Eyeballs ≠ consumers
My first agency job was in media. Since media reps are in the business of selling eyeballs, our standard suite of questions for evaluating (magazine) titles included: are circulation figures audited?
Years later, we have some form of digital-enabled accountability. But this can be tenuous, misleading and, as in the case below, a perversion of economics.
The Loffles model guarantees two things: one, the number of people who will view your ad (as opposed to traditional pie-in-the-sky assumptions). Two, that these people are viewing your ad for the wrong reasons and in the wrong context, and almost definitely will not convert to paying customers.
If I were an advertiser, I’d rather stick with the old model on the off-chance that some brand lift and a few sales may result from the inflated circulation figures.
Can consumers still be bought? No, and they never could be.
