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The Economist’s Tom Standage on digital strategy and the limits of advertising

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Re: The Economist’s Tom Standage on digital strategy and the limits of advertising

#21

Post by digi_owl »

virmundi wrote: post #11
drpgq wrote: post #4

"The other thing about ads is that 41 percent of millennials are using ad block. My daughter has ad block and she goes around infecting every machine she gets to. She puts it on everything." Didn't realize that ad block was that popular with millennials. I was always thought it was more popular with those that were tech savvy regardless of age.

I wonder how effective ads are getting on the web anyway. I'm techy, and I filter them mentally. My wife is consumer literate technical and filters them mentally too. And I have Ad Block.

I seem to recall a recent article claiming that companies has started to ask themselves the same thing.

Re: The Economist’s Tom Standage on digital strategy and the limits of advertising

#22

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #3

The interesting thing with the Economist is that they alone seem to be able to do what they do. A weekly editorial summary of news and relevant stories that people pay for, which is read by business people. Is there a competing magazine? I am not aware of it. Their content is unrivalled, although you really need to be aware of their biases. But I don't feel they try to hide them, rather the opposite. However, with so…

This model is used by any number of "business intelligence" micro-zines - which are basically market tip sheets, with some trend speculation.

It can be very lucrative if you get a following. I've seen sites charging four or five figure annual subscription fees for something that probably only takes a day or two a week to put together.

So IMV the Econo is really just industrialising that model, with some extra journo-fluff for credibility.

It's completely different to being a mainstream headline newsie like The Guardian, with a fundamentally different reader focus.

You're not selling news, you're selling the suggestion that you're on the inside track, with access to the thoughts and beliefs of people who make policy and move markets.

Re: The Economist’s Tom Standage on digital strategy and the limits of advertising

#23

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

digi_owl wrote: post #21
virmundi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how effective ads are getting on the web anyway. I'm techy, and I filter them mentally. My wife is consumer literate technical and filters them mentally too. And I have Ad Block.

I seem to recall a recent article claiming that companies has started to ask themselves the same thing.

There's always been something cargo culty about online advertising.

If that market implodes, it's going to be... interesting.

Re: The Economist’s Tom Standage on digital strategy and the limits of advertising

#24

Post by fallous »

I've been cogitating on some of the themes Standage brings up in this interview for awhile and I suspect he's far more correct than incorrect. The proliferation of adblocking and incognito browsing is going to do marked damage to advertising networks like DoubleClick because the loss of demographic targeting means they are forced to basically become run-of-site ad outlets. Additionally, the amount of fraud in the ad views and click rates has become far more obvious to advertisers over the last 18 months and will only increase as sites try and game the revenue to make up for ad blocking. This does not bode well for the traditional ad model that has prevailed on the Net for the last 15+ years.

I suspect that Facebook becomes the real winner in this due to the fact that no one uses the site without logging in, has provided enormous amounts of targeting info, and with Facebook controlling the ad experience they cut out the likes of Doubleclick and deal directly with the advertisers. They're vouching for the legitimacy of the ad performance metrics and handling the targeting internally using their own data, and so will be able to command a huge premium. A few years ago I would've laughed at the idea that Facebook would be able to compete with Google in the ad revenue market, but I'm not laughing now.

Re: The Economist’s Tom Standage on digital strategy and the limits of advertising

#25

Post by ghaff »

netcan wrote: post #13

Sounds like an interesting guy. I think he’s slightly underestimating or misunderstanding the “VC backed frivolousness” though. No one knew that a search engine could generate 20-30bn p/a in advertising revenue until it did. Even Facebook, taking their advertising “stock” into a more mature existing market didn’t know what it was worth in advance. No one knew that TV advertising would be worth what it is/was until th…

>OTOH, I’m not sure that journalistically The Economist really does do some difficult task that no one else can do. I mean, the difficult part is investigative journalism is it not?

