Thanks Don, I’m surprised at how little conversation this video sparked. And that is why I covered it. I’m not sure I agree or even understand everything Leydon was saying. But I got the gist and the bottom line for me is that we have to move beyond the notion of doing marketing we can’t measure. And this is especially true when we look at the shift in advertising spend from offline to digital: 20% YoY growth mainly on digital display that we largely ignore, click on accidentally, see click fraud and bots. I think as an industry we can do better.

I understand the current landscape of digital ad buys is murky at best. But we should at least “count what we catch” and stop investing in programs that don’t drive measurable results back to our own digital properties.

90% of all content consumed online comes from email, search and social. But the majority of marketing spend is on media sites that come in 5th or 6th and around 10% of content consumed. It just doesn’t add up.

And I do think Leydon may be pointing to a real trend in sophisticated buyers emerging. And I think they will demand changes like I referenced in the article. CPL-based ad buys! Because why not. If their traffic is so valuable, then let’s value it based on actions we can measure and that have value. I guess I just wrote a whole additional post in this comment but I really appreciate you chiming in.

Leydon, essentially, is calling a decade’s long bluff of the media, and asking for transparency. “Tell us what we are buying, because ‘eyeballs’ isn’t good enough.” And, this is a real challenge for marketers, especially strategist. We work within the parameters and metrics offered us by the media, but those metrics are vague.

Now, conversely, we could keep everything digital and quantifiable, but then we are not leveraging the fact that people engage in so many different forms of media – not just online/social.

I’ll be interested to see a “sophisticated buyer” emerge, as they will definitely be in a first-mover advantage situation.