"Those Coastal Puritans"
I think that Justin nails it with this post.
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Westerns
James over at Hell in a Handbasket offers up five Westerns for people who think they don't like westerns. It's an interesting list and it is hard to argue with his picks.
Also, he is offering to share some of his recipes-- not for ammo but for food. Simple to prepare but good eats to break the fast food habit. I say go for it. Too many recipes are for people who like to cook and therefore think of 90 minutes in the kitchen as recreation.
James over at Hell in a Handbasket offers up five Westerns for people who think they don't like westerns. It's an interesting list and it is hard to argue with his picks.
Also, he is offering to share some of his recipes-- not for ammo but for food. Simple to prepare but good eats to break the fast food habit. I say go for it. Too many recipes are for people who like to cook and therefore think of 90 minutes in the kitchen as recreation.
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Well said
Electric Venom on Rumsfeld and the "stop-loss" measures:
I can't even say that I disagree with the rationale. We do need to maintain sufficient force presence, after all. Still, it sure chaps my hide when I remember that in April Rumsfeld was pushing to reduce our military presence in the Gulf Region and military sources leaked reports that prior to the war's onset, Rumsfeld had repeatedly cut the number of participating troops "by as much as half." In May, he continued pushing for a "lighter" military, particularly the Army, and insisted that we needed fewer personnel worldwide. In June he implied that with higher-tech but lighter-weight weapons, the military could get by on significantly reduced manpower.
But then came July, when Rumsfeld evidently caught on to the fact that in a ground war, a "lighter and leaner force" is synomymous with high attrition. Come August, Rumsfeld began putting out the word that "significant numbers of U.S. combat soldiers may have to start serving back-to-back overseas tours of up to a year each in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and South Korea." Yet two months later - after announcing extended tours - Rumsfeld began cutting the number of troops stationed in all three locations, beginning with 30,000 fewer soldiers in Iraq.
There's more, so RTWT. And the comments should prove interesting as well.
Electric Venom on Rumsfeld and the "stop-loss" measures:
I can't even say that I disagree with the rationale. We do need to maintain sufficient force presence, after all. Still, it sure chaps my hide when I remember that in April Rumsfeld was pushing to reduce our military presence in the Gulf Region and military sources leaked reports that prior to the war's onset, Rumsfeld had repeatedly cut the number of participating troops "by as much as half." In May, he continued pushing for a "lighter" military, particularly the Army, and insisted that we needed fewer personnel worldwide. In June he implied that with higher-tech but lighter-weight weapons, the military could get by on significantly reduced manpower.
But then came July, when Rumsfeld evidently caught on to the fact that in a ground war, a "lighter and leaner force" is synomymous with high attrition. Come August, Rumsfeld began putting out the word that "significant numbers of U.S. combat soldiers may have to start serving back-to-back overseas tours of up to a year each in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan and South Korea." Yet two months later - after announcing extended tours - Rumsfeld began cutting the number of troops stationed in all three locations, beginning with 30,000 fewer soldiers in Iraq.
There's more, so RTWT. And the comments should prove interesting as well.
Blog Debate
Jessica invites comments on the following:
Resolved: This House (OK, this Blog) believes that the collective knowledge of the blogosphere is greater than the collective knowledge of professional journalists regardless of the subject.
My $.02--The sheer number of bloggers ensures that they will win in terms of "collective knowledge". OTOH, it is much easier to find the really knowledgeable journalists than it is to find the really knowledgeable bloggers.
Jessica invites comments on the following:
Resolved: This House (OK, this Blog) believes that the collective knowledge of the blogosphere is greater than the collective knowledge of professional journalists regardless of the subject.
My $.02--The sheer number of bloggers ensures that they will win in terms of "collective knowledge". OTOH, it is much easier to find the really knowledgeable journalists than it is to find the really knowledgeable bloggers.
Paul Samuelson
David Warsh has a nice appreciation of Paul Samuelson at Economic Principals
Our Marshall
But there can't be much doubt that scientific economics in the second half of the 20th century belonged to Samuelson and Cambridge, Massachusetts, much as most of the first half belonged to [Alfred] Marshall and Cambridge, England.
