Darren Herman - Marketing, Media and Technology Conversations - Latest Comments

Re: Open Letter to Ms. Internet

dherman76 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:32:17 -0000

Very fair and valid points Jonathan. I just think that Ms. Internet is making things way too difficult for us to succeed as a medium in which advertisers want to utilize.

Re: Open Letter to Ms. Internet

jonathanmendez — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:45:52 -0000

Love it DH! But you know that we can't fight against the will of the people and just like you don't mess with Mother Nature we may not want to mess with Ms. Internet. Clearly as an industry we are not advancing in our use of marketing technology at the pace our digital audience is becoming more advanced in their use of the web...and this delta is growing.

Communication technology has always made consumers savvier, more educated & amplified their diversity. Communication has never been an ad supported model, it's a services play. Because the web is a user controlled medium it is at its core a services too (and why it was founded by TBL). Whose to say advertising will work at all? There's much more evidence against it than for it (including the success of Google AdWords that I would argue is really services, not advertising).

So maybe instead of writing that $100M check to create demand for your client Ms. Internet is not going to let you off so easy? Maybe on the web you need to spend that money building something that fulfills the needs of the market...and thus her needs as well?

Re: Black November – Holiday Shopping Has Officially Begun

dherman76 — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:37:25 -0000

I do not know if there will be more overall purchases, but the percentage of online purchases may be increasingly this year over last year. If America is increasingly becoming cost conscious, then saving gas to go to the nearest Walmart or Bloomingdales will go a long way if you can spend those gas dollars through an online purchase.

I love the idea of pop-up stores to build a brand presence for notoriously online-only stores. Imagine if Zappos had a pop-up store. Or 20X200? Cool.

Thanks for stopping by Jim!

Re: Black November – Holiday Shopping Has Officially Begun

JimMoran — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:32:25 -0000

I wonder whether earlier holiday shopping will imply more online purchases (i.e., less last-minute local buying). I've always been interested in ecommerce promotions. Online allows for price comparison - the friction is so low that retailer brand has to be that much stronger.

Also, one counter-trend we've seen to online are these popup shops. Brands have been opening up temporary stores in vacant retail space to get rid of merchandise and take advantage of brick & mortar marketing. Popup shops are almost always combined with a sale or deal, resulting in more buzz and more savings for consumers.

Re: Advertising Industry Presentation – Need Your Help

dominicschmitt — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:03:30 -0000

Who is kicking out networks and why? Are they really doing it or just posturing? Is it primarily traditional media companies? What options are they pursuing? What are the drivers here - poaching of audience data, marginalizing inventory value, networks' role in de-valuing the site with poorly matched or poor quality advertising?

Re: Small Focus Group on Digital but Interesting Nonetheless

saluteyourshorts — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:55:46 -0000

One point to consider though is that dorms weren't tracked by Nielsen until recently and the sample is still very small. Therefore they aren't really represented in terms of the viewing audience so no one is really "paying" for them anyway. Thus, the networks are better off having them view on Hulu/Their site where they make some $ off of them vs. an audience that isnt really counted and therefore cant be monetized through TV. IPTV changes the scenario of course.

Re: Small Focus Group on Digital but Interesting Nonetheless

fendien — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:46:17 -0000

although in many dorms you may not find cable, once students move off campus you'd be hard pressed to find people without cable. just something to consider, that its more of a "new to college and living in the dorms with whatever they give me" sort of thing, versus having the opportunity to get cable and instead using hulu/boxee.

Re: Small Focus Group on Digital but Interesting Nonetheless

the2noelle — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:20:55 -0000

We discussed the same thing at the Trend School I went to last week with a panel of 8 18-23 year olds. Interestingly many of them talked of Hulu on the level of appointment viewing for shows that they had missed or that they normally didn't watch but friends would talk about... Most still found TV valuable to "zone out" in front of and/or for tv viewing that required 'real time" like sports.

What popped in my head was not that the cable box was obsolete but with Hulu and other web based content, that there is really no longer a reason for products like TiVo or DVRs...

Re: Great Presentation: Evolution of Digital Communications

janzlotnick — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:41:10 -0000

thanks, Darren...i can see where, in a live presentation, the reiteration of some areas would help audience/discussion...i like david's notion of social media being utterly redundant...and the peeling away of layers of nomenclature to get to "people expressing themselves" ...and btw, ha! made me think, would love to see a link from social mentions of content to a graphic of current sales-downloads-awareness of that content (e.g. you see on a tweet or blog or wherever the text "dr strangelove," click it and link to graphic showing span of activity on different metrics; we get a glimpse of this when we're reading something about "Where the Wild Things Are" and then, along the way, we jump to nyt bestseller list showing sudden burst of sales... -- jan zlotnick @janzlotnick

Re: Ad Network Platforms vs. Demand Platforms

sahilg — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:45:25 -0000

Great read. Sometimes it seems like a real CF, so I appreciate your wide angle perspective.

The Ad Network landscape is fairly balkanized. Is it inevitable that the same fate awaits DSP's? Is that necessarily a bad outcome for DSPs? If not why and how can it be avoided?

When we talk about adding value, what do think the smart ad networks and DSP's need to do together so that 1+1=3

Where do you see ad optimizers. Are they considered an ad network in your worldview?

Re: Great Presentation: Evolution of Digital Communications

heavyset — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:17:50 -0000

This is really great, Darren. The notion of confusing 'growth' with 'growing up' is really powerful.

Re: Great Presentation: Evolution of Digital Communications

scotthoffman — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:27:17 -0000

David had a great presentation...and I couldn't resist putting it up on www.cliqology.com as well. I enjoyed the way he showed real disruption in big brand marketing.

