Today was going to be the month-end wrap-up, but it will have to wait until next week.
I found another in a long line of examples yesterday of bogus information being spread online. Let’s give it a name - MSMspam, for mainstream media spam.
My article for marketingprofs.com a few weeks ago warned about the vast amount of uninformed and downright inaccurate market research on the Web. If you told me, however, that I would see such a thing on the venerable AdAge, I wouldn’t have believed you.
But see it I did. In an otherwise excellent piece about the future of TV advertising (i.e., there IS a future for TV advertising), Bill McCabe, a senior VP at direct-response TV experts A. Eicoff & Co., wrote the following:
“…market-research firm Outsell recently reported that online advertising this year is expected to increase 12.3% and reach $105.3 billion, exceeding the combined amount spent on radio and TV advertising for the first time.”
Maybe on Mars, but not on this earth.
Two big problems. Number One. Online advertising spend has been tracked since day one. Every reputable source reflects this year’s spending to be in the neighborhood of $25 to $30 billion. Pretty far away from $100 billion, no? Won’t cross over TV AND radio for a long time.
Number two. Never heard of Outsell. So I searched, and found (a) an automotive consultant that does some very interesting work with live chat, and (b) a publishing consultant. Might be the latter, but neither showed any online ad spending data on its website.
I submitted a comment to the story . It has not been accepted/published 12 hours later. I sent an e-mail to the Editor of AdAge at the same time. No response, so I just sent another. The article still stands with the erroneous information.
As always, it continues to knock me on my ass that no one else catches this stuff. Or cares.
MSMspam. Spreading like so much kudzu.
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See above post.
