The Skate Punks of Digital Advertising

The Skate Punks of Digital Advertising

Whether advertisers are placing ads in banner positions, in-stream video or via mobile, the hindrance to unlocking massive ad spend has been the lack of eyeballs that the great majority of sites provide.  The obvious response has been networks who sell eyeballs and devalue the brand value of individual properties. Technology providers have focused on targeting to maximize the efficiency of the spend. Good buy Mad Men, hello trading desks, quants and excel spreadsheets.  

The Yin to this Yang are the publisher sales pros who maximize the value of their properties by selling the big idea with custom advertising solutions. These outcast pioneers are pushing the limits of a new medium and will be known as the Tony Peraltas and the Tony Hawks as digital advertising continues to evolve, become further commercialized and brought into the mainstream living room as traditional ad sales.

I grew up in the 80s skateboarding. Skateboarders were outcasts and feared. That was the appeal. As much as I enjoyed the sport, the flow and the exhilaration of nailing a great trick, I also enjoyed being chased by the police for skating where I wasn’t supposed to. The psychographic characteristic of skateboarding defined me by saying that I rejected the mainstream and that my shaved head, Thrasher tee shirt and shredded Vans sneakers told them that I wasn’t playing by their rules.

We have all grown up – in some ways. Today, the same psychographic lives in the digital media space. There are two ways to look at it and two very distinct psychographics: The Traditional where digital is an extension of the legacy brand; and the Digital Future where pioneers are sculpting the legacy of tomorrow.

The Traditional

Traditional thinking is that digital media is an extension of the legacy media brand such as a TV network or property, newspaper or magazine. In many ways, they are right. The large scale audiences that big dollar advertiser campaigns require are tied to the scale that these channels have always provided. What this has caused is for advertiser campaign creative to be simply repurposed and stuck on the web making digital ad sales merely order takers. They place what the advertiser gives them.

Advertisers are familiar with roadside billboards. That spawned initial display banner ads. Rich media and full-page takeovers on the web are tweaks to sponsored content and inserts within a magazine. Search and CPC campaigns are nothing more than direct mail. As we enter an where digital is encroaching on television with widespread use of video, advertisers are simply taking their 30 second TV spot and interrupting internet content with a broadcast TV ad. This “dumb” pre roll simply takes creative built for other media and distributes it to eyeballs on the web without taking advantage of the creativity that our medium provides.  

The argument that the digital side makes, or the traditional side makes for digital, is the advanced targeting and measurement data that the internet provides. This gives cover to all of the traditional media sales when they sell on a non traditional media.   

Digital Pioneers

What will drive digital media sales forward is the creative counter culture. They are the ones using the digital space as a canvas to shred new lines and paint abstract on a new canvas. They fight to do what no one else has done before for the purpose of leveraging the medium (the canvas) where the message is being delivered.

They are the guys in blue jeans and Vans (or brand name) sneakers and plaid shirts with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows who are looking at things with a fresh perspective. They are thinking of the new tricks that will push the medium forward.

One of the best parts of any skateboarding or snowboarding video or show is the part when they show the epic slams. Stomping a great trick is the end game but that rarely happens without slamming face first a couple of times trying to get it right. This is what the traditionalists fear. The counter culture embraces the slam since they know it is the only way to get to nailing the amazing trick. The counter culture prides themselves with their scars and bruises. The traditional media buyer and seller appreciate the perfect trick but would never take the risk of subjecting themselves to the slam.

I sell advertising technology. I sell technology that delivers ads that are beyond the banner. I sell advertisers and publishers the paints and brushes that give them the chance to paint beautiful abstracts that distinguishes their advertising experience from the reprints at Walmart. I work with ad sales to carve new lines, do new tricks and push the medium beyond audience analytics. I work to make advertising memorable and leverage the advantages that our new mediums provide. Myself and the clients that I work with are the counter culture.

Traditional media fears us. Digital media needs us.