Darren Herman: The Advertising Collision

This post was inspired by Fred Wilson’s post today and Chris Dixon’s post back in 2009 about online advertising and it’s potential share gains.

Quite simply, Chris outlines that there are two types of advertising: brand advertising (ATL= above the line) and direct response (BTL=below the line). Much of the ad dollars have historically been centered in ATL media which is understandable but something big is happening.

A major collision.

ATL mediums are becoming BTL mediums. BTL mediums are becoming ATL mediums. There is no such medium that is one OR the other… both mediums are working together.

This is very important to understand.

Display, search, mobile, social, television, print, radio, ooh, and all others can be used for any format and are not mutually exclusive to the types of messaging you choose to use. We like to call it branded-response, but I’m sure every agency around town has their own name for it.

Now that we can measure to some extent, the traditionally measurement-untouched ivory tower media channels dollar allocations will start to be reallocated to more measurable channels. Or alternatively, as the ivory tower media channels become digital ivory tower channels, they in themselves will become measurable and will receive a dollar allocation based on their contribution to the brands marketing performance.

Companies like Vizu are releasing products that allow marketers and their agencies to optimize to campaign lift (awareness, consideration, etc). Traditionally, most digital optimizations happen for a KPI that is quantitative (click, transaction, etc) but now we can optimize to emotion. This is an example of startups looking at the future and innovating early.

It’s early in this game, but take note of this collision as it is going to create some amazing opportunities for the industry...Darren Herman