数字广告业缘何恋上欺诈

    选项1将削弱能够发布有效广告的媒体站点，选项2和3会让这些站点彻底消失。那么，广告业的求生之路究竟在何方呢？

    如果这一幕不那么可怕，那几乎是件挺有意思的事情。广告在我们的经济中发挥着巨大的作用，为了保持广告市场主要通货（“印象”）的流动性，我们创造了一个允许广告欺诈（把没有人能够看到的广告算作印象）的体系。更有甚者，为了行业的正常运作，我们还“需要”允许这种行为。

    消除欺诈行为是完全可能的，但广告业正在抵制，因为这样做将大大提高印象的价格（因为这是“真正的印象”），使得传统的广告印象再也无法互相比较。此外，老牌的大型互联网印象生产者将遭受重创。现在，随着谷歌公司(Google)的尼尔•莫汉加入了这场辩论，我们或许终于开始朝着真实的印象”有所动作。不过，这仅仅是个开始。尽管鉴于谷歌的业界领袖地位，这是一个意义重大的开始，但真正的挑战在于，这样一个建立在通过垃圾和欺诈维持低价之上的行业，是否能够吞下由此产生的供应受限，从而导致感知价格进一步上涨这个后果；是否还将迎来更多的痛苦。

    大品牌和小企业每年花费数千亿美元的广告开支。当这些资金首次进入广告市场时，定价采用了一种能够维持相同术语和单一通货单位（“印象”）的方式。尽管这种模式向来存在浪费现象，但数字媒体创造欺诈的能力正在导致当前的危机。

    几十年来，数万亿美元花费在了“印象”这一通货上面。尽管你或许认为作为如此巨额资金的追逐对象，“印象”肯定有一个非常规范的定义，但它从来都没有过，也不可能有。这种状况一直延续至今日。从现在的情形看，广告业似乎不屑于留下印象了。（财富中文网）

    本文作者乔•马尔契斯是真实媒体公司创始人兼CEO，此前担任 Fuse-TV有线电视网营销和多媒体平台开发事务主管。

    译者：叶寒   

    Option one will diminish the outlets for effective advertising, while options two and three eliminate it altogether. Where will that leave the advertising industry?

    It would almost be funny if it wasn't so terrible. Advertising plays a massive role in our economy, and in an effort to keep the market for the main currency of advertising (the impression) liquid, we have created a system that not only allows advertising fraud (counting impressions that no human could ever see), but we NEED to allow it in order to function.

    Getting rid of fraud is 100% possible, but the industry is resisting it, because it would drastically increase the price of impressions, as the would be "real impressions," and make it no longer apples to apples with traditional advertising impressions. In addition, the established big Internet impression generators would take a huge hit. Now, with Google's (GOOG) Neal Mohan debating entering the fray, we might finally get some movement toward "real impressions." But this is just the beginning, although with Google's leadership it is a big beginning, the real challenge will be if an industry built on keeping prices low through waste and fraud can swallow the resulting limitations in supply, and therefore higher perceived prices, or if there is yet to be more pain.

    Hundreds of billions of dollars are spent every year on advertising by huge brands and small business alike. When these dollars were first introduced to the market they were priced in a way to be able to keep the same terminology, and a single unit of currency, the "impression." While there has always been some waste in the model, digital's ability to create fraud is causing the current crisis.

    For decades trillions of dollars have changed hands on the currency of the "impression." And while you would think with all that money depending on it, "impression" would have a very standard definition, it never has. It couldn't. Until today. And now the industry doesn't want it.

    Joe Marchese is the founder and CEO of true[X] media and previously was head of marketing and multi-platform development for the cable television network Fuse-TV.