to people’s high expectations, then it won’t be long before people won’t want to have a conversation with you. Consumers are happy to comment on brands that have are already satisfying them, and they will even throw comments toward brands that are unforgivably terrible.  But a complete lack of loyalty and general feeling of apathy toward the vast majority of mediocre brands leads to a complete lack of attention.

Figure out what people want – what we really want – and then we’ll start giving you a chance to talk to us. But you might want to hurry, because what we want will likely change tomorrow.

Workaholics Not-so-Anonymous

I’m finally back in Ithaca for what looks to be a particularly grueling semester after a month-long winter break. A few days ago, Greg Verdino brought up a subject that I should probably take to heart in the coming months. It’s easy for a lot of people, myself definitely included, to fall into habits resembling those of a workaholic. I may actually be worse about this than many.

I get more excited about school or work-related things than almost anything else, and it’s what I talk about more than anything else. I take my work with me everywhere – I’m only 20, and I haven’t had a real “vacation” in years. I am generally the person in any group project who will try to do the whole thing themselves for fear that otherwise, it won’t get done. I get impatient with people who have priorities other than school / work, and irritated when someone asks me to do something other than my work. I worry constantly about the future, even when things are going well. I’ve been known to work late into Friday nights, long after my roommates have gotten incoherently plastered, and my work habits have long been a source of complaints from my boyfriend.

In other words, I’m a mess (or possibly, just a normal, stressed out college senior). I’ve seen a lot of theories about why raging workaholics do what they do, ranging from fear of getting in trouble, to some kind of self-actualization. I can’t offer any good explanation for why I work so much – there’s probably no good reason for me to be taking on so many things at once. My only guess is that I’m hoping that doing all of this work now will somehow make my life better somewhere down the line. Wonder how long I’ll have to keep telling myself that before I realize that my life isn’t actually getting any better?

Next semester is going to be tough. Between five difficult and time consuming classes, I’ll be working a paid job and an unpaid internship, as well as continuing my commitments to the American Advertising Federation, the Public Relations Student Society of America, and my school’s newspaper, The Ithacan. My boyfriend is fairly convinced that he is never going to see me again.

While it is really too late for New Year’s resolutions, there are probably some things that I should resolve to do in order to preserve my sanity and actually enjoy a few minutes of my senior year. Some good ideas were offered in Anne Zelenka’s post: 5 Boundry-Setting Tips for the Work Obsessed. I should probably schedule some non-work related activities every once in a while. I should also probably establish some personal, non-work related goals (i.e.: move out of my parents’ house by the end of the year… that’s an idea). I should also probably take a step back every so often and take a serious look at my schedule. If I’m doing too much, I need to drop something. In fact, I could probably stand to repeat that sentence to myself every night before I go to bed.

So I suppose what all this is coming down to is a call for help. As of this moment, I’m fine, but if anyone notices me consistently blogging or twitter-ing or Facebook-ing that I’m not sleeping anymore, please, please, call an intervention. I’ll be working to catch it myself, but please don’t let me kill myself this semester. :-)

...What??

Today I saw what may be the strangest thing ever. People are watching less television. Of course they are - they've been DVR-ing and watching their shows online for a long time now, but with the writers' strike, there's nothing new for viewers to even make an effort to record. I haven't watched TV since the season finale of Heroes, and I probably won't watch it again until the start of LOST (If LOST starts). So, if people aren't watching television anymore, why are advertisers going crazy buying ads there?

According to the New York Post, ad prices on network TV are soaring. As the audience shrinks, advertisers have to buy more ad space to reach their target number of viewers, and this elevated demand for commercial time is driving up the cost. Advertisers paid on average 18% more in the fourth quarter for primetime spots, and the ratings they are paying for are down 14% from this time last year. What's even better: it's not looking like there's going to be any improvement next year. As I read this article half with amusement and half with utter horror, I just kept asking, "why?"

For god's sake, why are advertisers still buying television spots? The audience obviously isn't there, so why are they wasting their money? It's not like the audience has gone anywhere - they're still out there. They're just not watching television. I thought advertisers were supposed to be a little more creative than this. Hey guys, instead of buying up more and more ad space trying to reach an audience that has moved on, why don't you, I don't know, follow them?! I still listen to the radio whenever I'm driving, I still see billboards and bus-shelter posters wherever I go, and I go online for entertainment more than ever before. It just seems silly for advertisers to keep scrambling at this one medium when there are so many possibly more effective ones out there. I suppose it's okay, though - I'm sure the audience will come back when there are new programs for them to watch. 

New beginnings...

For the last three months, I have been keeping up a blog on advertising in video games for my Audience Research class at IC. I learned a lot, and got to see and do a ton of interesting things over the course of the semester (even though it was for a class - you should check it out). However, after the requirements of the assignment had been fulfilled, I realized that I really liked this whole blogging thing, so I decided to go legit. I'm expanding my topics of interest, and attempting to expand my readership, and meet some more of the people I should be meeting to learn about marketing/advertising.

Anyway, I hope this little experiment works out, and I'm looking forward to joining the blogging-because-we-like-it community.