Punishing Obnoxious Advertisers With Attention

I've never manage to write a short blog yet. Maybe this will be the one.

Let's say you're visiting a website and some advertisement insults you in some way. Maybe it uses weasely language, employs scarevertising, guiltvertising, or tries to sell you something you find morally objectionable.

What do you do?

In most realms, the best answer would be to simply ignore the advertising, right?

Let's think about that. For most forms of advertising, the advertiser has already paid for the privilege of assaulting your senses. Online advertising is different. Advertisers pay a relatively small amount for "views" and a relatively large amount for "click throughs." So, if you want to punish an advertiser for insulting you, click their ad, visit their site, and then leave without buying anything. Make them pay for their ineffective advertising.

Obnoxious advertisers will benefit by seeing that click-throughs aren't turning into sales. Hopefully they'll realize what's going on and change their ways.

(BTW, PLEASE DON'T DO THIS ON MY BLOG)

The Advertising Revolution: How to "Save" Spam

And by "save" I mean "kill."  And by "kill" I mean change it into something that actually works.  For the reader, not for the reprehensible people that engage in unsolicited sending in the first place.  

I won't go into why.  Let's skip to what.  The why will provide itself.

Imagine that the advertising revolution is underway.  You no longer are forced to see ads- on TV, on the internet, even in e-print- for things that simply don't interest you.  Ads are subject to personalized feedback.  Your current interests are respected.  Branding-across-demographics is no longer necessary.  You are now addressed as an individual.  Meanwhile, your spam folder is still full of garbage.  So let's clean it up, once and for all.  Well, not exactly.  

Imagine that every time anyone sent an email to someone they didn't already know, and who didn't already know them (the people in your address book), they had to pay a few pennies in postage. On email.  Postage is charged at two points.  Half is charged for the simple act of sending.  Half is charged if the receiver opts to open the email.  The reader can also opt to refund the charge.  You like receiving monthly specials from REI?  Don't change them for the privilege of sending them to you.  

The first charge acts as a disincentive to fill the world's inboxes and spam folders with offensive, excessive amounts of garbage.  Part of that change goes directly to the email recipient.  You get a lot of spam?  You also get a lot of pennies.  Another, very small part goes to pay for the service.

The second charge is applied when you open the email.   It is also a disincentive to the would-be spammer to send ineffective email.  But it is also an incentive for the recipient to give that spam a change.  Have a few seconds to spare?  Why not earn a few cents checking out the ads you've been sent.  The assumption, of course, is that if the recipient looks at the email, even for a second, the sender has recieved meaningful exposure.  Certainly better than being lost in a spam folder, resented, mistrusted.  Everyone knows you don't follow links in spam, right?  (DON'T FOLLOW LINKS IN SPAM).   

What happens if someone is sending you personal email for the first time? Well, they have the option of charging you postage, just like any spammer.  However, if you respond directly to them at the email they used to send to you, they are automatically refunded.  After that, you must actively choose to change them if you ever want to reverse the situation.  Responding to them refunds the last several charges, or all charges in the past month, or week.  Some length of time.

This would not replace spam filters.  You would still be able to block unwanted email.  You would never be forced to see something you didn't want to.  

Why such a service wouldn't work.  

Who could you trust to administer such a system?  Even if they couldn't see your mail, they would have a record of what went where.  If they were publically traded, they could be bought out and exploited.  A private company would be just as susceptible.  Even a government-regulated service would be subject to iffyness.  

It would be impossible to send completely anonymous email.  You would have to register your email with the service in order to get paid.  

So, the service would need to be optional.  

If you're a private individual that wants to be able to email anyone without a money trail attached, you'd be allowed to do so.  As long as you "paid" with a captcha.  The receiver wouldn't get paid any postage for the inconvenience of reading the email you sent them.  And they'd know it.  The email would be labeled as "anonymously sent" or "postage withheld."  If it turned out to be a piece of traditional, obnoxious spam, it would still be subject to traditional filtering.  The sender would have to solve a captcha for every piece of anonymous email.   

It would still be possible to send millions of emails to millions of people you don't know.  But you'd have to pay for the right to waste their time.  And you'd have to pay the recipient directly. You'd have to think long and hard about whether it was worth the expense.  Not just to send, but to be read.   The quality and legitimacy of spam would rise accordingly.  It would also become far, far less common.  

It would still be possible to send anonymous email to anyone.  You just couldn't do it quickly.  And they'd know it was anonymous.  They'd have the option of rejecting it for that reason, to even block it permanently.  

