Like most kings, the consumer can be greedy, selfish and out of touch with the world. So why are marketers still working with ad formats that offer our products for free?
We've all thought it on the publisher side, the agency side and the client side; and sometimes we have wanted to rant about it out loud. Who do consumers think they are? Seriously? Consumers are greedy, selfish, self-absorbed and don't get it. They want everything for free. Do they understand that we are not here so they can steal from all of us? No. There's a value exchange, but they don't seem to think that they owe anything to that value exchange, and we tolerate it.
Why? Because the pace of technological adoption outstripped the pace of luddites controlling those companies to understand what was happening. Apple proved with iTunes that if you develop a good product and make it easy to use, consumers will gladly pay for the music, or the movie. It's just not worth the hassle to steal it at a good enough price point. But the greedy execs wanted to put a stranglehold on content, and the consumer just didn't want to play their game. And this is where we ended up. With a consumer that says, "Oh, I'll pay for it if I like it, but I want it first." You don't want to pay for the new Jay-Z album? Ok, but get off your butt and go paint his living room, you selfish jerk. And while you are there, tell Beyonce that she shouldn't get paid a few million to be in "Dreamgirls," too. Maybe she'll give you a few bucks to buy your popcorn the next time you go to the movies.
Why are we all trying to figure out ways to give our product away for free anyway? Aren't we devaluing the content overall? When someone asked me at a streaming media conference what would happen when people were able to fast forward through a pre-roll, I asked him back, "Why would we ever let them do that? Didn't we learn anything from TV and TiVo?" Better ad formats? Sure. But no ads? No way. But we need those better ad formats! It's the type of ads we are giving them. We are annoying them. We are even annoying each other. It's not that we have gotten complacent. It's a combination of public company pressures on short-term goals, and senior level luddites not wanting to risk their fat cat salaries. It is a toxic formula that breeds an aversion to change.
As I have mentioned before, pre-roll, for lack of a better word, sucks. It is a holdover from lazy traditional thinking. Can we all just agree to adopt
ScanScout's technology and move on? In fact, all of our ad formats basically suck. It's a problem with our technology and the way we consumerize it. Very few companies, MySpace being one of them, are bridging the gap of content and advertising, and how marketers support all of this. The subscription model is just fundamentally flawed online because the information, in vast quantities, is so available in other places that the consumer is just unwilling to pay for exclusive content. Yes, exclusive content is a value add, but most of it is just not
enough of a value add that we are willing to foot the bill. In offline, consumers don't really comprehend that the vast amount of content they get is repeated and reused, with just an added smidgeon of exclusivity. Online, this is readily apparent.
Very few companies understand that if we cannot solve the digital content consumption paradox, our industry will be in for a world of hurt. The reason? The more we go to support all of this with advertising, the more vulnerable we all in this industry are. Why?
When money gets tight, when companies are hurting, we all know the first place many of them go to solve their problem?slashing the ad budget. That is because in the corporate economy of publicly traded companies, being a slave to the quarterly stock price often takes precedence over long-term company goals. We are witnessing that right now. Fortunately, we have two things working in our favor this time. One, our industry is fundamentally measurable, and a bit more proven this downturn. And accountants love measurable; so hopefully the offline world will take the brunt of the hit. The other thing that may save us in 2008 is that it is an election year, and election money has an expiration date.
It's not just limited to the internet world, it extends to all things digital. Look at what we've done with the cell carriers. They are all trying to lock people into exclusive value-add offerings that, guess what, no one is buying. Does any major call carrier have the balls to just open up its network and allow us to run the apps we want? GPS? RFID payment systems? Open API's? Why in the most technologically advanced nation in the world -- the one that created the internet economy -- do we not have 3G phone access? Why can we not pay for vending machines, subway tickets or movie tickets with our cellphones via a simple text or a wave of the phone. Oh that's right, now we've looped in our financial industry and the consortium of Visa, Mastercard and American Express. Maybe Visa's now being public will start to break the mold, but American Express has been a public company for years. Why is it not partnering with a major cell-carrier or, even better, making an open standard for payment so that we can ALL use it?
Because when you get right down to it, it's not about the consumer's choice, or even all consumers. What companies care about is their consumer, and how to balance their satisfaction as it relates to profit. In fact, it is more a strategy of preventing attrition to other carriers, companies or sites than it is about true customer satisfaction.
Who do consumers think they are? They think that we're all trying to take advantage of them, lock them in, control them and then maximize our profit from them while managing their discontent. And you know what? They're right. No wonder they're stealing from us.
