Media on Media

Don't bet the farm just yet on RSS, podcasts and other so-called Web 2.0 media.

Marketers are interested in them, but not as much as they are in old-fashioned things like word of mouth, according to a recent study by Epsilon.

“We're in the very early stage of leveraging those technologies,” said Epsilon Interactive president Al DiGuido during an interview last month. “There's not enough folks using them effectively yet for them to be significant on the radar screen.”

But they will be sooner or later. And if history is any indication, they'll eventually have enough critical mass to annoy the hell out of consumers.

Just look at the stats. Almost 70% of all U.S. shoppers say there are too many ads in the media, according to Elana Anderson, vice president and research director at Forrester Research. And it isn't hard to guess which channels irritate consumers most.

The top one, loathed by almost everyone, is pop-ups, Anderson said during a Direct Webinar sponsored by Click Tactics. Next is door-to-door selling, hated by people as far back as Herman Melville. Spam's a close third.

(I'll add one more, a personal hate, even though Anderson didn't mention it: on-screen advertising at movie theaters. Am I the only one driven to dyspepsia?)

None of these findings present any real surprises. And neither does the next one, although few people have commented on it. The least irritating medium? The least offensive? The one you're reading: print.

Yes, the same research shows that print ads annoy maybe 5% of the U.S. public, far less than any other medium, Anderson said.

And there's a good reason for it. To put it in archaic terms, print ads are the least rude of all the commercial messages we take in.

For starters, they don't pop up when we least expect them. Nobody is tracking our reading patterns as we peruse them.

Consumers are free to read ads, clip them, ignore them or use them as cat litter.

Given the wide hostility toward intrusive advertising, it's a mystery that print continues to decline as a percentage of marketing budgets.

Allow us to make a pitch for this allegedly moribund channel.

The most successful magazines are service-oriented niche titles. They deliver targeted audiences and tailored editorial environments. A reader of Men's Health is by definition interested in products that support a healthy lifestyle.

Yes, the big growth in media budgets still will be found in the online column. Search will draw dollars away from traditional channels.

Those of you who spend money on print will be ridiculed. You certainly won't win any awards for innovation. But take comfort in one thing.

There won't be any danger of inbox glut.