Is a Marketing Background Useless on the Web?
In the world of online "fast media", having a marketing background only gets in the way of effective advertising.
So writes Jeff Stibel, entrepreneur and brain scientist, on Harvard Business Publishing.
"With the ability to track changes in real-time, you no longer need to think through the best way to advertise; instead, you throw everything you've got into the universe and see what works."Today's typical online marketing campaign includes programs for testing the effectiveness of thousands of images, key words, copy, and Web site designs. Sure, traditional (i.e. print, TV, radio) advertising managers also tested their messages before unleashing campaigns, but the difference today, says Stibel, is velocity and volume. Fine-tuning a campaign that includes thousands of possible combinations happens on the fly.
"How do we know what campaign is best? The same way that the fruit fly evolves: we don't know and we don't care (well, we find out using the wisdom of hindsight). Instead, we let the creative destruction algorithms create a model of survival of the fittest, where the best campaigns live to fight another day and the worst are killed."What do you online marketers in the audience think of Stibel's obituary for your career? Is successful advertising becoming more a product of writing great software than writing great ad copy?