Why killing the CPM? When advertising itself is the problem

Kill the CPM!

Let’s kill the CPM (Cost Per Mille of online ads – cost per thousand impressions) is an interesting post written by Shelby Bonnie – The CEO of Whiskey Media – on TechCrunch.

Marketers, agencies and publishers are all in the ban of CPM.
He explains that CPM is not relevant anymore as page impressions are not in relation to interest from people. Moreover the metric of CPM can be changed easily by the publishers as they can increase the number of ads on their website.

Kill advertising instead?

However as he states in the article: people being bombarded with advertising every day CPM doesn’t matter anymore.

Maybe CPM isn’t the problem.
Advertising itself has / might have become the problem.

People are overwhelmed by advertising:
- Broadcast: The TV commercials getting zapped away for other content
- Print: ad pages are turned over quickly
- Internet: Online ads are ignored as we filter them out visually
- Post: Direct mails are field vertically
- Emails: Emails are deleted by the receiver as only a few are relevant
- Outdoor: Billboards still get attention because of boredom of that moment
- Product placement: Brand awareness at a high cost

Viral marketing campaigns have been successful for only a handful of companies reaching a large audience. An audience that might not always be the intended target market.

Not only the overwhelming presence of advertising but also the credibility of ads will not help their impact as more and more people have disbelieve and turn away.
These matters have become the fundamental problems for advertising:
- Nobody takes notice
- Nobody believes anymore the messages
Then why not just kill advertising?

Outbound vs Inbound marketing

Can we kill advertising?
Not really as branding and creating awareness is still important.
However the importance given and the amounts of money spend on advertising should be reduced in favor of other means and methods that generate attention like content marketing.

Instead of outbound marketing, inbound marketing is increasing in importance as people want to find and explore themselves solutions to their problems.
Of course this will demand another set of tools and solutions in order to cope with the change from outbound to inbound marketing.

Is CPM dictating your marketing?
Could you do without advertising?
What will you benefit the most of in the near future: outbound or inbound marketing?