It's a reasonable point that The Economist isn't really in the business of breaking news. I had never really thought about it but you're right. I'm sure they wouldn't be opposed to doing so but it's not their focus. (Not that deep investigative stories form a large part of any magazine's or newspaper's focus.)

However, the breadth of what The Economist covers and its very solid writing is--in the aggregate--pretty hard to emulate. It's hard in the sense that you need to pay for a lot of experienced journalists and editors who write well. Individual stories and columns aren't hard but the whole weekly package is. You could probably say the same thing about The Wall Street Journal for that matter.

Re: The Economist’s Tom Standage on digital strategy and the limits of advertising

#26

Post by ghaff »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #3

The interesting thing with the Economist is that they alone seem to be able to do what they do. A weekly editorial summary of news and relevant stories that people pay for, which is read by business people. Is there a competing magazine? I am not aware of it. Their content is unrivalled, although you really need to be aware of their biases. But I don't feel they try to hide them, rather the opposite. However, with so…

In the US, Time is the closest equivalent. But I certainly wouldn't argue that it's of the same quality overall--and certainly not of the same breadth. The American news magazines were always fluffier and rather US-centric--and these days the one survivor is rather thin some weeks.

Re: The Economist’s Tom Standage on digital strategy and the limits of advertising

#27

Post by cschmidt »

frabcus wrote: post #7
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #3

The interesting thing with the Economist is that they alone seem to be able to do what they do. A weekly editorial summary of news and relevant stories that people pay for, which is read by business people. Is there a competing magazine? I am not aware of it. Their content is unrivalled, although you really need to be aware of their biases. But I don't feel they try to hide them, rather the opposite. However, with so…

Financial Times.

But that's daily. I do agree that the FT and probably the NYT are of the same quality. But it takes as lot more time to wade through a daily.

Re: The Economist’s Tom Standage on digital strategy and the limits of advertising

#28

Post by ghaff »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #23
digi_owl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to recall a recent article claiming that companies has started to ask themselves the same thing.

There's always been something cargo culty about online advertising. If that market implodes, it's going to be... interesting.

I thought that a while ago. It hasn't happened yet but that doesn't mean it won't. And even if it doesn't implode, it could certainly decline significantly.

A HUGE amount of the "free" services and content that pretty much all of us take so much for granted around the web are directly or indirectly supported by online advertising. Take that away and, as you say, it will be interesting.

Re: The Economist’s Tom Standage on digital strategy and the limits of advertising

#29

Post by cschmidt »

netcan wrote: post #13

Sounds like an interesting guy. I think he’s slightly underestimating or misunderstanding the “VC backed frivolousness” though. No one knew that a search engine could generate 20-30bn p/a in advertising revenue until it did. Even Facebook, taking their advertising “stock” into a more mature existing market didn’t know what it was worth in advance. No one knew that TV advertising would be worth what it is/was until th…

> Sounds like an interesting guy.

I think his twitter feed @tomstandage is very interesting. He's kind of the cool uncle who knows about lots of fun things going on. He's written a number of books like "History of the Worlds in 6 glasses", which I enjoyed.

http://www.amazon.com/Tom-Standage/e/B001H6N3PK/

He plays the drums, and he is (or at least was the last time I checked) in charge of the "back half" of the Economist. (The part after the news.)

Re: The Economist’s Tom Standage on digital strategy and the limits of advertising

#30

Post by hallman76 »

drpgq wrote: post #4

"The other thing about ads is that 41 percent of millennials are using ad block. My daughter has ad block and she goes around infecting every machine she gets to. She puts it on everything." Didn't realize that ad block was that popular with millennials. I was always thought it was more popular with those that were tech savvy regardless of age.

I have a report from Q3 of last year that breaks down adblocker usage by age range:

  16-24: 34% 
  25-34: 32% 
  35-44: 26% 
  45-64: 22% 
  55-64: 18%
I found those numbers pretty surprising since installing a browser extension isn't a typical user behavior.
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