It is hard to argue with that. Foundations of Economic Analysis revolutionized how economists wrote for each other and his textbook Economics was a best-seller for decades. However, elegant mathematics is no substitute for empirical validity and Samuelson often failed in this area.
Economics defended Soviet economic performance right up to the fall of the regime. Samuelson's economic analysis failed to discern the complete bankruptcy of central planning. That's a pretty big blind spot.
David Warsh has a nice appreciation of Paul Samuelson at Economic Principals
Our Marshall
But there can't be much doubt that scientific economics in the second half of the 20th century belonged to Samuelson and Cambridge, Massachusetts, much as most of the first half belonged to [Alfred] Marshall and Cambridge, England.
It is hard to argue with that. Foundations of Economic Analysis revolutionized how economists wrote for each other and his textbook Economics was a best-seller for decades. However, elegant mathematics is no substitute for empirical validity and Samuelson often failed in this area.
Economics defended Soviet economic performance right up to the fall of the regime. Samuelson's economic analysis failed to discern the complete bankruptcy of central planning. That's a pretty big blind spot.
Monday, December 29, 2003
Mad Cow
Say Anything takes me to task for my earlier post:
Bad news for Bush? In what way? Did Bush somehow infect the cow with the disease? I certainly don't understand that assertion. Things like this happen, I don't see how it can be directly blamed on the President.
Bad news for two reasons.
First, regulation is not a good issue for Republicans. Public concerns about the food supply and the need for greater oversight gives the Democrats an issue when they haven't had many.
Second, the economic fallout will be concentrated in states that are part of the GOP base. Bad times in the farm belt will be a drag on his electoral momentum.
Thanks to Scott, i found these posts on the subject of MCD that are thoughtful and thought-provoking.
Say Anything takes me to task for my earlier post:
Bad news for Bush? In what way? Did Bush somehow infect the cow with the disease? I certainly don't understand that assertion. Things like this happen, I don't see how it can be directly blamed on the President.
Bad news for two reasons.
First, regulation is not a good issue for Republicans. Public concerns about the food supply and the need for greater oversight gives the Democrats an issue when they haven't had many.
Second, the economic fallout will be concentrated in states that are part of the GOP base. Bad times in the farm belt will be a drag on his electoral momentum.
Thanks to Scott, i found these posts on the subject of MCD that are thoughtful and thought-provoking.
European Heroes
I agree completely with this post:
I have always had great respect for the Polish people and the Polish nation. Their love of democracy and martial valor throughout the years puts them up there on my list of favored nations.
I've tried to note just a few of the times that Poland played a pivotal role in protecting western civilization (see here and here, for example).
At some point i copied down this quote from Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn from 1956 which sums up the matter nicely:
It is quite true that there is an aristocratic aspect of the Polish and Hungarian character, an aspect to be found in all classes, which prompts these nations rather to die than be slaves and to put chivalry and liberty above mere physical survival.
I agree completely with this post:
I have always had great respect for the Polish people and the Polish nation. Their love of democracy and martial valor throughout the years puts them up there on my list of favored nations.
I've tried to note just a few of the times that Poland played a pivotal role in protecting western civilization (see here and here, for example).
At some point i copied down this quote from Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn from 1956 which sums up the matter nicely:
It is quite true that there is an aristocratic aspect of the Polish and Hungarian character, an aspect to be found in all classes, which prompts these nations rather to die than be slaves and to put chivalry and liberty above mere physical survival.
football
Kevin Holtsberry has a good post on the end of the NFL regular season. This is an excellent summation of the Steelers's failure, both last night and all season long:
On paper the Steelers have the talent but they didn't live up to it this year. On offense, other than the gutsy Hines Ward, I don't think anyone stepped up and made plays when it counted. Maddox had three interceptions, a fumble, and was sacked five times last night!
Kevin Holtsberry has a good post on the end of the NFL regular season. This is an excellent summation of the Steelers's failure, both last night and all season long:
On paper the Steelers have the talent but they didn't live up to it this year. On offense, other than the gutsy Hines Ward, I don't think anyone stepped up and made plays when it counted. Maddox had three interceptions, a fumble, and was sacked five times last night!
