It’s an especially good point that there’s a difference between the consumers of these media products and the clients of the media companies. This isn’t really new, though. What’s really happened is that as each new medium has become mainstream, it’s become a medium for sales as well as communicating news. Originally it was all verbal–town criers screaming out news, peddlers shouting out to persuade buyers. Then much later it was print media, which only caught on when enough people learned to read. Newspapers have been funded by advertising for many years. The small fee we pay to buy a newspaper is largely a token to prove to advertisers that we’re actually reading the paper. It’s the advertisements that pay for bulk of the paper itself–the journalists, the editors, the photographers, the physical location, the printing itself, and the distribution costs.

The same goes for TV programming, and now the model has moved online. The only major difference is that with newspapers and TV, we were a captive audience. Now the fight for consumers’ attention has intensified, in part because of media saturation, but also because we have so many options to fight back. The fact that we can install ad blockers, is part of that fight, just as the ability to fast forward through commercials is.

But the other problem is that it’s still a young medium, and the harder advertisers fight for our attention with pop-ups and messages flying across windows, the more desensitized we become. The ads have become more obnoxious but click-through rates have continued to drop steadily. This is in part because, with sites deriving all of their revenue from ads, they have a continual incentive to encourage their users to be distracted by them.

And that’s not infinitely sustainable. However, I disagree with Michael’s assertion that paid models are the right way to go. What really makes sense is what has become increasingly standard across the web: the freemium model, where the basic essential service of a web site is offered for free, but users can sign up for premium services. Often those services are more business-oriented, or simply give the user an ad-free experience.

It’s essential on the web because we’ve gone beyond channel surfing: it’s not just cheap to switch web pages like TV channels, it’s actually hard for users to stay focused on a single web page for any length of time because there are a practically infinite number of other web pages that can waste our time.

Finally, Wagner makes a good point about how news media are driven by what will attract more viewership for their advertising, rather than what is truly newsworthy. Michael Jackson’s passing is arguably an example of this, with stories about the (admittedly highly influential) pop icon bumping out important political news. But this has also always been true to some degree: newspapers publish stories that sell papers. And just as before, some of us choose to buy papers and magazines that cover stories of real merit. It’s a kind of addendum to the freemium model, that rare sites such as the Wall Street Journal offer such perceived value to a wealthier audience, that they’ve succeeded while requiring a paid subscription from the beginning.

In the meantime, the unlettered masses watch stories about Britney Spears, and enter private data into “fun quizzes” as red blinking airplanes fly across the screen urging them to “click now!’

The bottom line is that right now, everyone’s right. The privacy advocates are right to be concerned when a large company learns too much information about too many people. But in many ways online advertising is going in the right direction, and Google has been at the forefront of this. When so many advertisers thought that the solution to declining ad revenue was more aggressive pop-ups, Google realized that subtle and better-targeted ads, placed where and when people were interested in them, were the real solution.

Lately some advertising providers, including Facebook, have even gone to the point of letting users vote up or down ads. This is leading in a much more positive direction for advertising. (Especially for Facebook, whose advertising targeting is so far particularly bad.)

People complain a lot about advertising, but what we don’t like is annoying, aggressive advertising at the wrong time for the wrong product. We actually appreciate advertising when it’s tasteful and entertaining, and when it’s shown at a time when we can benefit from it. People buy entire magazines mostly for the ads–including fashion and tech gadget mags. Movie trailers are the best example, though–they’re pure advertising, yet many people voluntarily seek out trailers online.

The message: show me ads for stuff I might want! (And get rid of the other crap.)

Back to privacy, though. It’s great that Google, Facebook and so on are finding ways to better match ads to people. That part makes everyone happy. The problem is that they keep that information.

Right now our options are essentially three:

1. See ads all the time, mostly tasteless annoying ones for things you don’t want.
2. Block all of the ads with a browser ad blocker (or selectively once an ad has already annoyed you).
3. Let companies like Google and Facebook take care of finding the right ads for you, and hope they play nice knowing everything about everyone.

Yes.

Take logos. Seth Godin points out that logos are just placeholders and that generally speaking, investing a lot of money in a logo just doesn’t make sense. You don’t win customers because of your logo; you keep them coming back once they associate your logo with great value. So you need a logo? If you can’t do it yourself, someone else can do it for under $100.

What’s a brand, anyway?

Let’s look back to the origins of corporate image. It began with merchant marks, eventually becoming trademarks. Essentially, trademarks evolved because they enabled merchants to identify their goods and benefit from establishing a reputation for quality.

The big-business version of branding has evolved to create an image of more than just the product. Coke doesn’t compete with Pepsi over the quality of their sugar water, of course, but over associations people have with their brands. However, this is a waste of time for a small business.

Like the merchants, you should only care if you do two things:

1. Generate Sales
2. Bring Customers Back
   

With a new business, you don’t care if people associate your name or logo with “chic” or “rugged” or “daring” qualities. You’re not Nike or Apple; most people don’t even know what you do. So your first goal is for your advertising to bring them in. To that degree, the image your advertising projects may help attract the right customers. If your store sells trendy clothing, you should care most about whether your ads and signs convey what you’re selling and attract good leads. From that perspective, your ads could succeed without even having the name of your business, as long as there’s a way for the customer to take the next step.

Then bring them back. That means it’s all about the product. Focus on satisfying the customers, and that will bring them back. Past experience has shown me that even an unattractive logo and an unimpressive web site can work if your product is good enough, whereas the snazziest business cards, ads brochures and web site can’t save a horrible product.

One of the businesses I co-owned in the past was known among its customers for unattractive, largely inconsistent and even incoherent marketing. Multiple logos and even brands were used but almost interchangeably. Most clients were confused about which brand was even associated with which product.

To top it off, eventually a certain client of ours confided in me that she had initially been introduced to our company because a friend told her to “check out the worst web site you’ve ever seen.” (It was.) Not exactly what a business owner wants to hear, right? But people kept coming back because they liked what we offered. Most of our new business was from word of mouth, and a friend’s recommendation meant so much more than our ugly web site! The business is now very successful and the web site is still ugly.

So image means nothing? No. I’m not advocating ugly web sites as a marketing strategy, or neglecting image-building completely.  Even for small businesses, branding and image can have an impact. The key is identifying the parts of your business that are important. And better than image, is attitude.

Attitude. Instead of thinking about “image” – meaning a facade that your business hides behind – focus on keeping your attitude consistent in the employees you hire and the products you offer.

In some businesses image and attitude are the product: if you’re running a restaurant, the image and attitude create your ambiance, and ambiance can be more important than food in attracting customers. I often patronize one restaurant because its outdoor terrace with a view means more than the mediocre food: it creates ambiance.

Similarly, if you’re running an online business, your web site isn’t just an internet brochure or comforting presence, it IS part of the product.

Ugliness matters

While our ugly web site didn’t seem to affect our ability to get clients, hideous web sites and marketing materials can have an affect: on the employees.  If even you are reluctant to show clients your web site or business card, run, don’t walk, to hire a graphic designer.

Still, it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.

Good enough

You can start building your brand with things that are “just good enough.” Despite what I’ve said, you don’t want an ugly web site or business card, but you don’t need a work of art, either. For under $100 you can get something good enough designed and then move on to the only parts of small-business branding that matter: getting customers, and keeping them.