So I visit some agencies and find the vast majority of the work entry level people are doing is looking at “tear sheets” – you know, physical proof the advertising ran in this newspaper or that magazine.

Ford Motor was one account I spent time with. Hundreds of people with stacks of physical ads – national, local, co-op, all of it. I said no to the job. But it made sense; I mean, you want to know that the ad you paid for actually ran, right? Accountability to client?

And this is what is wrong with online Display advertising – nobody even knows if their ad ran, where it ran, etc. Partly because it would cost more to admin this stuff than the ads are worth. Cost more, on a relative value basis, than hundreds of people sitting around with physical tear sheets.

Until that changes, online Display will be a rounding error versus all advertising; you just can’t spend more on it than you can afford to intentionally flush down the toilet.