Let's examine a common scenario.    You receive an obnoxious forward from someone you don't know that well.  Charge them.  You take some of the money they earned from reading spam in their own inbox.  They start to notice that they're losing money.  

How do you administer the system?  For web based email, it's done in server side software.  For HDD-resident email software, it's a download.

Would anyone be exempt from being charged for sending mass emails?  Would the government be able to send email for free?  Perhaps.

Email is a currently a weak system.  Spam is that weakness.  Solve spam and the utility of email will be elevated.  Marginally respectible companies willing to spend money on printing and posting junk mail will have a cost effective alternative.  Trees will survive.  

The system will involve an increase in web traffic.  An extra two messages must be sent before an email can reach your inbox.  One confirming that the sender can afford to send, one subtracting the postage.  Potentially, afterwards, there would be another message.  The total number of messages sent would multiply by four.  But there would actually be a net gain in efficiency because spam volume would go down.    

Salvation for Magazines: The Future of eReader Design

Back to thinking about advertising.

In this post I will ellaborate on an idea I mentioned here.

I subscribe to exactly two magazines.  Wired and Time.  If I were to subcribe to a third, I'd probably go with Popular Mechanics.  Ask me about a fourth and a fifth, and I might not know what to say.  I'm a man of many interests, but few of those interests are expressed in a desire to subscribe to a magazine on the subject.  Instead, the internet is all I need.  Or is that the only way the magazine market, as it currently exists, allows me to think?  

Perhaps there are dozens of magazines that, if I had them within reach, I'd give them a meaningful share of my time.  Biblical Archeological Review, New Scientist, the Economist, Kitplanes, Backpacker, Cinefex... oh, the list could be really very long, if I were willing to shell out.  I'm casually, and perhaps convertibly, interested in plenty of magazines.  I'm not willing to pay any amount of money for 100% of what I can get a reasonable 30 or 40% for free elsewhere. Or at least feel that I am.  In reality, I know there's no replacement for paid writing.  

Unfortunately, there are more and more people that feel this way.  Many venerable, once-essential magazines are gradually dying off.  New magazines arise only by appealing to a broad, shallow interest.  Perhaps correlationally, just as the technology for reaching any conceivable microniche is coming into its own, the previous technology (print) is flattening into grocery store subjects (decorating, fashion, hot rods, guns, and body building).  

I could go on and on about the problem.  I could expound at length on how we got here.  But I'm ready to talk about the solution.

E-readers, like Kindle, are being designed wrong in that they ignore one of the most important ways that writers get paid- not through royalties, but through ad revunue.  They are designed for books.

So I'm about to describe the e-reader of the future.  The one that saves the magazine industry from inevitalbe information age demise.  

The next e-reader must have two screens, preferably a dual-mode, two-layer display: low energy epaper and color OLCD.  One page for text, one for a full-page ad that is present while you read the text.  Color is essential for simulating a vast number of books, not just magazines. A dual-mode display would vastly broaden the available book market at the same time. Textbooks require color.  E-readers for children must have color.  A two-page spread is essential for some kinds of information, some kinds of illustrations.  

It will cost more, but that's of no concern.  A two-screen, dual-mode e-reader can can be sold for close-to, or less than cost as long as a profit sharing arrangement exists in which advertising revenue is added to lost profits.  And the potential revenue is enormous.   

Advertising on such devices should be subject to a voluntary feedback model like the one I described in an earlier post.   People appreciate the ads in magazines.  Don't feel shy about putting ads in front of people- as long as those ads are for things your readers are interested in.  

New e-readers should always have wireless capability, netbook capabilities, but must be usable far from any available network.  They should operate in a low-power, black-and-white mode.  If you are interested in an ad, you simply tap it to see the full-color version.  Ads should be allowed to animate, or force you to see full color, only during the first few seconds after "turning the page."  I mean one to three seconds max.  Constantly moving ads are annoying and distracting. You should be able to click on an ad- all the way through to a purchase decision- without losing your place in the article you're reading.  The ad page is also a browser, or an Adobe AIR interactive document, or an order form.

Naturally, this dual-screen e-reader should fold.  You should be able to fold it closed, to protect the screen and hide what's inside, or fold it open, so that it can be read one-handed.  The button for turning to the next page should be only on the right side.  Turning back, only on the left.  That way, you must look at both pages before you can advance.  

Not every page of text would  be opposite an ad.  Sometimes you would have two-pages of text, or a two-page illustration.  Sometimes you'd have two-page ads.  It should balance out.  