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Was Saddam Conned on WMDs?
This is from the Guardian
New theory for Iraq's missing WMD: Saddam was fooled into thinking he had them
According to the theory, Saddam and his senior advisers and commanders were told by lower-ranking Iraqi officers that his forces were equipped with usable chemical and biological weapons.
The officers did not want to tell their superiors that the weapons were either destroyed or no longer usable.
The trouble for Britain was, the theory goes, that MI6's informants were the senior officials close to Saddam - with the result that British intelligence was also hoodwinked.
The hypothesis, which is being spread privately by officials, is open to the interpretation that the government is searching for an excuse, however implausible, for failure to discover any WMD in Iraq.
Sorry, but i think this is a stretch. It just does not square with the real risks the scientists and officers would have faced. Imagine, Saddam or Uday orders a live demonstration of the weapons (maybe against a bunch of political prisoners). What happens when the army commanders admit that they don't really have the weapons? The outcome would not have been pretty, and the generals knew that.
Wouldn't they be more likely to understate the number and effectiveness of the weapons? Blame it on the supply people or the scientists?
This argument calls to mind the sophistical attempts of revisionist historians to explain away VENONA and the Soviet documents that came to light in the 1990s. When these turned out to confirm that the Soviets did have spies throughout the US (including Hiss, White, and the Rosenbergs), revisionists claimed that the KGB operatives were lying, that they made stuff up to advance their careers.
In their new book, In Denial, Klehr and Haynes demolish this argument. They point out that is bears more resemblance to movies like Our Man in Havana and books like The Tailor of Panama than to the reality of KGB work. They wrote:
The Soviet KGB, however, lived in a state of institutionalized anxiety, constantly on the watch for hostile intelligence services foisting double agents and disinformation on it. The implication that a succession of KGB station chiefs in New York, Washington, and San Francisco, over a period of years, successfully conspired to conduct a massive con game, and that either they had been bamboozled by their own field officers or they were deceiving Moscow by claiming to have scores of fictitious agents, is simply risible. Any officer practicing such deceit would risk not merely recall and discipline but, during the Stalin era, execution. KGB headquarters was not a credulous patsy but a suspicious taskmaster.
This is from the Guardian
New theory for Iraq's missing WMD: Saddam was fooled into thinking he had them
According to the theory, Saddam and his senior advisers and commanders were told by lower-ranking Iraqi officers that his forces were equipped with usable chemical and biological weapons.
The officers did not want to tell their superiors that the weapons were either destroyed or no longer usable.
The trouble for Britain was, the theory goes, that MI6's informants were the senior officials close to Saddam - with the result that British intelligence was also hoodwinked.
The hypothesis, which is being spread privately by officials, is open to the interpretation that the government is searching for an excuse, however implausible, for failure to discover any WMD in Iraq.
Sorry, but i think this is a stretch. It just does not square with the real risks the scientists and officers would have faced. Imagine, Saddam or Uday orders a live demonstration of the weapons (maybe against a bunch of political prisoners). What happens when the army commanders admit that they don't really have the weapons? The outcome would not have been pretty, and the generals knew that.
Wouldn't they be more likely to understate the number and effectiveness of the weapons? Blame it on the supply people or the scientists?
This argument calls to mind the sophistical attempts of revisionist historians to explain away VENONA and the Soviet documents that came to light in the 1990s. When these turned out to confirm that the Soviets did have spies throughout the US (including Hiss, White, and the Rosenbergs), revisionists claimed that the KGB operatives were lying, that they made stuff up to advance their careers.
In their new book, In Denial, Klehr and Haynes demolish this argument. They point out that is bears more resemblance to movies like Our Man in Havana and books like The Tailor of Panama than to the reality of KGB work. They wrote:
The Soviet KGB, however, lived in a state of institutionalized anxiety, constantly on the watch for hostile intelligence services foisting double agents and disinformation on it. The implication that a succession of KGB station chiefs in New York, Washington, and San Francisco, over a period of years, successfully conspired to conduct a massive con game, and that either they had been bamboozled by their own field officers or they were deceiving Moscow by claiming to have scores of fictitious agents, is simply risible. Any officer practicing such deceit would risk not merely recall and discipline but, during the Stalin era, execution. KGB headquarters was not a credulous patsy but a suspicious taskmaster.
