
The death of advertising authenticity - jasonlbaptiste
http://garry.posterous.com/the-death-of-advertising-authenticity
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mcantor
What's with all of the sensationalist titles recently? I'm starting to learn
to avoid any article whose title sounds like "the death of," "the most
amazing," "the end of", "x is the new y," "the biggest," "the _____ your
business will fail without," and so forth. It's patronizing and offensive.
Thank you, but I will decide for myself exactly how bombastic your content is.
The revelation that buying ads next to spammers makes your business seem less
legitimate is not the "death" of anything except the 2 minutes I spent reading
it.

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rantfoil
The point is that ads conveyed status and authenticity at some point in the
past, and fail to do so today. Explain how it doesn't fit.

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ccc3
The article makes a good point, but I don't think I'd call it the death of
authenticity. A deceptive banner ad is just the new version of a fast-talking
door-to-door salesman. It's the method of reaching consumers with the lowest
barrier to entry, and that's why it is so popular with the inauthentic.

In the days of expensive print advertising, the investment required to take
out an ad was often enough of a barrier to legitimize a business to consumers.
The model has changed, but I believe consumers are still looking for companies
that make some kind of investment to prove their authenticity. The new version
of the expensive print ad is the investment in time and effort required to
gain the trust of industry experts and influencers.

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stingraycharles
_The article makes a good point, but I don't think I'd call it the death of
authenticity. A deceptive banner ad is just the new version of a fast-talking
door-to-door salesman. It's the method of reaching consumers with the lowest
barrier to entry, and that's why it is so popular with the inauthentic._

That is a good point. On top of it, it is merely a matter of choice: you can
still make "authentic" ads online, but just because the internet doesn't
require you to do so, you see so many inauthentic ads online.

I personally still vividly remember that Nintendo WII ad that ran on youtube
about a year ago, which played a youtube video and after a few seconds the
whole page started to fall apart ("shake it", see:
<http://mikeabundo.com/2008/09/25/shaking-wii-youtube-ad/>). That is quality
online advertising, and it has just as good an effect as quality TV
advertising.

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biohacker42
This is just plain wrong. The authenticity provided by expensive spending is
still there. When something becomes cheap to buy (advertising in papers) and
its authenticity had been based on it being expensive, well then it's
authenticity is gone along with its high prices.

When something reliably vets its advertisers, that can have greater
authenticity then is provided simply by high add rates. For example, TWIT and
PA and many other blogs/podcasts/comics vet their advertisers. And their
audience trusts them and extends that trust to the advertisers - priceless.

~~~
rantfoil
Is that really true?

With many web services, if I have to see an ad for it, then my perception of
it actually goes _down_ somewhat. If it was that good, would I need to see an
ad for it?

See Mozy vs Dropbox, for instance.

~~~
biohacker42
Word of mouth has always been considered among the best and most valuable
forms of advertising. Thus it is no wonder that if you're used to finding new
web services from word of mouth, then seeing an anonymous advertisement will
not be nearly as good.

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JCThoughtscream
Somewhat simplistically stated, but nonetheless rings true. The ease in which
you can slap together a simple banner ad, or rig up some cheap, malware-
infested flash game, has rather seriously impacted the reputation of online
advertisers.

Somewhere along the way, marketing forces've forgotten that reputation is
often just as important as exposure - that there is, in fact, such thing as
bad publicity. At least, in the long-term.

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unalone
That's not the death of authenticity. That's oversaturation. That's a lot of
people cynically turning marketing from something useful and benevolent into a
wasteful game.

Organic growth is the real goal of advertising. When you make an ad, what you
_should_ be doing is figuring out what people need and telling them how your
thing will help them. You get a customer, they find a service. Win-win.
Advertisers do more than that, and they profit in the short- and middle-term,
but that sort of thing is doomed to fail as people grow wiser.

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zaidf
I am a fan of authenticity, after all it's hard not to be. But I just don't
know (a) how important it is (b) what it even means, especially as your
company grows.

Where's the "authenticity" in the biggest corporations making tonnes of money?
And does not having authenticity make you unauthentic? I am not sure.

Is authenticity another way of saying if your product rocks, you won't need to
do marketing? True in some cases, not so in others.

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joe_the_user
Another point, though, is that the Internet is actually making harder to _buy_
legitimacy -- and all to the good.

We know the successful story in Internet ads is not the banner ads but the
Google text ads. Text ads aren't for buying legitimacy but for spreading
information. Those with something of inherent value just want to tell you
about it. Those who sell carbonated corn syrup they associate with a "life
style" want to buy legitimacy. Which is better?

