Have just read Charlie Gower's Time as context piece, winner of Neil Perkin's Think Tank - Hall of Fame where I discovered the original blog - thanks Neil.
It's what we need - a bit of applied common sense. We seem to have forgotten about the value of time of day in people's lives. I recently asked a couple of large publishers what % of their online inventory had a time of day, or even day of week stipulation on it? They reckoned about 10%. Thats a bit rubbish really.
Imagine when buying TV or radio saying "you aren't allowed to choose when the ad will run" - blimey! It would be chaos. Ask any old died in the wool (with red wine) press buyer or seller about advertisers on a Thursday and Friday and they'll tell you about retail money. Ask a planner about promoting films and they'll tell you about Fridays, recruitment - beginning of the week, credit cards companies - end of the month - common sense actions that reflect consumer movement and purchase behaviour.
Radio even puts a premium rate on its day parts and calls it .... wait for it .... in my best Brian Blessed voice "Drrrive Tiiiiime !!!" or .... "The Breaaaakfassst Shoowwww"
I get a bit disheartened when there is talk about online advertising not working when we don't seem to apply the same discipline and thus give it an equal chance we would other media. Unfortunately we perceive The Incredible Hulk jumping through the screen as innovation vs a little bit of "where are the audience and what is their mindset"
