(Publisher's Note: The following appeared at Audio Graphics on December 22, 2005.)




I get it. Finally! Here's what's needed to generate advertising revenue with a web site: Get visitors to agree to respond to whatever is advertised. How about it, you willing to help?

You see, advertisers are complaining that unless you click their ad it's not worth it for them to display a logo in front of you. If you don't respond to whatever offer they are making, the advertiser shouldn't be held liable. The media should.

"Click. Pay. No click. Run ad again."

Like I said, I get it now. Click is response. Eyeballs are you. Advertiser supplies message. I run it until you click, before getting paid.

BusinessWeek does a good job of laying out what online advertising has become, and what it is trying to achieve in the short term.

Get past the constant changes, multiple vernaculars all speaking of "accountability," and the requirement that a user clicks before being recognized as a worthwhile online target, and you'll see that online advertising is all about the advertiser. Gone from the equation is the work done to attract an audience, audience-to-media loyalty, quality of audience delivered, and total numbers in the crowd.

Click. Pay. No click. Run ad again. I get it, finally.

Quotes from Ken. Year, 2005: Youth are attaching their image to what's on their portable MP3 player. Then there's online radio; it has no personality at all. Song, after song, after song: Nothing to connect to the listener emotionally except music, and music's not good enough to stand apart from the crowd For online radio to be really successful reaching the masses, people must start tuning in to online programs instead of away from broadcast. What's important to a 12-24 year-old is finding out what others think and comparing notes. It's not media leading - as was the case all last century - but media becoming part of the pipeline, an extension of the person. Can anyone imagine Walter Cronkite giving weight to weather-related stories in the same degree as today? Today I say these words about HD Radio: Unless the radio industry improves programming, pays more attention to the local audience, and begins offering an online connection to its advertisers, HD will end up like LMiV, or Stereo AM, or the all-comedy and all-traffic report formats

Have a safe and merry holiday.

Ken Dardis

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Audio Graphics Report - circa 2005

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