Advertising to Advertisers to Get Them To Advertise

I would imagine Blogging 101 graduates would frown on this long and complicated subject line. Truth is, I don’t love it either. But I’m too confused to think of anything simpler.

I’m reading about Yahoo’s massive new advertising campaign that is about to launch. Yahoo is buying tens of millions of dollars of advertising from competing media companies with 2 goals in mind 1) reposition the brand to a dwindling consumer base and 2) reposition the brand to advertisers, reminding them how many of us they still reach.

A media company like Yahoo spends 10+ million in advertising with competing media companies, like USA Today. All with the hope of grabbing the consumers’ attention away from USA Today and over to Yahoo. If the advertising works, they will go to other advertisers and ask them to spend $10+ million advertising on Yahoo. Maybe USA Today would be interested in buying ads on Yahoo. They can get their users back.

Why do advertising sellers buy and sell ads to/from each other? In this case, advertisers are no longer convinced that Yahoo has control over enough of what they want…our time and attention. Likewise, advertisers are not sold on USA Today having enough control over our time and attention. If they did, USA Today wouldn’t have to resort to taking ads that help grow their competition.

The whole process makes very little sense. The only thing that makes sense is this: Everybody wants to either buy our time and attention or demonstrate that they have control over our time and attention. Yahoo is willing to spend millions just to try to convince advertisers they still got us. The point of all this? The value lies within us. We are who advertisers want. We are who media companies want. We are in control. If we seize it. Paying consumers makes a lot more sense than paying competitors to share their consumers.