Mad Cow
Instapundit opines "I think it's the swine flu of the 21st century, but I'm glad I don't own McDonald's stock." Of course, he is neither a doctor nor a cattle rancher.
Julie who knows about agriculture and rural communities writes "This is a big deal, and it's going to hurt agriculture in every way possible." I think she is much closer to the mark.
This is also very bad news for Bush.
Say Anything rightly argues against over-reaction: "The cow that tested positive was still alive meaning that it, and likely the herd it is a part of, haven't yet entered the food market."
Instapundit opines "I think it's the swine flu of the 21st century, but I'm glad I don't own McDonald's stock." Of course, he is neither a doctor nor a cattle rancher.
Julie who knows about agriculture and rural communities writes "This is a big deal, and it's going to hurt agriculture in every way possible." I think she is much closer to the mark.
This is also very bad news for Bush.
Say Anything rightly argues against over-reaction: "The cow that tested positive was still alive meaning that it, and likely the herd it is a part of, haven't yet entered the food market."
Monday, December 22, 2003
Sad
National Review decided to mark Christmas with a mean-spirited article wholly lacking in Christian charity. I find it hard to see how one can reconcile the Good Samaritan with Scrooge before his epiphany.
National Review decided to mark Christmas with a mean-spirited article wholly lacking in Christian charity. I find it hard to see how one can reconcile the Good Samaritan with Scrooge before his epiphany.
"Contra College"
Aaron has another good essay; this one looks at college, class, and education. No point in trying to excerpt it, it is too good not to read the whole thing.
On the value of "elite" diplomas, the work of Alan Krueger is interesting. Here is a brief discussion of one of the economics paper he co-authored which found that there is no economic value:
They find that school selectivity, measured by the average SAT score of the students at a school, doesn't pay off in a higher income over time. "Students who attended more selective colleges do not earn more than other students who were accepted and rejected by comparable schools but attended less selective colleges," the researchers write.
For at least a generation, college costs have risen faster than inflation. Students and parents spend savings and take on debt in order to attend expensive, elite colleges to get a leg up on the competition. Yet, it appears that elite colleges do not deliver that advantage.
If a private business acted this way, they would be in the sights of class-action lawyers and probably subject to congressional hearings. Certainly "60 Minutes" or "Dateline" would do their best to "investigate".
Aaron has another good essay; this one looks at college, class, and education. No point in trying to excerpt it, it is too good not to read the whole thing.
On the value of "elite" diplomas, the work of Alan Krueger is interesting. Here is a brief discussion of one of the economics paper he co-authored which found that there is no economic value:
They find that school selectivity, measured by the average SAT score of the students at a school, doesn't pay off in a higher income over time. "Students who attended more selective colleges do not earn more than other students who were accepted and rejected by comparable schools but attended less selective colleges," the researchers write.
For at least a generation, college costs have risen faster than inflation. Students and parents spend savings and take on debt in order to attend expensive, elite colleges to get a leg up on the competition. Yet, it appears that elite colleges do not deliver that advantage.
If a private business acted this way, they would be in the sights of class-action lawyers and probably subject to congressional hearings. Certainly "60 Minutes" or "Dateline" would do their best to "investigate".
Life of a Salesman
Steve Sailer reviews Big Fish in the most recent American Conservative. It's not on-line, unfortunately. But this is just too good to share:
Nobody is more scorned in theory than the salesman, especially since Miller's 1949 drama, in which Bernard, the straight-A nerd next door who is Miller's alter ego, gets his revenge on the all-American (and thus doomed) Loman family by becoming a Supreme Court litigator, while the Lomans' sports and business ambitions shatter. Yet, nobody is more popular in real life than the successful jock-turned-salesman.
Speaking of Miller, the December Commentary has an essay by Carol Iannone which contains this assessment of the playwright.
