Remember supply and demand from economics 101? The guiding principle of economics…buyers have demand, sellers have supply. When supply equals demand you have an efficient market.
So the question I want to pose in this short post is this…
Who owns the supply of time, attention, loyalty and personal information that advertisers are demanding to the tune of $300 billion per year? Or to put it more personally, who owns your time, attention, loyalty, and personal info that advertisers are demanding to the tune of $1,000 per year?
If you think the companies that aggregate consumers (TV networks, radio stations, web publishers, billboard owners, mailing list collectors) own the supply (including you), then the status quo is fine and all is good.
But if you are intrigued by the idea that the supply of our time and attention belongs to us, and consumers should be the beneficiary of advertisers’ demand, then raise your hand and let me know. Follow OurSeat on Twitter and Facebook. And tell your friends. It’s their money too.
11 comments ↓
Yes, it makes sense that since we, the consumers, are bombarded by advertisements, we should be benefiting financially somehow. Time equals money in our society and advertisements are constantly shoved through our sensory nerves every time we step outside. Without realizing it I estimate it takes up at least 1/6th of our time daily to intake these messages. It does not matter if you don’t pay attention to it because we are still forced to see it or sit through it. If you, the advertiser, pay me for listening or watching your commercial I promise I will consider your product over your competitors:-)
Right On!
“I must be either too smart, too stupid or just too damn tired because I am just not getting it. You seem to be utterly ignoring the fact that most websites which run advertising and are free to the user “compensates” the consumer with by providing them content in the form of news, sports updates, video games or drunken monkey videos.
I’m really having a hard time understanding what you are talking about when you say the site is about “compensating consumers for the role we all play in the ad economy.” We’re already compensated by being given free access to the content.
Am I missing something here?”
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I agree that consumers get value back, just not nearly enough. Advertisers get value too from advertising, just not nearly enough. Audience aggregators get most of the value.
Media companies get all the ad revenue and most of the consumer loyalty. Advertisers get barely enough consumer loyalty to keep paying the bills, and consumers get barely enough free entertainment and information to tolerate the ads.
And I’m sorry….but the notion of “free content in exchange for our time” is slipping away. How many billboards, video screens, and bus wraps do you see everyday? Where’s the consumer value? And how many web sites are saying that ads arene’t enough and they need to start charging consumers? And how much do we spend on cable bills, ISPs, movie tickets, magazine and newspapers and all that comes with “free information”.
My family pays about $5,000 a year for our ad supported media and we see about $5,000 of advertising every year, most of which we have paid to see.
It is not implausible that Advertisers can and will pay you to see their ads.
I actually thought they have been doing that for ages, not in a physical ka-ching! way, but more from a barter perspective. Hulu.com is a good example of this compromise.
However, if direct monetary reward is the objective, you can sign up to one of those sites that pay you to click on a link and view a site with ads for a certain period of time.
What I understand is that this practise may be considered by some quarters to be cheating.
Whatever helps you line some dough.
All the best as you monetize your time.
I don’t get it either. We should be the beneficiaries of advertiser’s demands, but the reason the advertisers demand is to make us, in turn, demand. To the extent that advertisers must expel energy (money) to create demand, that is the extent that we must therefore return by way of energy (money) to satisfy our own demands.
I used a bogus email to post this because I must be a beneficiary of some sort for the demand of my email address.
Hi Nowell. There are 2 separate transactions. Two separate ecosystems. Marketers spend $300 billion per year to get their message in front of U.S. consumers. An average of $1000 per person. That money currently goes to companies that aggregate us. I want to build a consumer advocacy that allows consumers to self aggregate and share in that economy. No hocus pocus.
The fact that advertisers ultimately want us to buy from them is a different ecosystem. But if we join together, you’ll be buying their products with your monthly advertiser stimulus check.
Oh and lastly, you’re right. Your email address is valuable as is your personal information and your time and attention. It should be your choice to share it, and you should receive the value if you do, not the company that gathers you. That’s what I’m trying to do here.
your whole argument is flawed in that you fail to recognize that we all have free will. free will not to have cable, and isp, the newspaper any of it. We all have the right not to spend attention on advertising. If we didn’t then your whole issue would be solved.
I’m not sure I understand what you are arguing. of course we have free will. That’s not the point. For example…2 scenarios:
1) you can apply free will to see or not see a thousand ads in exchange for some news and entertainment
2) you can apply free will to see or not see a thousand ads in exchange for the money advertisers pay everyday to reach you
Your theory suggests that we don’t have free will.
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