It has always been the little victories that mean so much more around here.
One happened tonight in the City of Lichfield.
You have to scroll down to see it. But it’s the banner ad. For these boys… http://www.lichfieldpc.co.uk/
A computer shop in Lichfield.
Run, I believe, by a lad called Nick Brickett. Who, I suspect, is a pal of Philip John, who helps run http://thelichfieldblog.co.uk/
In one sense, that’s by the by. Because to my mind, for a lad who is flogging digital gear-stroke-PCs, it makes perfect sense to be placing brand ‘lichfieldpc’ in front of the 11,000-plus uniques that the LichfieldBlog now attracts.
For a tenner a month.
That – and, sure, I’m biased – all makes perfect sense.
And it probably didn’t require Phil’s pal Nick to go to an ad agency or a marketing guru to decide that that wasn’t a bad place to place his ad; he could probably work that out for himself.
That he wanted to be there… on LichfieldBlog. Because he’s a LichfieldPC shop. Not much point in putting his ad on, say, Tamworth Blog because Tamworth people will, by and large, go to the PC shop in Tamworth. It’s nearer; it’s local.
All that was required for LichfieldPC shop to place a richer media ad on a Lichfield hyper-local news blog was a piece of kit. A connecting tool. A way for Nick to place his nice-looking, richer media ad in front of the appropriate eye-balls for a fair and sensible price.
http://www.addiply.com/index.php?option=com_addiply&Itemid=69&r1=1&r2=33
There we go… a tenner. For a month. OK… I can see that… ‘Select’… place my url there; my tenner into the PayPal meter; Phil approves it… job done. Simple.
Perfect. And the LichfieldBlog is now another nine pounds the richer; nine pounds a month nearer to becoming a ‘not-for-loss’ proposition.
[Update 19/03/10: Nick and his PC shop aren't the only banner ad show in town... within 24 hours, TheLichfieldBlog has picked up a second banner advertiser... who is now rotating through that same slot... http://sabcat.com/
... if you can't see it first time, just refresh the page... http://thelichfieldblog.co.uk/2010/03/18/police-keen-to-speak-to-cctv-pair-over-theft-from-lichfield-shop/
Two, local banner advertisers in the space of 24 hours; that's interesting...]
Why’s this so interesting? Where’s the little victory?
Well, for one thing, it proves – in our usual, tiny beta trial way – that you don’t have to bolt DoubleClick onto a Google algorithm to deliver a richer media ad banner into a perfectly-targetted spot.
Nick can do that himself, thank you… we don’t always have to be enslaved to an algorithm.
And, again, that this is an act of ’sociable media’; of people buying off people, not machines.
It also chimed very well with what at least one journalist got to take away from this week’s South By South-West jamboree…
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=179804
Three cheers for Matt Waite, senior news technologist, St. Petersburg Times
‘Maybe what our online business model needs isn’t more whiz-bang, but some simplicity.
The solution? Stop selling CPMs.
‘Only use sponsorships, which pay for time in front of your audience rather than impressions. Never sell an ad that cheapens your site (berry cures and fat pills and shady mortgage refinance offers).
‘Ideally, only sell ads for products you use and think your audience would use. By doing this, publishers can create scarcity and break out of the race for the bottom…’
Perfect. ‘Only sell ads for products you use and think your audience would use…’
And again: ‘Only use sponsorships, which pay for time in front of your audience…’
Bingo. Sell per month. Do people reading the LichfieldBlog have need of a PC occasionally? Probably; they might not be able to read the LichfieldBlog otherwise…
But the biggest thing for me about tonight’s little act of local advertising goes back to Mr C Hill and his thoughts on ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ – that fascinating period in English history when The Diggers and The Levellers came to town and tried to build a ‘common treasury for all’…
Because The Diggers, The Levellers and their revolutionary like were trying to create a new world order; one in which they were all free men. And this is the line; from Hill’s introduction…
That he was attempting to chart… ‘the attempts of various groups of the common people to impose their own solutions to the problems of their time, in opposition to the wishes of their betters…’
Rupert doesn’t want Phil, Ross, Nick and the people of Lichfield to find their own solution to the problems of our media time; he wants them to ‘bow to the masters, pay rent to the lords…’
And nor do a whole host of others out there; they want to impose their solution on the City of Lichfield from on high; from above.
Me? I want people to find their own solutions from the bottom up; to work out for themselves what works for their community, for their neighbour, for their ‘audience’ – as much as it ever is ‘them’ and ‘us’ now.
And if Addiply can be one, tiny tool that empowers The Diggers and The Levellers of Lichfield to defy their former news masters and not pay rent to their former media lords, then brilliant.
Job done.
[...] sources and practices – Google ads is one answer, self-managed display ad platforms like Addiply are another and direct payments will play a role too. It’s all part of the move from [...]
Putting a banner on the Lichfield blog makes perfect sense for us but not in the same way as it does for Lichfield Computer Centre. We can print t-shirts for anyone where ever they are. But we’re from Lichfield and there’s plenty of work we could pick up in the area.
We know the Lichfield Blog anyway, it’s about the best place to find out what’s happening in our peculiar corner of the world (and if you happen to live in one of the streets that doesn’t get the local free paper delivered the only place).
£10 a month in the overall scheme of things is no money at all to take a punt with. What we’re thinking about now is how many tenners we should be punting onto other sites around the country. The model of the Lichfield Blog and sites like it, the alternative nature of the structure appeals to us. We are ourselves a co-op.
There’s also potential for this to be a two way street. T-shirts are a good way for sites like Lichfield Blog to generate revenue and promote themselves. Interesting times.
BTW, World Turned Upside down is a great song but lets hope the last line “we come in peace the orders came to cut them down” doesn’t apply in this case. St Georges Hill is now a golf club.
[...] revenue sources and practices – Google ads is one answer, self-managed display ad platforms like Addiply are another and direct payments will play a role too. It’s all part of the move from [...]
[...] http://rickwaghorn.co.uk/2010/03/18/one-tiny-little-milesone-on-the-streets-of-lichfield-this-evenin... [...]
[...] looks to add more local community sites to the network to help them become what he calls ‘not-for-loss‘, the addition of the Guardian sites is a big thumbs up for the system and definitely food [...]