Instead of flipping through a magazine, you could have a visual table-of-contents.  Each page of the magazine, including the ads, would be visible in miniature on a page that is cached for fast accessibility at all times.  The ad page could be used for this.  It is good to encourage the reader to interact with the ad page (which would, most often, be the right hand page).  The reader should feel good about the ad page.

You'd still pay for subscriptions.  But you'd pay a lot less than you do now.  No paper, printing, mailing, or mail-based subscription service charges.  More timely, targeted ads. Transparent, instant feedback.  In fact, some magazines could be distributed free to the consumer.  

You could also have an ad-royalty model in which writers get paid a bonus for the revenue generated by the ads that accompanied their writing.

Magazines themselves would become more sophisticated.  There is no reason you couldn't have interactive flash illustrations, embedded video, or links directly to related material built into the magazine articles of the future.  The same is true of books.  

The window of opportunity is rapidly closing.  The chance to employ the existing two-page magazine model will not always be available.  We will outgrow it.  There is already a well established alternative model- the internet advertising model (banners, sidebars, embedded text ads)- to compete with.

How would google feel about controling the print advertising market as well?  I imagine they'd be willing to invest in the technology that allowed them to do that.

As a consumer, reader, and technology user, wouldn't you rather have a dual-screen solution? 

As a magazine publisher, wouldn't you rather not die?  

As an advertiser, wouldn't you rather have a full page ad instead of a sidebar, or a banner?

E-readers need to evolve in this single, essential, non-negotiable way.  Once they do, all previous e-reader innovations will become instantly obsolete.

As a technology designer, wouldn't you rather make a sale than a footnote to history?  

The Next Decade in Advertising

Ideas about the future of advertising don't leap to mind as being particularly compelling reading. Well, okay.

There was a road that I often traveled with my parents when I was a kid. It was a road going west out of Randolph, VT. There was a place in the road where you could make a choice. You could go up over a hill, or around to the side of it. Beyond that choice the road rejoined and went on. What strikes me about that choice was that they were, in a sense, nearly equivalent. Neither was a shortcut. One represented lateral displacement, the other vertical. Often my parents would call for an instant vote. "Over or around." We usually voted to go over.

Since the beginning of modern advertising, messages have been targeted as members of demographic groups. If you wanted to sell luxury cars, you advertised them in the business section of the newspaper. If you wanted to sell diapers, you might put them in women's magazines. If you wanted to sell toys, you marketed them directly to the children that would play with them, hoping that the children would act as an unpaid sales force.

What you didn't do was advertise to too small a niche. You went for the greatest common denominator (GCD). And in the process of advertising to the largest group possible, you actually had a hand in defining that group. Advertising, especially after World War II, when American capitalism entered its strongest chapter, has had a homogenizing effect on how culture sees itself. We're still living with the labels and assumptions that were first developed for that era.

But this is a very different age.

When we were choosing whether to go over or around, we knew that we would end up in the same place either way. We knew it would take about the same amount of time. The only thing different was that particular part of the journey.

Those who use advertising- a group that encompasses the whole gamut of business in our post-industrial society- don't need to care about how they get to their destination. They need only one thing. They need to arrive. They need to convert customers. Whether taking them from the pool of the previously uncommitted, new spenders, or by stealing them from competitors, the path isn't as important as the destination.

And therein lies the problem with old style advertising.

If you don't care how you get there, you'll choose the more direct route. If you were to look at two roads on a map- a 2D flattening- you'd be tempted to believe that the straightest, most-direct seeming route was by far the best. You'd be missing the hill altogether.

Successful advertising has, for a long time, consisted of large campaigns targeted at the GCD of huge numbers of people. The finesse approach, which focuse on smaller cross-sections of a product's target market, often used the same advertising assets. There was an expectation that, to some degree, a product represented those that would buy it. In other words, the brand was mistaken for the product itself. It was even misconstrued as representing the target market itself. Someone could be a "Marlboro man" or part of the "Pepsi generation." Car salesman sold image overhauls in the form of hood ornaments (attached to automobiles). If you participated- as all were required to do to some degree- then you could be identified by the labels on your clothes. One could even use brands to identify oneself.

That's still how most advertising works. Big brands require big piles of money. They not only reach a broad demographic, they actually define it.

But I'm not here to write about going over.

A new form of internet technology opens up a completely new road. And the ramifications of traveling that road stand to have a profound effect on the concept of product-based identity.

Instead of pushing people into categories and hoping that they fit well enough to be durably branded, it is now possible to reach people where they already are. Instead of advertising to million of people an once in hopes of reaching those who actually could be customers (if they could be converted), it is now possible to target, with greater and greater sophistication, smaller and smaller definitions of the buying public. Microniches are now addressible.