Though Gottfried acknowledges that most of Miller's later plays are filled with characters spouting wildly unrealistic, politically inflected dialogue, he fails to see the single animus that has long driven Miller's work-the willed resentment toward American society, th overwrought, obdurate sense of condemnation and outrage. In Miller's hands, tragedy consists not in the individual's encounter with solemn powers greater than himself. Rather, tragedy is the failure to stand against patent corruption and foolishness, in the form of such life-crushing American villains as demanding fathers, witless salesmen, and witch-hunting antiCommunists. The idea that society might represent something more than betrayal and wasted sacrifice, that authority properly wielded might be admirable, that the dutiful son and quiet hero might deserve even more honor than the creative types who challenge every stricture-all this seems beyond the imaginative capability of our "greatest living playwright."
Gottfried calls Miller a "typical liberal." It would be fairer to say that he is a strange artifact of an American Left whose formulaic slogans were once a fixture on the cultural scene but whose fortunes in recent decades seemed to have waned somewhat (at least at home). The comeback of Arthur Miller suggests that, like the hackneyed dramas embodying them, these slogans have neither died nor fallen away, but only lain dormant.
Steve Sailer reviews Big Fish in the most recent American Conservative. It's not on-line, unfortunately. But this is just too good to share:
Nobody is more scorned in theory than the salesman, especially since Miller's 1949 drama, in which Bernard, the straight-A nerd next door who is Miller's alter ego, gets his revenge on the all-American (and thus doomed) Loman family by becoming a Supreme Court litigator, while the Lomans' sports and business ambitions shatter. Yet, nobody is more popular in real life than the successful jock-turned-salesman.
Speaking of Miller, the December Commentary has an essay by Carol Iannone which contains this assessment of the playwright.
Though Gottfried acknowledges that most of Miller's later plays are filled with characters spouting wildly unrealistic, politically inflected dialogue, he fails to see the single animus that has long driven Miller's work-the willed resentment toward American society, th overwrought, obdurate sense of condemnation and outrage. In Miller's hands, tragedy consists not in the individual's encounter with solemn powers greater than himself. Rather, tragedy is the failure to stand against patent corruption and foolishness, in the form of such life-crushing American villains as demanding fathers, witless salesmen, and witch-hunting antiCommunists. The idea that society might represent something more than betrayal and wasted sacrifice, that authority properly wielded might be admirable, that the dutiful son and quiet hero might deserve even more honor than the creative types who challenge every stricture-all this seems beyond the imaginative capability of our "greatest living playwright."
Gottfried calls Miller a "typical liberal." It would be fairer to say that he is a strange artifact of an American Left whose formulaic slogans were once a fixture on the cultural scene but whose fortunes in recent decades seemed to have waned somewhat (at least at home). The comeback of Arthur Miller suggests that, like the hackneyed dramas embodying them, these slogans have neither died nor fallen away, but only lain dormant.
Sunday, December 21, 2003
More Football
Flyover Country takes issue with the football posts (here).
On most points we just have different tastes. I dislike a lot of the showboating; he thinks it's sometimes entertaining. To each his own.
It is true that i think Vick is over-rated. But that has more to do with the media hype than with Vick's talent. No one can measure up to the media acclaim Vick has received. In a season he was injured Vick drew more attention than QBs who are leading their teams into the playoffs.
The Joe Horn/Terrell Owens deal is a similar matter. I don't like publicity stunts, but i am bothered more by ESPN devoting so much attention to them. Is Joe Horn really a better receiver than Hines Ward or Marvin Harrison? If he is not, why give him so much air time.
I just want players to become famous for their overall performance, not for their theatricality.
As for Butkus, it is true that he probably wouldn't be a Hall of Famer today. But that's because the NFL changed the rules to increase passing and scoring. If TO or Joe Horn had to play Butkus in his prime, under the rules of that era, it would be a different story.
Flyover Country takes issue with the football posts (here).
On most points we just have different tastes. I dislike a lot of the showboating; he thinks it's sometimes entertaining. To each his own.
It is true that i think Vick is over-rated. But that has more to do with the media hype than with Vick's talent. No one can measure up to the media acclaim Vick has received. In a season he was injured Vick drew more attention than QBs who are leading their teams into the playoffs.
