Mar 18, 2010
What does the iPad Mean for Advertising?
If the iPad will accelerate the shift of current print media to electronic publishing, it’s worth asking what this means for the future of advertising.
Yesterday, I noted that advertisers will face a choice: between making advertising even more interruptive of the user experience, or by making ads more enticing and more useful, blurring the line between advertising and content.
I came across a thoughtful video on Youtube by “Built by the Factory”, an interactive design firm based in New York, that explores this issue.
A couple of comments. First, they’re right that the iPad/iPhone app is the new microsite. Which means apps can fill the role that microsites have. It also means that those microsite apps have the same limitations as their web-based brethren, plus one more: you can’t link to them from the web, they’re tied to the phone.
Second, the integration of social media will make social media even more central to the execution of campaigns. It’s now no longer about the convergence of social media and interactive. It’s about the convergence of social media, web and (formerly) print-based publishing.
Third, while I think Built by the Factory is right about the potential, I’m curious about the adoption curve. While the iPad promises a radically better experience for (formerly) print-based media, even a much higher-rate of iPad adoption that currently projected will leave a (relatively) small (albeit highly desirable) audience for these new forms of media consumption. And it’s also unclear whether iPad adopters will be adopters of built-for-iPad versions of their favorite print magazines. (Every platform change is an opportunity for incumbents to be knocked from their perch by more nimble, disruptive competitors.) Do you think Time-Warner will price iPad apps inexpensively enough to preempt disruptive competition?
Fourth, cost isn’t just a question for publishers and on the revenue side. It’s also a question about the cost of developing media-rich content and advertising. Electronic media promises richer, more difficult to produce experiences (great video isn’t cheap … yet). At the same time, it lowers fixed cost barriers to distribution, accelerating the fracturing of audiences into smaller, more targeted niches.
Is this a perfect storm for publishers and advertisers, requiring different, more expensive skills for content creation at the very moment that audiences are shrinking past the point of profit? Perhaps. One given is that risk and volatility (which are not the same thing, finance professors be damned) will court publishers through this transition. Another is that the winners through this transition will ultimately, one way or the other, alter expectations of the design quality and execution that count as “good” work.
Thanks so much for blogging about what we have been working on! There is a ton of potential in this new space. However there will also be a significant amount of trial and error as well. Our feeling is, in order to make progress you must at times take risks. The key is to use as much of our existing experiences in the digital space building online campaigns, microsites and apps and apply it whenever appropriate.
I also wanted to point out that the link in this article is actually linking to the wrong digital agency, the correct link is http://www.builtbythefactory.com
Thanks!
Thanks for the comment. Definitely trial and error is the only way forward. As media and advertising become software businesses, the advice you see for software start-ups to “fail first, fail often, fail faster” is increasingly relevant. Maybe more so, given that we trade in something much more fleeting: viewer attention.
I remain curious about the business model, though, that will ultimately support media and advertising. I think there will always be value to very high quality content. The richness of experience that the iPad promises will, if anything, make the difference between good and great content much more apparent. Even as a cheapskate, I find myself paying a little for an iPhone app with great UI when there are several apps with good UI that are free.
Yet at the same time, the growing supply of good enough content is driving down the returns achievable from great content. It’s fiendishly difficult to get people to part with $10 for an outstanding iPhone app. Audiences for terrific television are shrinking. Cost to produce is becoming an ever more important consideration.
I think the cliche is right. Good is the enemy of Great. Yet I suspect that whereas today we define “great” digital advertising with reference to envelope-pushing production quality, we may increasingly find ourselves marveling at the “great” concept that cleverly achieves “good enough” production quality. If that comes to pass, I wonder: will that future be a win or a loss for us as a culture?
Apologies for the wrong URL.
Hey Matt, we had to update our video. Here is the new version for you to update your blog with http://www.youtube.com/bbtfactory Thanks!