Consumers rule the internet, EU advertisers told
LISBETH KIRK
08.06.2007 @ 17:42 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The consumer is the boss on the web and about to end fifty years of rule by mass media, TV, publishers and phone operators.
This was the key message of the first ever pan European congress on digital marketing held in Brussels this week.
The meeting came at a bright point for the industry with online advertising revenues shooting up by 35% last year, reaching globally $6,9 bn in 2006.
Only 5% of consumers trust Google search ads (Photo: Johannes Jansson//norden.org)
In Europe, the UK accounts for by far the largest share (39%) of online ad expenditure, according to a study featuring data from 13 European countries.
In three EU countries (the UK, the Netherlands and Denmark) the web's share of advertising expenditure exceeded 10% in 2006.
Consumers trust other consumers
But technology and market research company Forrester's Vice President added a sombre note.
"Consumers don't listen to advertisers or media any more", he said.
He presented figures showing that 40% of consumers trust other consumers online and rely on reviews and recommendations from them, while only 5% of consumers trust Google search ads.
He also gave a concrete example of an Italian hotel owner, who lost a third of his business and spent thousands of euros in legal fees before being allowed to respond to a bad review from a hotel client on the website Tripadvisor.
Info-capitalists challenged
The Interact Congress, organised by International Advertising Bureau, IAB-Europe, made clear that the advertising sector, like many other sectors, is undergoing change.
"The model is up-side-down with new power to emerge for the people. It is a challenge to the existing info-capitalists, the intellectual property owners and we witness an intense fight between the Pirates and the Majors," said French web-guru Jöel de Rosnay in Brussels.
"We will all be consume-actors … using blogs, citizens journals, wikies, internet phones, peer-to-peer transfer of music and content. Even banking, insurance, consulting and education industries will be affected", he predicted.
Soon every city will become wireless and mobile phones will become small pcs. "Then you can call for free everywhere", he said.
"Digital technologies will effectively give power to the proletariat and drive a revolution, which is both faster and deeper in terms of political, social and business implications, but also bring with them totally new problems," according to the Frenchman, who is a molecular biologist and professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He advised the audience to think more about ‘Info-ethics'. "Don't do with information about others, what you would not like to be done with information about yourself".
Mr de Rosnay launched the citizen's media AgoraVox in 2005, which is today the 12th biggest newspaper in France.
"Anyone can become a reporter on AgoraVox. It is not required to know how to write like a first class journalist", the bilingual French/English site states.
Needle in the digital haystack
But not everybody agrees that the world should be ruled by consumers.
Andrew Keen, a British born journalist and internet entrepreneur goes against the tide in a newly published book: The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture and Assaulting Our Economy
He argues that expertise is under attack from amateurism and that talent is "the needle in today's digital haystack".
"Instead of a dictatorship of experts, we'll have a dictatorship of idiots," he says in an interview with Times Online, running a preview of his book.
He offers the example of Wikipedia, which has millions of amateur editors and is the 17th most trafficked site on the net. In contrast stands Britannica.com, a subscription-based service with 100 Nobel prize-winning contributors and more than 4,000 other experts ranked 5,128. "As a result, Britannica has had to make painful cuts in staffing and editorial," says Mr Keen.
"In a world without newspapers, publishing houses, film studios, radio and TV stations there'll be nobody to discover and – no less important – to nurture talent. The result could be no less catastrophic than Pol Pot's decision to eliminate talent and expertise in Cambodia by mass execution."
Commission testing the waters
In EU corridors Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding is preparing a communication on online content to "boost competition" while securing cultural diversity and the active role of consumers on the web.
The challenge for her and other lawmakers will be to strike the right balance between consumers and rights-holders, between pirates and industry and between freedom and anarchy on the internet.
The communication, a first step to test waters before EU legislation gets drafted, is due in September.