The Joe Horn/Terrell Owens deal is a similar matter. I don't like publicity stunts, but i am bothered more by ESPN devoting so much attention to them. Is Joe Horn really a better receiver than Hines Ward or Marvin Harrison? If he is not, why give him so much air time.
I just want players to become famous for their overall performance, not for their theatricality.
As for Butkus, it is true that he probably wouldn't be a Hall of Famer today. But that's because the NFL changed the rules to increase passing and scoring. If TO or Joe Horn had to play Butkus in his prime, under the rules of that era, it would be a different story.
Friday, December 19, 2003
The Young and the Pointless
This is a great article on how advertisers over-value the 18-34 demographic.
Advertisers have their reasons for targeting teens and 20-somethings. First among them is the belief that long-term brand loyalties are set when people are young and impressionable. The problem is that the belief is based on market research that is 40 years out of date. "It's a cliché and a fallacy to think you can build a customer for life," says Al Ries, a longtime New York ad exec who is now a marketing consultant in Atlanta. "As people grow up, they change brands."
This isn't just a problem for advertisers:
Why should we care if advertisers have been duped into paying extra for teenage eyeballs? Because it's one big reason that so much of the dial--and the broader culture--is filled with dreck. "Network executives lose a lot of sleep trying to figure out what will hold fast the slippery attention of people in their late teens, 20's and early 30's," writes Jonathan Dee. "It is the principle by which a great deal of our popular culture--not just TV, but music, movies, radio--comes into existence." Take away the unearned premium demanded by shows that skew young and there might be more room for entertainments that aren't embarrassing to grown-ups.
One major hurdle to correcting this over-valuation is that the people who create advertising and buy advertising time tend to be 18-34 college-educated urbanites. They will still tend to advertise on programs that appeal to and flatter them (Friends, Seinfeld).
The author overstates his case here, however.
The "customer for life" cliché isn't the only blunder behind advertisers' youth fixation. Mr. Cracknell tells of a gin brand he worked for that would panic every few years when research showed the average age of its customers to be 50. They were acting on the "my customers are all about to die" fallacy, which leads companies to look for replacement customers on the playground. (This strategy may work for cigarette manufacturers, but is not widely applicable otherwise.)
Sears and GM (especially Buick, Olds, and Cadillac) were badly hurt when baby boomers failed to behave as their parents had. The advancing age of their average customer was an indication that their assumptions about customer lifecycle behavior were out-of date.
This is a great article on how advertisers over-value the 18-34 demographic.
Advertisers have their reasons for targeting teens and 20-somethings. First among them is the belief that long-term brand loyalties are set when people are young and impressionable. The problem is that the belief is based on market research that is 40 years out of date. "It's a cliché and a fallacy to think you can build a customer for life," says Al Ries, a longtime New York ad exec who is now a marketing consultant in Atlanta. "As people grow up, they change brands."
This isn't just a problem for advertisers:
Why should we care if advertisers have been duped into paying extra for teenage eyeballs? Because it's one big reason that so much of the dial--and the broader culture--is filled with dreck. "Network executives lose a lot of sleep trying to figure out what will hold fast the slippery attention of people in their late teens, 20's and early 30's," writes Jonathan Dee. "It is the principle by which a great deal of our popular culture--not just TV, but music, movies, radio--comes into existence." Take away the unearned premium demanded by shows that skew young and there might be more room for entertainments that aren't embarrassing to grown-ups.
One major hurdle to correcting this over-valuation is that the people who create advertising and buy advertising time tend to be 18-34 college-educated urbanites. They will still tend to advertise on programs that appeal to and flatter them (Friends, Seinfeld).
The author overstates his case here, however.
The "customer for life" cliché isn't the only blunder behind advertisers' youth fixation. Mr. Cracknell tells of a gin brand he worked for that would panic every few years when research showed the average age of its customers to be 50. They were acting on the "my customers are all about to die" fallacy, which leads companies to look for replacement customers on the playground. (This strategy may work for cigarette manufacturers, but is not widely applicable otherwise.)
Sears and GM (especially Buick, Olds, and Cadillac) were badly hurt when baby boomers failed to behave as their parents had. The advancing age of their average customer was an indication that their assumptions about customer lifecycle behavior were out-of date.