译文:
消费者的自我认知分析
因为觉得原作的逻辑稍微混乱，所以写了一下摘要。
（摘要：通过对消费者的自我认知、产品营销人员与消费者的关系以及对所谓的“数码世界中的悖论”进行分析，解释现有的广告现象。貌似是在分析“消费者自认为自己的什么”这个问题，实际的比较分析的过程中则融入了对行业的现状和将来发展趋势的一些想法。一起听听来自imediaconnection上评述家的叙述。）
像众多帝王一样，消费者可以是贪婪而自私的，是隔绝于世界的绝缘体。那么，为什么营销人员还在使用那些免费提供产品的广告形式呢？
我们分别从发行者、代理商和客户的角度出发对这种现象进行了思考。有时候我们真的想大声宣泄一下。消费者都把自己当作什么了？猜他们怎么认为的?消费者都很贪婪、自私、固执己见以及难以琢磨的！他们希望免费地得到一切的东西。他们究竟明不明白我们不是站着给他们偷窃的对象？不，他们不明白。在交换的关系中，他们并不认为他们要付出什么东西，而我们忍受、纵容了这种行为。
为什么这么说呢？因为技术应用的速度超过了那些控制着公司以搞清世界现状的卢德派（旧指惟恐失业而反对用机器生产者）。苹果推出iTunes便可以证明：你生产了一个好的产品并且使之方便易用，消费者会很乐意购买音乐或者电影，同时也避免了像传统的唱片公司和网络运营商间冲突。但是贪婪的执行者则受限于箝制内容的愿望，消费者并不愿意参与他们制定的游戏。交易由此便终止。一个消费者说：如果喜欢的话我会购买，但是我想先试试。你不愿意为Jay-Z的新专辑付钱？好的，那请你出别再闲坐着了，触发为到他家去给他家上油漆吧，自私的人！到他家的时候，顺便告诉Beyonce她参与《梦幻女郎》制作的报酬不应该有几百万之多（注：Jay-Z和Beyonce在2008年4月4号宣布婚讯）。或许在你下次去看电影的时候她会给你几美金，让你买些爆玉米花的。
那么我们为什么还那么努力地寻找免费发放产品的方法呢？我们这样做不就是在全面贬低我们的产品吗？在一次流媒体会议上被问及人们仅通过插播广告便可以实现“快进”时会出现什么情况呢？我反问：我们为什么让他们那样做呢？我们难道没有从电视和电视节目录像机中学到什么吗？更好的广告格式？当然要追求。但是不使用广告？不可能。我们的确需要更好的广告形式――我们需要呈现在公众面前的广告形式。我们要干扰他们。嗯… …我们其实是在互相干扰。并不是我们都变得得意忘形了。这始于公众公司短期目标的压力和高级的卢德派不愿意赌上他们不菲的收入这两个因素的结合。这个沾染病毒的公式酿成了目前这个厌恶改变的形势。
就像我之前提到过的一样，缺乏优秀广告语的插播广告糟糕透了！它是懒惰的传统思想的遗物。我们能同意采纳搜索侦察技术（ScanScout's technology），然后继续前进吗？事实上，现有的很多广告格式都是很烂。一定是我们的技术以及我们推广技术的方式出了问题！很少公司（譬如说MySpace）正在缩小产品内容、广告以及营销人员的支持方式间的差距。在线的订阅模式存在缺陷。因为大量的信息其实都可以在网络的其他地方获取，消费者不愿意为“独家的”内容付费。没错，独家内容是增值部分。但是大部分其实都不足够成为让我们甘愿为之付钱的增值部分。没有网络的时代，只要在内容上加上少量的独创性，消费者便不懂得大量的内容其实是重复和重用的。网络时代，这实在是太显而易见了。
很少公司能明白：如果我们不能解决数字内容消费的悖论，我们的产业不可能健康成长。原因？我们越努力用广告支持它，产业中的成员便会变得越脆弱。为什么呢？
在资金短缺，公司进入“狩猎期”的时候，我们都知道他们寻求解决办法的第一站是哪里――大幅削减广告预算。这是因为在公开上市交易的公司经济下，与其做公司长远目标的奴隶，不如做季度股票价格的奴隶。我们今天也在见证这个事实了。幸运地，这个时期还有两个对我们有利的因素。第一，我们的产业基本上是可测量的，在这次衰退时期稍多地得到了证明。监狱会计师喜欢可被测量的事物；因此线下世界应该会承受更多伤害。第二，2008年是选举年，用于选举的钱是有期限的。
并不仅仅限制在网络世界，数字世界的很多东西也受到了影响。看看我们都和手机销售商做了些什么吧。他们都在努力地向顾客销售一些独有的、增值的产品。猜猜怎样？没人愿意购买这类产品。那么，有没有手机销售商大胆地开放网络，让我们可以自由运行我们需要的程序？无线射频标识付款系统？开放应用程序接口？为什么作为创造了网络经济、拥有世界最先进技术的国家，我们竟然不能使用3G技术？为什么我们不能使用手机短信或者信号发送的形式实现自动售货机、地铁票、电影票的付账程序？是的，现在我们把金融业和Visa卡，万事达卡以及国运通都捆绑在一起了。可能visa公司的上市会打破这个模型。但是美国运通已经是几年的上市公司了… …为什么金融业不能和手机销售商搭档？甚至出现更好的情况：出台一个付款的开放标准供我们使用。
因为如果你直入主题，这不是关于消费者的选择。甚至可以说与所有消费者的选择无关。公司关心的是他们的顾客，关心如何平衡他们的所需，因为平衡得好不好直接影响利润。实际上，这更是一个防止和其他销售商、公司或者网站发生相互磨损现象的策略，而不仅仅是真正的满足顾客所需的举措。
顾客们以为他们都是谁？他们认为他们是我们利益榨取的对象，认为我们在控制他们的不满的同时哄他们入笼，控制他们，然后最大化地实施榨取。听我说吧！他们的认识是正确的。难怪他们老想着要从我们身上偷窃些什么了。