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Derek Thompson at The Atlantic has a story about a new study on the effectiveness of eBay ads which might spell trouble for the rest of the internet ad industry. From the article:
Nineteenth-century retailer John Wanamaker is responsible for perhaps the most repeated line in marketing: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don't know which half."
Today, marketers are grappling with the Wanamaker Paradox: The more we learn which half of advertising is working, the more we realize we're wasting way more than half.
Perhaps you're nodding your head about now. Most people you know don't click online ads. At least, not on purpose. But now research is getting closer to quantifying exactly how few people click on Internet ads and exactly how ineffective they are. It's not a pretty picture.
The paper in question can be found here. (Paywalled)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:42PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock [wikipedia.org]
TL;DR: Gary Dahl creates a product as a joke and becomes a millionaire in the process due to the product becoming a red-hot fad that lasts about six months.
I actually vaguely remember SEEING these things on sale back then!
This is UNDENIABLE proof that people will buy ANYTHING if you market it properly to tap into their wants and desires. However, reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Dahl_(pet_rocks) [wikipedia.org]
I found out the 'instruction book' that came with the rock was the REAL product.
This is why traditional advertising is so insidious--it is essentially Mind Control^W^WBrainwashing [wikipedia.org]
Manchurian [imdb.com] Candidate [imdb.com] anyone?
With a bit of the old ultraviolence [imdb.com] viewed through a parallax?... [imdb.com]