[brainyprod]

Long time lurker here, finally got an account to comment on this item.

I agree with Andrew's take on the new advertising paradigms, but I can't agree with his premise that display advertising on the Internet does not work. It works, and not only that, in some cases it works brilliantly. Not to say that it works for every audience (like HNers), or every product for that matter.

His point about low CTR is accurate but not entirely relevant. The user who asked in the comments "What is the CTR of the magazine ads?" hit the nail on the head. It's not always about CTR, but also brand impressions, reach and frequency.

Case in point: I did a campaign for a new brand in another country, which included display advertising. CTR was low, and initial conversions were low too. But over time, many would search for the brand after the visit, returning to the page and they converted! In so many other campaigns I would combine display with social media, email marketing and other stuff and get great results. Yes, I said email marketing. That still works too, and with some audiences, it is literally reeling them in. (No, I'm not talking about spam).

In short, Andrew is writing with an either/or mentality with advertising, when one needs to be thinking of and'ing: of all the tools available, which ones are going to work best together? Take a layered approach. Display advertising may be a hammer, but not every problem is a screw.

[jonnathanson]

Andrew's thesis is very interesting, but he's a little too quick to throw out various babies with their bathwater. Take his dismissal of psychological approaches to advertising, for instance. Why? Why are sociology and psychology no longer relevant? Maybe they're irrelevant in the old-school, Don Draperesque sense of their use (i.e., people sitting around in a boardroom and telling narratives about What People Want, and so forth). But then again, no one's done advertising or marketing like that in 50-odd years.

Psychology is as relevant to digital advertising as it ever was in analog advertising, and it'll be massively more important in social advertising. Understanding how the human mind works, why it chooses what it chooses, and how people are influenced and, in turn, influence others -- these things are still the bedrock of advertising. Media types may rise and fall, but the human brain is still the human brain. Group behavior is still group behavior. Psychology and sociology will be increasingly important tools in the marketer's arsenal as we move into the media of the future.

It's not an either/or proposition between psychological theory and real-time data analysis. Savvy marketers should combine the two. Both have their place. (As you've pointed out, the piece tends toward too many "either/or" implications that needn't be).

[stfu]

Weissman needs to differentiate more. He seems to be mixing up marketing, advertising and sales. I would argue that "people sitting around in a boardroom and telling narratives about What People Want, and so forth)" are still core to successful advertising.

At the core of advertising is the "idea" - almost similar to a startup. Neither number crunching nor some psychological tricks are able to replace this. In fact their purpose is in my opinion just to evaluate or optimize towards better follow up investments.

Now this might be a different story when talking about (direct)sales where you can try to quantify action-reactions related to a specific product. And for most businesses the role of marketing ("all processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging value") is far more complex than just Tweets, Facebook and Foursquare.

[jcr]

Welcome to the world of posting on HN!

I think the either/or mentality is entirely rooted in billing; you either pay CPC/CPA (Cost Per Click / Cost Per Action), or you pay CPM (cost per 1K impressions), but not both. The interesting question is, why not charge for both?

[aweissman]

I see your point but I don't believe that generally web display works because it interupts a user's activity. But I agree, maybe it is not all either/or