Advertising Metrics and the Problem of Interpretation
One common metric used by marketers to evaluate advertising effectiveness is "recall". After their ads run with sufficient reach and frequency, research firms survey the target audience of the ads to see how many remember seeing/hearing the ad, its central message, etc.. If those numbers don't come in high enough, the usual response is to blame the advertising for being unmemorable and the agency for insufficient creativity.
That line of reasoning assumes that the advertising was seen and heard. In the age of the remote control, Tivo, impatient viewers, and proliferating commercials, that assumption is not tenable. The radio program may have 500,000 listeners, but how many sit through the six or seven or eight ads thrown at them during commercial breaks? The best ad in the world will look ineffective if it is slotted fifth in an eight spot block. Too many people will have zapped away.
Advertisers demand that their agencies "cut through the clutter" of competing ads. It is time that they look at media outlets and ask why they create clutter by putting together massive blocks of often insipid ads. While the eighth commercial does increase marginal revenue for the TV or radio station, it probably reduces the impact of the other ads.
Similarly, advertisers are going to have to come to grips with the impact of recording technology on viewership. It may be that technophiles are a lost cause for broadcast commercials. But advertisers can at least stop paying to "reach" an audience that is unreachable. NBC et. al. will not do the necessary analysis; that would take money out of their coffers. But any company serious about marketing ROI has to pay attention to this problem.
One common metric used by marketers to evaluate advertising effectiveness is "recall". After their ads run with sufficient reach and frequency, research firms survey the target audience of the ads to see how many remember seeing/hearing the ad, its central message, etc.. If those numbers don't come in high enough, the usual response is to blame the advertising for being unmemorable and the agency for insufficient creativity.
That line of reasoning assumes that the advertising was seen and heard. In the age of the remote control, Tivo, impatient viewers, and proliferating commercials, that assumption is not tenable. The radio program may have 500,000 listeners, but how many sit through the six or seven or eight ads thrown at them during commercial breaks? The best ad in the world will look ineffective if it is slotted fifth in an eight spot block. Too many people will have zapped away.
Advertisers demand that their agencies "cut through the clutter" of competing ads. It is time that they look at media outlets and ask why they create clutter by putting together massive blocks of often insipid ads. While the eighth commercial does increase marginal revenue for the TV or radio station, it probably reduces the impact of the other ads.
Similarly, advertisers are going to have to come to grips with the impact of recording technology on viewership. It may be that technophiles are a lost cause for broadcast commercials. But advertisers can at least stop paying to "reach" an audience that is unreachable. NBC et. al. will not do the necessary analysis; that would take money out of their coffers. But any company serious about marketing ROI has to pay attention to this problem.
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Tivoing Radio
Jeff Jarvis thinks we will soon be able to do just that. I wonder, though. Eventually, advertisers are going to catch on to the fact that the show's audience is not the same as the audience for their commercials. (That's what happens with zappers, Tivo, VCRs, etc.; people skip over the ads).
If i was in the magazine business or owned an agency strong in direct mail or print, i'd commission research that measured just how large the current drop-off is between radio/TV audiences and the commercial audience.
And it is wrong to assume that all this consumer empowering technology is going to produce a richer array of program choices. If ad revenue drops (because no one hears the commercials), stations will look for cheap, syndicated filler. Radio will become even more homogenized. (Sort of like local television--- go anywhere in the country and you get to watch the same Seinfeld reruns at 5:30 and 7:00 pm).
Jeff Jarvis thinks we will soon be able to do just that. I wonder, though. Eventually, advertisers are going to catch on to the fact that the show's audience is not the same as the audience for their commercials. (That's what happens with zappers, Tivo, VCRs, etc.; people skip over the ads).
If i was in the magazine business or owned an agency strong in direct mail or print, i'd commission research that measured just how large the current drop-off is between radio/TV audiences and the commercial audience.
And it is wrong to assume that all this consumer empowering technology is going to produce a richer array of program choices. If ad revenue drops (because no one hears the commercials), stations will look for cheap, syndicated filler. Radio will become even more homogenized. (Sort of like local television--- go anywhere in the country and you get to watch the same Seinfeld reruns at 5:30 and 7:00 pm).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)