Buying impressions and buying attention are not the same thing.
As we near the holiday retail season, many marketing teams around the world are knee-deep in spreadsheets looking for answers to these burning questions. What did we spend this on year? Where did we spend digital promotion this year? Is it working? If not, why isn’t it working?
In many cases, the key questions revolve around marketers’ reliance on programmatic advertising – their primary mode for digital marketing.
What is Programmatic Advertising?
Since the early part of this decade, programmatic banner advertising has taken the marketing world by storm. If you aren’t aware of what marketers are spending 75-85% of the their digital display advertising on, programmatic advertising can be defined pretty simply: advertising bought, placed, and paid for by computers. I mean, it makes sense, right? From our offices to our cars, and even our kitchens, computers dominate our lives. Why wouldn’t they be the best at buying and targeting online advertising?
For the last 10 years or so, a growing number of marketers became convinced that their best value in digital advertising would be to place ads through 3rd-party, programmatic marketplaces. It seemed like an easy, efficient course-of-action. You set a budget and buy into a marketplace of publishers offering their website real estate to target the audiences of your choice - allowing a marketer a hands-off approach from the leg-work required to grow brands.
Does it work?
As usual, with a little experience, most things that sound too good to be true are just that. As noted in this fantastic piece from marketing expert David Kohl, marketers are quickly discovering that programmatic advertising isn’t the end-all-be-all solution to attracting customers online. Marketwide, the results have been declining year after year. But, why? The social media age has taught us all firsthand about audience targeting. You search for a pair of scissors on Amazon. You decide not to buy them and move on to checking Weather.com. You scroll to the middle of the page and there it is -- an ad for scissors. Despite the dystopian, 1984-esque, concerns, there is another clear point here: You’re looking at the weather, is now a great time to offer you that can’t-miss deal on scissors?
Consider the Context and Environment
And, so, we’ve reached the meat of it: Context matters. Here it is directly from Mr. Kohl on the reasons behind the ineffectiveness of programmatic advertising:
“I’d argue we’re witnessing the perfect storm of three interwoven factors that make it nearly impossible to close the gap between programmatic advertising investment and returns: namely the dismal ratio between digital media budgets and their actual media buying power, an over-reliance on audience targeting, and the near complete disregard for the content environment perpetuated by marketer’s love affair with too-cheap-to-be-true programmatic advertising CPMs.”
The environment in which consumers view advertising is perhaps the most essential factor in driving engagement and, eventually, conversions. A 2016 comScore study examined “the effectiveness of advertising appearing adjacent to content generally considered to be premium”. Its research demonstrated a 67% higher brand lift attribute to the contextual environment in which ads are seen. If given the choice between extremely low-cost advertising on a thousand different sites unrelated to my brand, or a more expensive, but high-quality and premium content campaign in my industry, I’m taking the latter every time.
The Takeaway
Buying impressions and buying attention are not the same thing. As Kohl says, “Attention is built on a viewer’s trust of the environments in which ads are seen. Premium, professional content is an environment where attention is greater, dwell times are longer and trust in ad messages is highest.”
Audience targeting can still be a quality choice in reaching consumers. I would argue that the best strategy is to do both audience targeting AND content targeting. Find the content where users are highly engaged and are paying attention and buy your digital ads there.
After all, computers aren’t better at everything.
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These are just a few, simple ideas to get the most out of your ad buys. If you need a more personal touch, PG’s Marketing Lab is here to help with any and all of your marketing questions. We’d love to help you develop a strategy specific to your brand, including how PG can help you spread the word via our social media channels. You can sign up for a free, no-pressure consultation with me using the calendar below.
Ungodly, sinister, and maliciously menacing guitar tones erupt from the Kentucky hardcore band’s 7-string Ibanez models, providing the soundtrack to the summer’s biggest mosh pits and nastiest breakdowns.
If hell had a guitar tone, it’d be what Knocked Loose’s Isaac Hale and Nicko Calderon conjure up from their Ibanez 7-string beasts. The band’s mission since day one has been to pummel listeners with the most extreme form of hardcore music. Over the past decade they’ve throttled through all limits, making each breakdown, each riff, each scream, and each performance outdone by the next. A more recent (and seemingly) conflicting goal has been to infect the mainstream with their brutality. Their brand-new third album, You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To, paired them with pop producer Drew Fulk (Kevin Gates, NLE Choppa, Disturbed, Lil Wayne), and over the last two years, they’ve played Coachella and Bonnaroo, partnered with hip-hop duo $uicideboy$ for a sold-out tour, and were announced as direct support for Slipknot’s 25th anniversary tour. Both of the band’s goals are being accomplished, as their sound has never been more punishing or popular.
Before Knocked Loose’s sold-out show at Nashville’s Marathon Music Works, guitarists Isaac Hale and Nick Calderon invited PG’s Perry Bean onstage for a fresh conversation about their updated mercenary squad. During our time with the Hale and Calderon, we learn about their custom 7-string Ibanez doom brooms, Hale explains moving on from tube amps and pedalboards to Quad Cortex units and MIDI switching, and Calderon details finding his place in the band and adjusting to an extra low-B string.
