From the increasingly indispensable Micropersuasion, two interesting posts today. The first one concerns Apple’s agressive move to own the word ‘podcast’. They’re issuing cease and desist letters to companies who use ‘pod’ in the product names. This seems very uncharacteristic of the cool image that they work so hard to portray. If they don’t handle it right this could turn into a big PR mistake and offer the more publicity for the people they’re trying to stop. Who will they trurn on next?
The second post concerns the issue of click fraud. I know from experience that this is a real issue. Your competitors can easily find ways to continuously click on your paid Google/Yahoo ads. You pay for every click. It would be silly to think that people won’t do this. Steve Rubel goes on to make a fascinating point:
My take on all of this is that advertising is clearly at a major crossroads. The old model of throwing stuff up there and seeing what sticks is dying. Search engine marketing, while certainly effective, can have its challenges too and clearly can be gamed. Over time, people are going to say “enough.” They’re going to want companies to engage them in conversation before they are convinced they should buy. This is why I believe we’re about to enter the golden age of PR.
I’m one of those people who have become very cynical about advertising as a whole. I know that my language schools wasted tons of money over the years on the old style advertising. Once we started to use proper online metrics it began to reveal some scary data about the return we were getting from advertising. It wasn’t pretty. I’m not claiming we did a great job with our advertising. Good advertising, executed really well, certainly works better than poor stuff, but here’s a question: Why don’t advertising agencies advertise? You rarely see that. Why?
Whatever success ChinesePod has had, it didn’t come from advertising, because we haven’t done any (or very little). There are other ways these days to do it. I think engaging with customers and trying to give them what they want is one way. That’s certainly how I prefer to spend my working day now. In this light, I think Rubel’s observations on PR are very insightful.
Ken Carroll
For what it’s worth…it was a google ad that made me aware of the existence of ChinesePod. Personally I don’t thing that I’m influenced by traditional ads but I’m always information hungry so google ads are something that I follow up sometimes
Marc in Belgium
Marc,
Absolutely. Google ads are amazing. They certainly work better than anything else I know of. They target really well and it’s all measurable - so if it isn’t cost effective you can stop it at a moment’s notice. However, these benefits are compromised by the threat of clickfraud. That drives the cost of the ads up. In the end, all of this affects what the customer pays.It’s the dark spot on Googe’s otherwise bright future.
Ken Carroll
Peapod.com existed long before Apple came up with iPods. Perhaps Peapod should sue Apple.
I’m with you, Ken. I’m very surprised that Apple is taking what promises to be an unpopular stance. I’ve been a faithful Mac user since ‘89 and I’ve been really glad to watch them claw their way out of their earlier woes and become a major force in the marketplace. I wonder how many of their detractors are waiting for just this kind of blunder to pounce on?
By the way, I/we owe Apple a debt of gratitude for bringing us together. I found ChinesePod in the iTunes music store. I feel like sending them a “thank you” card.
A year or so ago, I remember hearing radio spots on a big radio station advertising an advertising agency. It does happen but is rare.
I once worked at a company that had a product with “Visa” in its name. Different product in a completely different market. The same type of cease and desist letter was received from the credit card company. We could not call it the “Xxx Visa”, it had to be the “XxxVisa” (no space with specific capitalization) and we were OK. Kind of silly if you ask me.
Apple went through so much with trademark issues on their company name, it doesn’t sound right to now take this agressive stand.