Sometimes ads run where they shouldn't even loiter.
I once was involved in a TV spot that was clearly meant for later viewing (it featured a CEO in a restroom, reading a newspaper) that suddenly aired at 6 p.m. to howls of uproar. We were mortally upset, of course. The media buyer was showered with, um, beer.
Which is why I wonder just what the creators of an ad for Grandin Road, a purveyor of furniture and other domestic items, must have wondered when their ad for happy Halloweeny items became entangled with a Wall Street Journal article about Steve Jobs' return to Apple stage performance.
(Credit:
Wall Street Journal)
You see, the Grandin Road ad features two skeletons. And some perhaps insouciant soul at The Wall Street Journal had decided to place it opposite the Steve Jobs coverage which happened to enjoy a picture of the still very slim Apple uberpresence.
Jobs' health problems have been well-documented, and one might have imagined that someone might have noticed the unfortunate symbiosis of the Jobs picture and the one in the ad.
The chosen picture of Jobs makes it seem as if he is declaiming to the skeletons, offering to sell the bony ones a new iPod or two. In fact, it looks as if the skeleton on the right is somewhat aghast at something Jobs has revealed. The new pricing, perhaps.
It all makes for a peculiar conjuncture of editorial picture choice and ad placement.
My fanciful, hardened heart wonders whether it could have been some enterprising, well-connected PR person's attempt to get the ad talked about. But my left brain is sure this was not the case.
So it's very possible that no one at the Journal noticed. These things do happen, even to the very best. But is it also possible that someone did and thought it, in a fleeting moment of whimsy, somehow amusing?
Fairly fainting from frivolousness, I accidentally wandered onto the Nieman Journalism Lab site the other day.
This is a group of people who seem associated with Harvard, and are trying to make sense of that strange thing that some describe as "quality journalism."
I went there for a little heavy relief again Tuesday and discovered a very interesting tract, written by Martin Langeveld.
You know I won't get all the numerical nuances right when I tell you that he stared at a lot of numbers, accessed a number of electronic fingers for help, made one or two reasonably educated spread bets and came up with the node-stopping conclusion that only 3 percent of newspaper reading happens online.
Yes, I thought you'd say that.
So, let me relay just a couple of his thoughts before you wander over there to delve into his full logic and that of his remarkably civilized commenters.
(Credit:
CC BA Sykes/Flickr)
In the absence of any remotely accurate research, he estimated that the average print reader gives 25 minutes of his or her daily life to the newspaper. And 35 minutes on a Sunday.
He also estimated that the average print reader looks at (and, goodness, looking is such a nuanced idea) 24 pages in that newspaper. Which is roughly half the newspaper pages that are published in the US.
Finally, he chose to believe the Newspaper Association of America's research that 2.128 readers peruse every print copy.
On the online side, Mr. Langeveld turned to Nielsen, which declared that in 2008 newspapers enjoyed 3.2 billion page views per month. Which is 3.5 percent of the 87.1 billion printed page views he calculated for print, using the assumptions above.
You'll get no more figures out of me. However, is it possible that, if these calculations are even remotely accurate, they suggest that advertisers decided, one fine day, that print newspapers were simply not where it was at anymore?
As they themselves read news online, Twittered, Facebooked and exclusively met lovers on Match.com, they couldn't believe that anyone read print newspapers anymore. Perhaps those who do are, for some bizarre reason, simply not attractive to advertisers.
Or perhaps there came a day when advertisers just didn't believe the print newspaper industry's figures anymore.
Don't ask me, ask these clever Harvard chaps. I am sure they're working on this while you have your dinner.
A very wise (and, strangely, important) person in the news industry said to me the other day: "Do you know ANYONE who has ever clicked on an online ad?"
I had to confess I knew many who clicked on those little Google thingies, but not many who clicked on display ads. And even fewer who would admit to it.
This led us to consider how news organizations might make more (some) money in the future, given that untold riches are not exactly flowing yet from online display advertising.
So imagine if all the (supposedly) reputable news organizations got together one night, in a dark room owned by Rupert Murdoch and decided that they would all start charging for their online content. Not just one or two of them. All of them.
No more linking by the Drudge Report without a fee. No more getting up in the morning to read the election latest online before you put on your lucky underwear, without, at the very least, a subscription.
Of course it's true that, in times gone by, these same news organizations had little clue how the Web would develop. They believed in unlimited free sampling of their product online, in the interesting belief this wouldn't devalue the one thing they had to offer.
Some organizations did try charging (a few, like The Wall Street Journal, still do) and then backed away like Alaskan moose when faced with an armed news crew.
But it used to be free to park on many Main Streets in America. Then they put in parking meters and, though we might show McCainish grouchiness on occasion, we pay. Could it still be the same with online news?
(Credit:
CC Sillygwailo)
Where, in fact, does the thing we call "news" come from anyway? Don't we imagine that somewhere out there are paid journalists of some repute, battling past press releases, spin surgeons, and proprietorial prejudice in order to sniff out something akin to truths and bring them to their readers?
If, at noon tomorrow, all news organizations announced they would immediately start charging for their hard-earned and, presumably, valuable online product (I'm imagining Rupert Murdoch and The New York Times' Arthur Sulzberger making a joint statement, their arms linked in solidarity, each reading every second word of their pronouncement), would people refuse to pay?
Yes, there would still be competition from new free sites, financed solely by advertising. But these would have to be new brands. Would people trust them? Remember, I am talking about every single news organization coming together and sticking to a joint principle. (Yes, I know, I know. Please dream with me, won't you?)
Given that times are now a-changing and we are all a-working together to blunt the parts of capitalism that the finest algorithms failed to anticipate, might some readers hope that by paying for news they might just get a product of slightly better quality?
What if the proprietors suddenly grasped the times they were living in, clutched the concept of truth like a man rolling off a cliff grabs at a dried-up branch, and shared a little of their business model with their readers?
What if they then promised their readers that for, say, a $25 subscription (yes, not much more than 6 coffees or a pack of 24 condoms) they would guarantee a 25 percent expansion in online news coverage?
Might this also allow the news organizations to reverse their tendency (their need, they might say) to pepper their pages with so much display advertising that their online content sometimes looks like a teenage acne-ridden cheek?
Isn't there just the smallest, tiniest chance that readers might buy into this new commercial relationship? If the financial folks can all get together to save themselves, er, I mean, to readjust their business principles, isn't this a good time for online news organizations to do it too?
That'll be $49.99. Thank you.
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