Brought to you by
D’Addario: https://ddar.io/wykyk-rr
D'Addario XPND: https://ddari.io/xpnd.rr
Isaac's Iceman
When we spoke with the Oldham County crew five years ago, cofounding guitarist Isaac Hale was using an Ibanez RGDIX7MPB. He’s still in the Ibanez family and strictly uses 7-string instruments, but he’s gravitated to the iconic Iceman shape for his pit-provoking duties. This white custom configuration features a lighter nyatoh body, DiMarzio Fusion Edge 7 ceramic humbuckers, a single master volume knob, and a smaller neck profile. If all goes well, he uses this guitar onstage all night. He uses a custom set of D’Addario NYXL strings with the current low-B string a thick .070 gauge.
Nicko's No.1
Before joining Knocked Loose in 2020, guitarist Nicko Calderon had never played a 7-string guitar. (“It was a huge learning curve for me,” he says.) Like Isaac, if all goes as planned, Nicko will only play the above Ibanez Prestige AZ24047 all set. One of the requests Nicko had for Ibanez was to keep it simple with a single Seymour Duncan Nazgul Bridge 7-string humbucker and a lone volume knob. He goes with a D’Addario NYXL (.011–.064) 7-string set.
Beautiful Backups
If things go sideways, both Isaac and Nicko have safety nets: Hale has a custom-painted Ibanez Iron Label Iceman ICTB721, and Calderon goes with another single-pickup Ibanez Prestige AZ24047.
Less Is More
Both guitarists have downsized to the Neural DSP Quad Cortex, and they have a pair of mirrored setups for both on and offstage. Hale and Calderon are both modeling 5150 III heads, but Calderon is going with the EL34 flavoring for a slightly different sonic distinction. Core sounds are built off the 5150 IIIs and other ingredients sprinkled in throughout the set include some slight chorus, heavily modulated “evil chorus” with an added semitone above the base sound, and each has an Electro-Harmonix (in the rack) that provides a layered octave sound for pure chaos. The EHX Freeze pedal onstage is put in place so they can hold a note and tune underneath it. They roam the stage untethered thanks to the Shure GLXD16+ digital wireless guitar pedal system.
Bring the Pain
The two Quad Cortex units work with Seymour Duncan PowerStage 200 amps to hit Orange PPC412-C cabs onstage that are loaded with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers.
Shop Knocked Loose's Rig
Ibanez Iron Label Iceman ICTB721
Ibanez Prestige AZ24047 Electric Guitar
Seymour Duncan Nazgul High Output Bridge 7-string Humbucker Pickup
Neural DSP Quad Cortex
Electro-Harmonix Freeze
Seymour Duncan PowerStage 200
Orange PPC412-C - 240-watt 4x12" Straight Cabinet
Celestion Vintage 30 Speakers
Shure GLXD16+ Digital Wireless Guitar Pedal System
Radial ProDI 1-Channel Passive Instrument Direct Box
D'Addario NYXL1164 NYXL Nickel Wound Electric Guitar Strings -.011-.064 Regular Light, 7-String
Watch Tom Butwin demonstrate Keeley’s super versatile 4-in-1 overdrive pedal series: the Blues Disorder, Angry Orange, Super Rodent and Noble Screamer.
The newest pedals from Keeley Electronics each offer two independent effects featuring classic overdrive/distortion circuits. The effects are carefully paired together and allow you to mix-and-match their respective clipping sections (one hard clipping and one soft clipping) and tone sections. The Noble Screamer combines a Nobels ODR-1 (hard clip) and Ibanez Tube Screamer (soft clip). Angry Orange unites a mighty Big Muff (soft clip) and Boss DS-1 (hard clip). Blues Disorder pairs a Marshall Blues Breaker (soft clip) with a Fulltone OCD (hard clip). And the Super Rodent combines a Boss SD-1 (soft clip) with the venerable Rat pedal (hard clip). The fun really begins when you experiment with mashups: you can link the overdrive section from Circuit A with the tone section of circuit B, and vice versa. These “hyrbrid” modes offer unusual and unexpected delights. Suddenly you have four pedals in one.
Based in Oklahoma, industry icon Robert Keeley and his team have channeled 25-plus years of know-how into this 4-in-1 series…and they’re always working on new innovations. For more information visit robertkeeley.com.
Rhett and Zach end almost every episode of Dipped In Tone with a rig dip—where they discuss and rate a guitar, amp, and pedal setup submitted by a listener—but this time, they’re assembling and critiquing dream rigs of their own, on a budget.
Rhett and Zach end almost every episode of Dipped In Tone with a rig dip—where they discuss and rate a guitar, amp, and pedal setup submitted by a listener—but this time, they’re assembling and critiquing dream rigs of their own, on a budget.
They each get to brainstorm a $1000 rig followed by a $10,000 rig, using toys and prices found on Reverb. When you’ve only got 10 Benjamins to spend, what pieces of kit should you prioritize? Rhett throws most of his budget behind his guitar and amp head, with just a few bucks left for a bargain-bin cab and a couple cheap pedals, but Zach spreads his grand out fairly evenly, opting for affordable offerings from Epiphone and Vox for his base tone.
Things get spicy in the upper range. Rhett takes Zach to task over prioritizing a $1300 vintage TS-style pedal, but they both opt for high-dollar amps from the same manufacturer for their ten-grand stage setup.Who created the better rig at each price point? Which components did they fumble? And what would you do with each budget? Let us know in the comments.