Media: Clickz reports on an Awakening in the Media to Targeting

Rebecca Lieb starts this piece off with a hook that is completely obscure to the wider industry, but read past that and it's an interesting perspective on how advertising, marketing, and the 'mass media' has finally noticed that it is possible to target material at specific groups of users.

She's spent a week listening to a select handful of world-class advertisers, agencies, and executives from both online and television discuss how broadband is changing consumer habits and expectations and subsequently altering the nature of advertising. 'What I'm hearing couldn't be clearer: the big brand advertisers, almost as one, are shrugging off "mass" as antiquated, unattractive, untargeted, and immeasurable.'

As she puts it: 'Advertisers are finally realizing the Internet is like cable... on steroids. Reach doesn't matter, targeting is everything. MSN's chief media revenue officer, Joanne Bradford, thinks TV buys have become "an insurance policy for reach." At the Digital Marketing Expo, she did cite a need for more standards to make buying online easier.

'That's not the worst idea for advertisers, but America Online EVP Michael Barrett made a thoughtful observation about making the Web too easy. "We may run the risk of dumbing it down, programming to the lowest common denominator if we 'make it as easy as TV,'" he mused.'

Associated Link: Clickz: Mass Loses its Appeal

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