Advertising: There’s Not Enough To Go Round

In the week when the BBC put horrible, clunky adverts on it’s international websites, Jeff Jarvis’ Media Guardian column should be required reading for anyone who works in marketing, advertising, content or just wants to make a living.

Jeff’s points are:

 1. Advertising revenue cannot grow infinitely and sooner or later it must stabilise or even decline.

2. Clever buisnesses are looking for a new model where they have a direct relationship with their customers and so don’t need advertising.

Jeff’s post reminded me of Heather Gorringe. Heather kindly took part in a session I did for the Radio Festival in July.

She has a gardening buisness called Wiggly Wigglers. She now promotes this through a mail order catalogue, a blog and a podcast. These have been so successful she has stopped spending money on advertising.

Here’s the video we made for the Festival featuring Heather:

N.B. If you don’t like the adverts on bbc.com, here’s a little tip from the BBC Editors Blog:

“For those on IE and not Firewall savvy you can easily block the adverts by going to your IE menus and choosing:

Internet options

then click the ‘Security’ tab…

and select the ‘Restricted sites’ icon

and then click the ‘Sites’ button (just below)…

Type in: *.doubleclick.net

and then click ‘add’”

Tags: advertising, BBC, bbc.com, heather gorridge, international websites, jeff jarvis, media guardian, radio festival, removing adverts from bbc.com, wiggly wigglers