“The Digital Revolution is over. We won” – Randall Rothenberg, CEO, IAB, 2013
I have read, with some interest, a recent piece published in The Media Online by Justin McCarthy from TBWA and subsequent comments and commentary by respected journalists and industry commentators. In short, McCarthy argues that digital advocates exaggerate the importance and size of digital advertising. In fact, he suggests that traditional media like TV are also growing, off much more impressive base numbers, and that digital is merely an “evolution” within media.
The rest – social media, Google, everything else – he suggests, is more fantasy than reality. Moreover, digital people are using questionable numbers and spurious claims to prop up their own egos and their medium.
Let me start by saying that part of what McCarthy is addressing is perfectly valid. Digital advertising is, indeed, a minefield of numbers and technical claims that are hard to verify and harder to explain. In fact, this is such a serious problem globally that the IAB in the US has dedicated a considerable part of its current activities to “cleaning up the supply chain”. By this they mean clearing out fake traffic and discreditable data from internet advertising numbers, so that advertisers can trust the claims made by agencies and publishers about the efficacy of digital.
He is also right that the launch of the IAB in South Africa is intended, and will, drive the credibility and value of digital in the local market.
So much for where McCarthy and I are likely to agree. And even in this respect, the above indictment levelled at the digital industry is one that is already being acknowledged and addressed by the industry itself.
The rest of the piece – and subsequent discussion – proceeds from the frankly bizarre assertion that digital is over-hyped (“poppycock”, he says). As a corollary, McCarthy seems to want to fight in the corner of old media, such as TV, citing tired and debatable measurement numbers in the process and in their defence.
To do a point-by-point analysis and rebuttal of that piece – as my colleague Alan Morrissey from Effective Measure tried to do in the comments – is to add fuel to the wrong fire. To me this debate can be settled much more simply than that.
How to define a revolution
For starters, PricewaterhouseCoopers – which conducts digital adspend studies in 14 markets in collaboration with the IAB – sets the current global digital adspend at US$100Bn. McCarthy argues that TV is up a few percent in the past year.
Digital is up from 0 in the past 20 years.
If 0 to $US100bn doesn’t impress someone as ‘revolutionary’ then I suppose it’s up to them to find a more appropriate use of the word. This figure absolutely includes Google and Facebook advertising, display advertising and dozens of other compelling new forms of marketing that this digital revolution has spawned.
Again, we are all free to redefine terms to support our own case, but if you ask the millions of businesses on the planet who now use search marketing to drive customer acquisition whether they regard that as advertising I think you will be forced to admit they do.
A word then on measurement
We know for a fact that Nielsen’s Adex understates digital adspend in South Africa. We know this not because we are “digital divas” but because as the IAB we know how many of our publishers submit data and what they submit. And I can tell as a simple fact we are under-reporting even classical banner adspend.
Another glaring logical fallacy is the ‘appeal to authority’ that Nielsen is “the world’s most credible measurement company”. This also doubles as irony in a country where our national media measurement body (Saarf) has been all but torn apart by a scandal due to errors made by Nielsen in TV measurement over a number of years.
So much for infallibility.
We do not currently know what the local digital adspend is. PwC has just been commissioned by the IAB South Africa to replicate the studies done so successfully in other markets and hopefully we will have a real piece of research to rely on in these kinds of debates in the future.
But we don’t require this information to characterise McCarthy’s piece, and his supporter’s comments, as an irrelevant contribution to the debate about media and advertising. The macro trends speak for themselves – the decline of print, the pervasiveness of cellphones, the volume of tablets sold, the size of businesses like Google and Apple. And, more significantly, the success enjoyed over the past 12-18 months of local publishers and digital agencies.
More important than any of that is the business results being achieved by banks, insurers, automotive companies, online retailers and travel businesses online. These, after all, are the clients who buy the advertising to sell their products.
Year on year, globally and increasingly locally, online advertising is working. The ROI metrics of online direct response advertising speak for themselves. Countless case studies are now also emerging that suggest the brand-building benefits of display advertising have, if anything, been grossly underestimated. This due to an overemphasis on metrics like click-through rates at the expense of more appropriate measures such as brand recall.
The growth and importance of digital cannot possibly be overstated. Its pace can be debated. Its reach – particularly in South Africa – can be questioned, for now. But to be a proponent of digital being a niche medium that can, by implication, be safely downplayed in favour of another big TVC is to do a disservice to any marketer or business owner who might be paying attention.
Extrapolating from the present into the future on the basis of outdated measurement technologies is wrongheaded and demonstrably flawed. It is precisely this sort of Luddite thinking that blinded newspaper executives a decade ago to the inconvenient truth that digital media was about to render their traditional business models defunct. One hopes that the likes of TBWA will avoid a similar fate, but McCarthy’s dogmatic pronouncements are a cause for concern. Should anyone in marketing or advertising buy his argument the results will be detrimental not only to the online media industry, but to the progress of marketing and commerce in our country as a whole.
We trust that most South African marketers are far more astute and progressive than that.
Jarred Cinman is chair of IAB South Africa
** Thank you to Timothy Spira (eNCA), Sarah Rice (IAB), Geoff Cohen (24.com), Helene Lindsay (New Media Publishing), Sarah Blake (IAB) and the rest of the IAB membership who contributed to this piece **
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6 Comments
AMorrisseyEM
Great article and very well written, well done Jarred and the IAB South Africa
Justin McCarthy
Mr Cinman
1. For the record, I used “poppycock” in reference to consumers having conversations with brands, and not in the context you misrepresent me. I’d appreciate a retraction thereof;
2. To suggest (directly, as you do) that I propose a “big TVC” in favour of digital is disingenuous. Nowhere do I say one or the other. Nowhere do I imply it. On the contrary. A retraction, together with an apology is expected;
3. I will answer the rest of your argument in full in a riposte.
Jagatheesan Chandrasekharan
21) Classical English
BSP and Mayawati the most searched party and leader: Google
Political party the Bahujan Samaj Party is gaining visibility online, if one goes by their popularity on the Google search platform.
“Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and its supremo Mayawati are the most searched party and leader in the country online,” the search giant said in a statement on Wednesday.
“I have already declared at the Lucknow rally that Mayawati is my chosen political heir.”- Kanshiram Ji
There wont be any choice between anyone and Mayawati for Prime Minister, VOTERS would be in her favour.
VOTE for Ms. Mayawati’s BSP’s ELEPHANT – will be the LARGEST with 100% that will spark these debates and steer public opinion. That’s what we need it. Different regional political parties’ Backward Community leaders started campaigning in favour of BSP.
Now all have become broad minded like the people of US who elected Obama as President for the second time and similarly to support Ms Mayawati to become Prime Minister and become true partners to distribute the wealth of the country equally among all sections of the society ‘Sarva Samaj’ including SC/ST/OBC/Minorities, poor brahmins, baniyas and kshatrias for heir welfare, happiness and peace as this movement is equal to the movement of Nelson Mandela to remove race discrimination.
The Forthcoming Elections of 2014 are very crucial to the survival of our Democracy, as in these elections,Election Commission is making all efforts to include all eligible citizens as voters & removed names from the voters list are being included. And also to make public the OPEN SOURCE CODE of the Electronic Voting Machines that are not TAMPER PROOF.
After meeting a group of fund managers and stock brokers in Mumbai on Wednesday, Anil Singhvi, investment banker and former managing director of Ambuja Cements, attended by close to 50 fund managers and brokers, was held at Bajaj Bhavan in Nairman Point. Stockbroker Ramdeo Agrawal have already realised that there wont be any choice between anyone and Mayawati for Prime Minister, for VOTERS would be in her favour.
There is a big noise about declaring the Prime Ministerial candidate by many parties. This is very much opposed to our system of democracy, where first the Members of parliament are elected who in turn elect the Prime Minister. These parties wants to take the matters in the direction of Presidential system of elections, which has different sets of problems and is unsuitable for a country with diversity like ours.
A big section of media, social media and section of social classes; middle classes in particular have started creating an atmosphere as if BSP is the only solution to our problems.
Kumari Mayawati is an Indian politician who served four terms as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh (UP) as head of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which focuses on a platform of social change to improve the welfare of the weakest strata of Indian society—the Bahujans or Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, religious minorities and the poor brahmins, baniyas and kshatriyas. She was Chief Minister briefly in 1995 and again in 1997, then from 2002 to 2003 and from 2007 to 2012.
Mayawati’s rise from humble beginnings has been called a “miracle of democracy”. In 1993 Mayawati formed a coalition with the Samajwadi Party and became the youngest Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh at that time. She was the first female Scheduled Caste Chief Minister. In 1997 and in 2002 she was Chief Minister, the second time for a full term.
Mayawati’s tenure has attracted praise. Millions of SC/STs/OBCs/Minorities/ poor brahmins, baniyas and kshatriyas view her as an icon, and refer to her as Behen-ji (sister). She has been praised for her fundraising efforts on behalf of her party and her birthdays have become major media events and a symbol for her supporters. They are attempting to hand over the MASTER KEY i.e., entire budget of the country to her to unlock all doors of progress and development for all societies (Sarva Samaj) for their welfare, happiness and peace. Ultimately for them to attain Eternal Bliss as Final Goal.
2007: BSP majority
Uttar Pradesh, most populous state and one of its poorest, is considered pivotal in the politics because of its large number of voters. BSP won a majority in the 2007 Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections, fielding candidates from a variety of castes and religions.
Mayawati was sworn in as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh for the fourth time on 13 May 2007. She announced an agenda that focused on providing social justice to the weaker sections of society and providing employment instead of distributing money to the unemployed. Her slogan was to make “Uttar Pradesh” (“Northern Province”) into “Uttam Pradesh” (“Excellent Province”). Mayawati instituted reforms to introduce transparency into the recruiting process, including posting the results of selection exams online.
The BSP won 20 seats in Lok Sabha from the state of Uttar Pradesh in the 2009 elections, obtaining the highest percentage (27.42%) of votes for any political party in the state. The party placed third in terms of national polling percentage (6.17%).On 13 March 2012 she filed nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha, and she was declared elected unopposed on 22 March.
On 15 November 2011, Mayawati’s cabinet approved partitioning Uttar Pradesh into four different states for better administration and governance.
Mayawati has seen through to completion several of her dream projects, including the Manvyar Shri Kanshi Ramji Green (Eco) Garden (inaugurated March 2011), the Rashtriya Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes Prerna Sthal and Green Garden (inaugurated October 2011), and the Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Samajik Parivartan Prateek Sthal (opened November 2012).
Jacqui Greeff
An open offer to share the overview findings of the national study conducted by Answered, providing consumer attention profiles comparatively across trad and new media, for 22 product categories. The aim was to provide a current reading of consumer information noting behavior to answer debates exactly like this one. Jarred, Justin? Arbitration through research perhaps? Mail me if you like. jacqui@answeredinsight.co.za. http://www.answeredinsight.co.za. I really do have answers for both of you: )
Justin McCarthy
Thanks Jacqui, I’d be delighted to review your study. I’ve emailed you.
Kevin Shoulder
From broadcasting to narrowcasting, that is the revolution. Unless we lose our freedom I don’t see it going back!