Re: Media Optimization

Suhail — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:44:52 -0000

Darren, A great thought provoking post!

Well, I almost agree. Except that it is really, really tough to make an automated system that takes decisions for optimizing the "site" and the "creative" part of the campaign with out the involvement of humans. I feel there are way too many parameters with varying degree involved in this. The system should submit its best possible solutions and leave the final step of decision making whether to follow them or not to the humans, like Jonathan said, "helping us aim better".

Suhail
Secondary sales tracking

Re: Is the Market (and Tech Scene) Rebounding?

gellert14 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:43:48 -0000

Definitely agree that things are getting better. Several of those headlines only talk about earnings growth though. You can manage earnings growth through cost cutting, but that only works for so long. When we see revenue growth (sans Apple and Sandisk which are their own animals) I will firmly believe we are on the upswing.

Re: Is the Market (and Tech Scene) Rebounding?

fendien — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:59:04 -0000

definitely good news and nice to see some action out of tech again as you mention. i also won't pretend to be a stock guru, but i think something important to consider is unemployment which is still a big problem.

Re: Ad Network Platforms vs. Demand Platforms

dherman76 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:12:52 -0000

I think there are very few agencies who can build the technology. While we can all write checks, I do not think that many people want to own the technology at this point up and down the entire value chain. There are certainly parts of the value chain we do want to own and we're building that capability out. As for the hardcore tech portion - I'd agree that most holding co.'s not only won't succeed building the tech but do not have the right type of management in place to understand how to run a tech company.

Re: Ad Network Platforms vs. Demand Platforms

dherman76 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:11:11 -0000

Richard, thanks for dropping by. Great comments. I can't speak for all agency platforms, but the ones that we are building the capability for is fairly open - we want to plug into as much as possible in order to have access to as much data and media as possible.

It's all about value creation.

Re: Ad Network Platforms vs. Demand Platforms

maxkalehoff — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:48:20 -0000

A big question for me is whether agencies will succeed in building technology that can scale across diverse client needs. Historically, agencies have had a difficult time building technology and making it scale like a product. In fact, many advertising-technology initiatives retreated into agencies when they failed as scalable products -- we've seen that happen a lot in the SEM space.

Re: Ad Network Platforms vs. Demand Platforms

Richard Frankel — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:38:30 -0000

Good discussion, as always, Darren.

As I see it, the real differentiator in the marketplace will be value creation. It's not about ad networks vs. demand platforms. It's about which players (whether they are ad networks, platforms, ad agencies, publishers, etc.) can create more value. This can be done in a lot of different ways -- technology, people, process, great ideas.

As agencies start to build tools that aggregate demand on top of the efficient supply mechanisms, they will still need to stay competitive by taking advantage of whatever value-creation mechanisms exist in the ecosystem. The business models of these companies don't really matter, what does matter is who creates value.

One of the biggest barriers -- and opportunities -- as the environment develops is that every player will be running a closed garden. The agency platforms you mentioned are by nature closed, ad networks are closed, portals are closed, publishers are closed. The exchanges are closest to being truly open, but they all have their own limitations and business model drivers that lead them to block off data.

Fundamentally all the different kinds of structures -- as long as they create value -- can exist. Look at financial markets. It's not a great analogy but it's helpful. The stock markets are kind of open, but there is a huge diversity of valuable organizations (trading houses, mutual funds, hedge funds, brokers, day traders, etc. etc.) that co-exist in the marketplace on top of the markets. I see the display space being potentially as vibrant.

Re: Ad Network Platforms vs. Demand Platforms

dherman76 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:27:00 -0000

In some cases, it is being adopted in markets such as Europe and Asia. Our friends over at Havas have been live oversees for some time now.

I would say the market is most technologically sophisticated here in the US however as of right now.

Re: Ad Network Platforms vs. Demand Platforms

dherman76 — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:25:59 -0000

Pete, thanks for stopping bye. Great comments. Would love to engage in an offline conversation.

Re: Ad Network Platforms vs. Demand Platforms

dherman76 — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:12:11 -0000

Thanks Michael - appreciate the comments. It's amazing how much attention it gets, but I guess since most of the platforms are being adopted by big agency holding companies that are public entities, they get alot of attention because of the markets.

Re: Ad Network Platforms vs. Demand Platforms

jassimali — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:08:06 -0000

Darren,

Great breakdown of an increasingly complex and ever evolving side of the industry ......

Do you see this trend being adopted in other markets such as europe and asia soon enough where the ad inventory trading platforms are atleast a generation behind ?

Re: Ad Network Platforms vs. Demand Platforms

Pete Kim — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:56:53 -0000

Comments:

1. Though mentioned, I think the role of the various exchanges will be larger than seems to be implied, if only because it's easier for the various DSPs to integrate with a handful of exchanges than dozens of individual networks.

2. The role of creative optimization in the DSP stack should be examined. (I posted about that the other day: http://www.petekim.com/?p=20)

3. What's the pricing model for DSPs? Should they take a percentage of the media buy? Or should they take a flat fee to ensure incentives are aligned?

4. What happens in the end? Let's fast forward 10 years and look around. How many DSPs are left standing? What would it take for a single dominant DSP to emerge? What would it take for the DSP landscape to be wildly fragmented? What controls where we land between these two extremes?

Re: Ad Network Platforms vs. Demand Platforms

Michael Katz — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:57:06 -0000

I think the biggest difference is that the guys from the demand side platforms don't actually work. You guys just show up on every panel, answer every interview, and blog all day.

Kidding, this is good stuff regardless and always interested in what you have to say...thats why Im here in the first place.

Good clarification.