Vol. 1 No. 3 Fall 2006
Trends
The Long Tail of Advertising
by David Berkowitz, Director of Strategic Planning
Adapted from MediaPost's Search Insider Summit
There's been a fair amount of discussion in the trade press about the long tail of search-- the infrequently entered queries that are generally more specific, allowing marketers to precisely target customers if marketers can efficiently aggregate and manage enough of these terms. In his book The Long Tail, Chris Anderson takes an even broader view of the long tail of search, saying that "Google is finding ways to tap into the long tail of advertising."
To put the concept into context, consider a graph with a steep slope downward from the head of the curve on the left, descending into a seemingly endless tail pointing right that scrapes along the bottom but stubbornly refuses to hit zero. That's the long tail, with a few blockbusters on the left and less popular offerings toward the right.
Applying this to advertising, the definitions of blockbusters and hits are murkier, but the concept still works. A Super Bowl ad is an obvious hit, as is any ad that's seen by tens of millions of people or that costs millions of dollars in media and production costs. This could also include an online portal takeover ad. Of all the businesses around the world, only a select few have the means to participate in such a marketplace.
Way down in the long tail, marketers have historically bought Yellow Pages listings and newspaper classified ads; any business can participate. Today, marketers also can use search ads. Anderson noted three ways in which Google made search advertising a stand-out example of the long tail: it capitalizes on the long tail of searches, with nearly infinite possibilities of queries entered; the automated bid-based marketplace efficiently allows any advertiser to participate; and AdSense allows any online publisher to offer targeted ads on its site, further extending the inventory.
To appreciate the emergence of long tail phenomena from another angle, consider the cross-media progression of the democratization of advertising:
- Traditional media gradually expand their long tails of advertising with new channels, largely made possible by new technologies such as digital television and satellite radio.
- The online display ad market extends the long tail of advertising much further, where every publisher from major news networks to personal homepage builders can open up ad inventory on their sites.
- Search engines make it even easier for both advertisers and publishers. Anyone can advertise if he or she has a credit card and access to the Internet, even at the public library. The search engines make inventory available with every search that's conducted, and they make it easier for publishers to host the ads.
- The next step is democratization of multimedia ads. Google's click-to-play video AdSense ads democratize the media buying, allowing any advertiser with video content to buy media online with a minimal budget. Cheap digital cameras and software democratize the ad production, with the production quality continuing to improve as production costs decrease.
- In the next era, media buying will be democratized across all media. Google will use its dMarc acquisition to broker ads on XM Satellite Radio, and it has experimented with selling magazine ads. At Microsoft's official US launch of adCenter, Steve Ballmer shared his vision for device-agnostic ad-supported software services. When these visions fully come to fruition, any marketer will be able to produce any type of advertisement and run it in any channel it wants, whether it's a TV spot on channel 428 or a billboard running in a mobile video game. Of course, major national advertisers will be among those reaping the benefits.
What's most striking while reading Anderson's book--even more than from reading his blog or articles--is how pervasive the long-tail phenomenon really is. The longer the tail, the more opportunities there are for advertisers, consumers, and anyone serving either constituency.
