Cringely on publishing

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Ad agencies 15 years ago didn’t want to know whether or not their ads had actually been read, they told us. This was simply because if an advertiser discovered that few, if any, people were actually reading their ad on page 113, the company might just pull that ad and save their money, taking revenue away from the ad agency in the process. The entire ability to sell an ad-edit ratio of 75 percent which was needed to qualify for printed distribution by second class mail – yet another buggy whip in a digital era was based on this deliberate ignorance. Ad agencies and publications alike knew that many — even most — advertising dollars were simply wasted, but it wasn’t in their interest to admit that, so they didn’t.

Contrast this to pay-per-click, which is brutally honest, where every successful ad has efficacy and advertisers have a pretty darned good idea what they are getting for their money. This reality is precisely why ad-supported magazines, newspapers, and television are losing revenue. It is a trend that is likely to continue, and can only result in a degradation of production standards on the print side to match the reduced revenue potential of the online business, where BS gives way to measurable, though impoverished, results.

via I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Apple and the Future of Publishing – Part One – Cringely on technology.

Jim Bursch  I am the creator of MyMindshare.