Cost vs Value - what matters most?

By Gareth Holmes, VP Strategy & Media at SeenThis

This has never been more prevalent when we look across the spectrum of so-called sustainability solutions flooding onto the market, which is a consequence of losing competitiveness and attractiveness so the quick fix is to adjust the narrative, rather than actually making a change in either offering or product for the better.

Many new vendors are coming into the market and the one thing most push is “...we are cheaper than who you are using” and in the historically price driven world of digital media this can be a very attractive proposition, regardless of the actual merits and capabilities of what is being sold.

John Rushkin, the renowned English Writer & Philosopher, captured the dilemma well when he said “[...] it's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money — that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do” and this is where many charged with finding solutions to integrate into their own businesses start to become unstuck.

Most buyers are driven to find the lowest possible price for something, and this creates an artificial barometer of a solution's worthiness to any business - how much does it cost today with little regard for what it will cost their business tomorrow.

Unlike most aspects of the digital advertising industry sustainability has regulation, and this regulation is going to impact not the buyers who decide on the least-pricey solution, but rather the Board and Directors of the companies whose employees choose to put price over value.

The near- and long-term impact on a business choosing a solution based on the price of it over the value it delivers risks the very real danger of perhaps saving pennies today whilst almost certainly falling foul of either current and imminent legislation, or worse, standing accused of greenwashing themselves.

Greenwashing accusations are having a very real impact on business today - from the Press uncovering or worse, customers seeing through what some businesses are doing and boycotting firms altogether.

When deciding which solutions to suggest into business, those whose job it is would be wise to remember the words of Aldo Gucci "The bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of a cheap price is forgotten."

Feb 28, 2024