Mark Dolliver: Web Cafe Style

Maybe you should have invested your savings in a chain of Internet cafes. According to a new Harris Poll, there have been modest rises since 2003 in the proportion of adults who go online at home (from 61 percent to 72 percent) or at work (from 31 percent to 37 percent). But the number who go online at a location other than home or work has nearly doubled, from 16 percent to 31 percent. This trend likely has implications for online advertising. If more of people's online time is spent amid the bustle of the outside world, they'll be a less suitable audience for advertising that works only if the viewer is paying rapt attention. Moreover, they'll be wary of getting served with ads that reflect their consumer behavior if other folks are apt to be looking over their shoulders. You don't want a conspicuous ad for your favorite jock-itch remedy to pop up, say, while you're trying to look debonair at a wireless hotspot. Don't believe in skepticismMarketers worry that Americans have become reflexively skeptical, scorning even the most plausible ad claim. Maybe that's so, but it's not because people are disbelievers across the board. In polling by The Barna Group, 64 percent said they believe it's literally true that Moses parted the Red Sea so the Israelites could make a clean (and dry) getaway. Likewise, 63 percent believe a kid named David literally felled a galoot named Goliath with a sling and stones. Saying "new and improved" is less credible, apparently.Men are just so disappointingHistorically, it hasn't been easy to make young women unenthusiastic about marriage. But today's feckless young men are giving it quite a try. A poll of women age 18-34, fielded for Cosmopolitan by The Intelligence Group, finds them unimpressed by men. The chart below gives a taste of this. Similarly, 59 percent believe women "wear the pants in most relationships" and 67 percent feel they're at least as likely as men "to run a company." So, is their need for men on a par with a fish's need for a bicycle? Not quite. Forty-six percent think "being happily married is the biggest sign of success." Though 54 percent "want to be established in their career before they marry," 56 percent said "meeting a man who they think might be The One makes them happier than getting a fantastic promotion." The catch is that their circle of male acquaintances might not include The One. And while 77 percent "are happier in a relationship than single," 81 percent would "rather be single forever than be married to a man they know isn't right for them."Pick the virtue you preferFew Americans will say a discouraging word these days about "diversity," which has been enshrined as one of the country's defining virtues. But some virtues are intrinsically at odds with other virtues, forcing people to assess their relative merits. A Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll posed such a choice when it asked people whether they'd be more apt to back a presidential candidate who emphasizes diversity or one who stresses unity. The chart above gives the results (including the answers volunteered by those who refused to accept the premise that unity and diversity are mutually antagonistic). However much they appreciate diversity as a demographic fact, Americans appear more wary of it as a creed. IQ, Warranties and dementia• Among 18-34-year-olds, 71 percent of men and 59 percent of women think their IQ is higher than average. (Yankelovich Monitor Minute)• Though major appliances now tend to be very reliable, one-fourth of consumers still spring for an extended warranty when they purchase a refrigerator, stove, laundry machine or dishwasher; 15 percent do so when they buy a microwave oven. (J.D. Power and Associates)• Fourteen percent of Americans over age 70 suffer from some form of dementia, including the 10 percent who have Alzheimer's. (University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research/Duke University Medical Center)

Brand Marketing

Mark Dolliver: Web Cafe Style

Mark Dolliver

About

Subscriptions

Events

Publications

WORK SMARTER - LEARN, GROW AND BE INSPIRED.

Subscribe today!

Mark Dolliver