But I'm not thinking about targeted marketing. I'm thinking about something a whole step beyond. Let me describe what it would look like.

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're a 25-year-old male with a new car in your garage and a hungry dog by your side. Let's say you want to watch a program on the History channel. Traditionally, you can expect to see ads for the AARP, term life insurance, and comfortable sedans. But you're not in the market for any of those things, and if the advertisers of those things knew a little more about you, they wouldn't be wasting their money trying to sell them to you. So, in our next-age example, you see ads for pet food, new tires, the most recent FPS. And you're more than happy to give that information about yourself because it means not having to watch ads that hold no interest for you.

Let's take it a step farther. Suppose one of those ads is successful. You decide, based on the ad, and how happy your dog is, to go with a particular brand of dog food. Let's say that you let Purina know that you're now one of their loyal customers.

Purina now has a vested interest in keeping you while other dog food manufacturers have an interest in poaching you. Purina won't try to convince you to switch anymore. Instead, they'll let you know when and where to find their products on sale. They make sure you know about other products your dog might like. They'll change the tone of the conversation and, in so doing, they'll solidify their advantage.

Purina's competitors may be able to identify you as a loyal customer and try to lure you away. But the same system that would allow them to craft a campaign specifically for that purpose would also allow Purina to keep tabs on the competitor's exposure. Both parties would be able to exercise their campaigns with greater efficiency. It would come down to who did a better job. Who offered a better product. Who made the customer feel more appreciated. In essence, customer service- even at the level of initial advertising.

Let's take it another step. Let's say that two competitors are vying for your patronage. One of them, unfortunately, has ads that annoy you. They're whiny, manipulative, and desperate. In fact, every time you see such an ad, it makes you want to punish that product's maker by going to the competition. So, you let that company know. You tell them, "I don't want to see this ad anymore." And they are faced with a choice. They can ignore your request and risk annoying you further, or they can honor it, replace the ad with something else, and improve their standing with you. The better their ads- the more amusing, the more powerful- the more likely you are to watch them.

One more step. Let's say that you're in the market for a new car. So you say so. Upto that point you were being shown a slow steady stream of car ads calculated to get you in the mood to buy something new. But the moment you admit to being in the market, the conversation changes. One company in particular starts putting a series of ads in front of you. You find that you now know about the car's engine and fuel economy. You have a feel for its interior. You've seen it accelerate. You've seen it in the snow. And then, one day- when the advertiser knows you know everything you need to know- they offer you a deal and tell you where to go to take advantage of it. They issue you a personal invitation to do a test drive. And because you have no real need for pickup truck, not once did you see an ad for one.

And I'm not talking about TV advertising- though TV is part of the picture. I'm talking about the ads you see while watching shows online. Sidebar ads on practically any website you might visit. Even the ads you hear while listening to your nextgeneration car radio. I'm talking about the ads you see while reading a ereader version of your favorite magazine. By the way, ereaders need to two pages as soon as possible. One page for the print, one for the ad. If you can do that, and do it soon enough, you can preserve and perfect the existing print advertising paradigm. Otherwise, print advertising dies.

What can you do about it today?

Well, if you an advertiser, stop trying to sell to the idea of the single perfect ad. Don't get stuck taking just one road. Improve your footwork. Stop thinking of yourselves as contractors and start thinking of yourself as partners. As a consumer-marketer-producer feedback loop is developed, expect to be paid on the success of your ideas, not merely for your ability to sell them.

If you're a business owner, expect more specific ideas. Expect sophistocated psychology. Expect to pay more in creativity as part of the tradeoff in getting your message more efficiently to market. Expect to learn things about yourself you neven knew. And be prepared to employ more than one ad agency. Update your approach to image-branding. Alter your expectations of what advertising can accomplish.

If you're a consumer, start volunteering information. If you have an opinion about an ad, let the company know. Use words like "boycott due to annoyance" and "great job!" At the end of the day, the consumer is the one that stands to benefit the most. The more valuable your advertising, the more power you have to support the TV shows you enjoy. Less of your time is wasted in watching ads that don't interest you. More access to news and articles, based on the increased value of the advertising that accompanies it. More power as a consumer.

The choice was whether to go over the hill or around it. The distance was the same. The destination was the same. The difference was how you got there. Do you go uphill- spend the money, build the brand, change the basic fabric of societal identity? Or do you go around?

You go around, because, as it so happens, that's where your customer lives. You don't need to look down from the high vantage anymore. You can go right up to the front door. You might even get invited inside.