Advertisers

The 42nd annual World Series of Poker has come to a close after several weeks of events and nearly $192 million in prize money distributed.  For those of you who follow it, you already know it is not a game of chance, but a game of skill. Navigating one’s way through a multi-day poker tournament involves careful observation of opponents’ tendencies, changing strategies, and leveraging information learned in the early stages of the tournament when opportunities arise later. Reflecting on this, I thought to myself - - the skills necessary to win a poker tournament parallel the skills a brand manager needs to manage her business.

It seems the notion of the ‘last click’ in advertising isn’t yet dead but is likely on death’s door. The ‘last click’ is a reference to how marketers and marketing analysts have put more emphasis on the last impression before a purchase. This impression is frequently the most measurable advertising impact such as search or banner ads…click it then buy it. But logic insists that many other events have influenced the consumer along the way. Those other influences get deemphasized when marketers simply ‘count the things they can count’. The last click problem is fundamentally a gap between the things we can measure and actual consumer behavior.

People “cutting the cord”, meaning someone completely dropping their pay TV service in favor of “over-the-top” broadband options, has become more common over the last several years. I for one cut the cord long ago, and I’m not alone. A new study by the Convergence Consulting Group found that 1 million households did so in 2010 alone. That may not seem like a lot considering the market contains over 100 million customers, but it is the start of a trend that should trouble cable companies, and excite advertisers that are eager to exploit new forms of digital media.