Advertisers Target Too Narrow An Audience

Wayne Friedman writes an article for Media Post, the title of which anyone could have predicted – with a theme that will be repeated many times over as data driven “audience” becomes more popular.

MediaPost Publications Advertisers Target Too Narrow An Audience 06/17/2010.

The challenge of course that publisher’s face when advertisers only want to reach 1% of their audience, is how do they monetize the other 99%?  Since tastes are fickle and constantly changing, as Friedman points out in his example of all tech titans wanting to reach Apple customers, one can’t change the model to only focus on a set 1% because next month it’s a different 1% that will monetize.

The Apple example is a classic.  As tech marketers focus their dollars on reaching “Apple” customers they are in essence funding their competitor.  After all, where’s the best place to reach Apple customers but on Apple products – many of which now carry advertising through iAds.