Archive for October 12th, 2009

 I just got back from SMX East, and will have lots to write in the next few days.  One thing I’ve noticed, Danny Sullivan and his team can write up entire articles on the same day that a piece of news comes out.  Of course, that is their job, but here is Danny presenting, moderating, and hosting SMX East and finding time to write articles in between.  It’s a skill I have yet to develop.  I need to concentrate to write and can’t do it in the middle of sessions or hectic meetings (although i can do it just fine at Starbucks).

So while I’m a bit behind the folks at SearchEngineLand, I think you will still find the information useful.My first entry is a quick discussion of the term "targeted advertising."  In the "BigWig Crystal Ball Panel",   Sara Holoubek , a well known interactive technology consultant and speaker, objected to the term "targeted advertising."  "It’s a terrible term from a branding perspective,"  she said.  "Who wants to be a target?" 

She recommended, instead, the term "tailored advertising."  "I don’t care if you advertise to me,"  she continued in her chat, "as long as it is relevant to my concerns."  Her acceptance of advertising tailored to her interests corresponds to the results of market research we did on email advertising a few years ago.  In that research, consumers indicated they would accept an unlimited number of marketing emails as long as the content and offers were immediately relevant to their current needs. (From a practical perspective, "immediately relevant" is the difficult term because what is immediately relevant can change within minutes.)

Her comment was a real "aha!" moment for me – and I told her so afterwards.  This needed change in terminology is so obvious that as a brand-savvy marketer, it should have screamed "bad positioning" to me from the getgo.  But then, just as briliiant engineering designs are only obvious after a gifted engineer visualizes the solution, so brilliant marketing ideas are only obvious after a smart person has spoken them at some important conference.

So I want to both thank Sara for waking me from my stupor on this subject, and also support her, starting today, by evangelizing the change in technical term to  tailored advertising from its current usage as targeted advertising.

Now that that’s settled, on to changing "public relations" to "perception manipulation"….no no I  mean "image enhancement" (only kidding).