An All Too Convenient Truth: Many Marketers Pollute the Web

Photo credit: Copenhagen Industry Pollution #1 by Miguel A. Lopes "Migufu"

Earth Day is around the corner and a lot of marketers are thinking about the sustainability of our planet. Some are recognizing that doing good also helps business. Edelman's Good Purpose study found that 73% of consumers are prepared to pay more for environmentally friendly products.

However, it's not just the environment that is endangered by toxins. The atmosphere we breathe online is too is being threatened by pollution - from marketers. The all too convenient truth is that it's very easy for advertisers to pollute the web with their garbage. Most often, that's not their intent. But it's the end result and it's reaching an epidemic proportion. Now business needs to take the same approach online as it has done offline through corporate social responsibility (Jason Calacanis echoed a similar theme recently.)

First let's look at the the obvious ways marketers poison the web. These all intend to game the system ...

• Spam: 94% of all email is spam (Postini)
• Splogs: 53% of all blog pings is spam, including 64% of those in English (UMBC)
• Click Fraud: Increased last year by 15% (Click Forensis)

Still, there's more. In subtle ways marketers are contaminating the Internet without even knowing it by spewing millions of meaningless messages across thousands of sites. This may be contributing to the slow down. They're not adding value to your experience or working to help you meet your goals in a very meaningful way.

Consider these popular techniques ...

• Banner Ads: A lot of money is going here but click-through rates remain abysmal and their overall branding value is being questioned. Many of them just litter the web and get in the way of what you want to do. Eye-tracking studies in the past have revealed "banner blindness."
• Social Network Advertising: eMarketer predicts advertising on social networks will reach $2.2 billion this year. However, traditional display approaches to date have not performed. As Ian Schaffer from from Deep Focus noted, marketers need to dig in and figure out how to make the experience better. This means what does work is creating authentic content, widgets/applications and more that people pull because they add value to the community. (Note: MySpace, a major social network, is an Edelman client.)
• Social Media Optimization: This needs to be watched like a hawk. As I have said before, if you participate and add value you are rewarded with Google Juice - and so much more. If you just set up sites and spam social nets to get links, then I am sorry, you're bad.

Despite all the money that's flowing online, most marketers completely miss the boat on what the web really can do for them. As I have talked about before, the Internet isn't just a communications medium. It works best when it's used as a platform for open collaboration. This means taking a PR-centric approach.

This means companies and consumers need to partner toward shared outcomes. This can be as simple as "we want to be entertained" to "we want to find the best world-changing idea." The latter is what American Express will unleash again later this year with its Members Project.

The web is facing it's own global warming crisis as marketers continue to pollute it. Consumers are voting with their clicks and eyeballs by engaging with authentic content that adds value, while ignoring the rest. That's good news that shows maybe we'll solve this crisis, even as business continues to tackle the larger issues that impact our planet.

Later:: Bryan Person asks if clueless PR pitches are part of the problem. Heck ya.

Comments

[Amanda Chapel]

Where does PR fit into your pollution analogy?

- Amanda

[Dan]

Hmmm. I do detect some irony in this post.

[John Whiteside]

This is going to sound harsh, but there are a lot of lazy, stupid marketers. What I mean, quite specifically, by that is that there are a lot of marketers who think in terms of pushing messages onto an audience, period. it doesn't matter if the audience wants the message or finds the message useful. And so every new medium is a new way to push.

I was one of those people who was very excited by the possibility of email when email marketing was new: not because it was cheaper than direct mail, or anything like that, but because mass personalization was possible. Think of when Seth Godin wrote "Permission Marketing." The possibilities for doing marketing that broke the "we are here to bother you" model was great.

And I watched as many fellow marketers missed the point, decided that "permission" meant "once you told us your email, so the invitation is open," and decided that "personalization" meant sticking someone's name on top of an email full of mass offers.

It's lazy and and its dumb, and most importantly, it destroys the potential for doing things better. Now, people expect email sales pitches to be spam, and even those that are well done and for which someone has gotten permission - REAL permission - face much higher technical and psychological hurdles.

It's the tragedy of the commons - there's no disincentive for the bad actors to slow down, so the commons in ruined. (if you're not familiar with the metaphor, Google 'tragedy of the commons' - it's appropriate here and in many other settings.)

Will it happen with social media? We'll see. I hate to be pessimistic, but I don't think it's wise to underestimate the effect of a horde of people not thinking very hard.

Thanks for writing this, Steve.

[Ryan Jones]

Steve,Interesting post! I wrote a bit of a review on it over at www.m-cause.com.

--Ryan

[Alan Kwok]

The new way (Business Model) doing Chinese items / opportunities exchanging.Quick Easy Shop http://cid-5fb4c04ec9bc0049.spaces.live.com/eTrade http://cid-53f8c963d05a2598.spaces.live.com/Difference from general e-business:- We will physically reach the source. (e.g. wholesalers, manufacturers, etc.)- For the customers of ‘Quick Easy Shop’, we source their goods / materials from wholesalers in small quantity.- For the ‘e.Trade’, we looking for products from manufacturer; or locate distributor, investor, etc.

[reasonable robinson]

This is a really interesting post Steve and you've raised some very provocative and insightful issues. I think John has pointed to a really important issue too. As we know, the 'faddism' effect that John refers can be witnessed in all areas of management and invariably comes down to the fact that many people avoid (for whatever reason) deeply understanding the fundamental principles of marketing. As a result executives and charlatans alike crave for quick fixes and gee whizz ideas that they somehow expect will transfrm their business.

The lack of care and attention given to enagaging the with 'concept' and 'philosophy' means that the quality and nature of marketing interventions and implementations simply reflect the quality of intention and thinking. So as I'm sure we all know its garbage in and garbage out.

Of course the 'phenomenon' of social media is new and the technology facilitates new ways of communicating,interacting and collaborating. I have yet, however to see anyone suggest that (whether we are talking B2B or B2C) we are in the era of 'Needs and Value 2.0'

Great post I shall be linking to it immediately!

[Chris Applegate, Outside Line]

I would describe spam and splogs as almost anti-marketing - a complete disregard for any intelligence or what their market in favour of volume volume volume.

Collaboration is absolutely the key, though, I agree, and faddism is the enemy of this. There are too many stories of campaigns where digital is an afterthought - "we have a great idea, make it viral/interactive/web 2.0" - without failing to even consider if the idea is going to work in a truly collaborative & participatory environment.

As for this being a "crisis" - while it's good to realise what's not right and what needs to be done, I don't think we're at a crisis yet. But we should be definitely bear in mind that one might happen in the future and plan accordingly.

[Reginald]

Your post embraced a completely different metaphoric angle than most on an issue that is becoming more and more obvious to any online user.

Having read your post, I now wonder how can we go green and clean up our online clutter?

[Ed Kohler]

If PR has to frame itself against email and ping spam to make a point, PR has a PR problem.

[Chan]

Industrial pollutions and other smoke is caused to the world pollution. Earth Day proved popular in the United States and around the world. The first Earth Day had participants and celebrants in two thousand colleges and universities, roughly ten thousand primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of communities across the United States.