Our Customers

The people in our space comprise a hodgepodge of personalities with some major clusters around certain characteristics. One of those clusters still confuses me, but it seems to have something to do with the non-traditional lifestyle working in our space affords. Ours is probably the only industry that has capitalistic hippies. It continually surprises me the number of people in our space that say they don’t watch TV. Then again, they don’t have to given that their livelihood comes from internet advertising. Those working at bigger ad agencies with a concentration in offline advertising most likely can’t say that, at least without risking their jobs. So, unlike some in our space, they have kept a close eye on one of the more unique transitions in the history of television – a switch from analog to digital. This means, that as of June 12th, many people who used to watch TV thanks to an antenna placed near the TV, no longer could. It’s not like the switch snuck up on people. The government, who decided to mandate a switch four years ago, has made sure a plethora of public service announcements, ads, support centers exist to help, and has for the most part spent two years communicating the message. They even postponed the first switch from February to June.

For those still trying to make sense of Digital TV (DTV), The Federal Communications Commission website says the following, "DTV is a new type of broadcasting technology that will transform television as we now know it. DTV technology will allow broadcasters to offer television with movie-quality picture and CD-quality sound, along with a variety of other enhancements. DTV technology can also be used to transmit large amounts of other data into the home, which may be accessible by using your computer or television set." In other words, those receiving their picture because of an analog signal transmitted through the air, you’ve been watching crap. In reality, though, the benefits of digital broadcasting aren’t just for the consumer, i.e. that clearer picture with more channels. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, because digital signals take just a fraction of the space of older, analog TV signals, lawmakers could set aside some of the airwaves for emergency services. The rest went to pay down the interest in our national debt (or not), i.e. it was auctioned off to wireless companies for almost $20 billion.

Despite the government spending almost 2.1 billion dollars on the transition, including the operation of three different sites – www.dtv.org, www.dtv2009.gov, and www.dtvtransition.org, as the shift to digital occurred, millions were still unprepared and more than 300,000 calls came into a national call center set up by the FCC. On the day of the transition, the government’s DTV sites received some three-plus million visits, probably more than all of the flog sites combined. When thinking about the conversion process, though, it’s hard to decide what is more amazing, the sheer quantity of people impacted by the switch from analog to digital, an estimated 20 million, or the lengths the government went through to make sure those with an analog TV weren’t left stranded. In addition to the websites, call centers, and public service announcements, the money spent also went towards funding non-profit groups who gave out coupons and boxes in parks as well as ones that send technicians to people’s houses. Even then, it was far from perfect, and many people for whom TV made up an important part of their lives found themselves struggling or experiencing degraded viewing after the process. It would be the equivalent of us having to reconfigure our wireless networks only to find that even after getting the new equipment we still couldn’t log-in to the network or get a strong enough signal.

So who makes up the that 20 million of free air wave tv watchers, a group that has redeemed 31 million coupons with hundreds of thousands being redeemed daily still? Our customers that is who. While certain ads might skew young, such as the mobile subscription ads on Facebook application pages, the people buying the government grants, google work from home scam, teeth whitening, wrinkle cream, Resveritrol pills, and Acai based pills. Many in this group also fueled the subprime offers, such as cash advance, and gave up their email address when asked without worrying about the bombardment that would follow. Ask many people who have offers, and they can’t tell you who they target. They can tell you what media they target and which landing ads and landing pages work but nothing about the audience. Yes, it’s probably true that women convert the most on the wrinkle cream offers and the weight loss blogs, but which women? What do they have in common besides their gender and willingness to convert? So much time is spent on the reaction of getting a person to the page but not enough time is spent on how those marketing a product could target their audience better.

In the case of DTV, the Washington Times mentioned a Nielsen study found that "younger, African-American and Hispanic homes are disproportionately unready, while the elderly are the most ready." The story also quotes Don West, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., technology consultant offering free switch counseling to the technology challenged who remarked, "…I am working with people who know how to turn a computer on, and that’s it," people for whom "a no-frills TV is their only source of news and information." Are those the same demographics as our customer base? Probably for some offers, but regardless of the specific demographic, they all have one thing in common – they aren’t the savvy consumer. And, the savvy customer is definitely not our customer, which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s good because our customers convert. Our customers aren’t suspicious. They can be marketed to, but it’s a challenge because we can’t inherently identify with them. In the end, it’s not whether DTV customers are our customers, but that our customers might be a smaller group than we might think, and that we will succeed better by understanding who they are, as the results might surprise us.