1. Internet/WWW as Ad media

Advantages

:: Advertisers' Perspective : Advertisers are finding that they can use the Web's interactive properties for their advantages. By using demographic data and learning from customers' comments, advertising campaigns can be effectively customized to targeted audiences who are changing along with new media (Kaye & Medoff, 2001).

• Worldwide Marketplace: The Internet and WWW serve as a worldwide market place that deliver a vast and diverse audience to advertisers.
• Targeting Consumers : Advertisers are sending their messages by posting ads on several sites and e-mailing product announcements to interested customers. The Web's potential to reach a specific group of customers online has spurred several advertisers to develop proprietary software to deliver targeted advertising to customers based on their demographic and psycholographic profiles.
• Exposure and Run Time : Web advertisements have longer exposure and run times than TV commercials. Web advertisements can be posted more visibly, accessed any time, and be printed. They can also be text-based or be more dynamic with graphics and audio/video presentation.
• Production Cost : Web advertisements are generally less expensive to product than TV commercials, and the longer exposure and run time makes them even more cost efficient.
• Updating and Changing Ad Copy : Updating and changing the copy and graphics can be accomplished much more quickly and easily with online advertisements than TV commercials.
• Competition : The prestige of online advertising casts a positive image on advertisers and helps new and smaller business compete with larger, more established companies because of the comparatively low cost of online advertising. The Web closes the gap between large and small enterprises by placing them in the same competitive arena.

:: Consumers' Perspective : Web users benefit from online advertising in many respects, too. Convenience is presumably the most significant benefit. Almost-two-thirds products shoppers name conveniences as the number one reason for purchasing products on the Web. Other reason for online shopping include easy browsing, product researching, and purchasing, as well as pure fun and the novelty of the experience (Kaye & Medoff, 2001).

• Access to Information : When customers are online, they have access to information that may be difficult to obtain by other means. Online information is available immediately, 24 hours a day.
• Relevant Information : The Web's ability to target an audience results in customer exposure to online advertising that is relevant to their needs and desires. Customers may be transmitted banner ads that have been targeted to them based on their demographic data or by the keywords they used when searching the Web (see left banner ads on online Teen People magazine, targeting young market).
• Flexibility : Online advertisements can be quickly revised to reflect new audience interests and attitudes as well as other changes in the marketplace. Online advertisements are not as constrained by long times and expensive production cost as are those in TV so they can be customized for the audience, and consumers know they are being delivered the latest promotions.
• Quick Link to Purchases : Consumers can easily make purchase by simply clicking in a banner ad and following the trail of link to an online order form. In many cases, newer interactive banner allow purchases to be transacted directly from the banner without having to click through a product Web site.

Disadvantages

• Consumer's Choice : "Although online advertisements, such as banner ads, intrude on computer screens, the persuasive elements are often at least one click away. Consumers must be interested in the product and must click on the banner before being exposed to the sales message" (Kaye & Medoff, 2001, p.24).
• Low Creativity : Banner ads are still at the low level in technology even though they are becoming sophisticated. Low creativity of banner ads may limit their effect to the effect degree of billboard advertisements.
• Audience Measurement : Inadequate audience measurement techniques limit advertisers to understand who are their target consumers, how many users are on the Web, and how consumer segmentation should be applied in planning.

2. Kinds of Internet/WWW Ad

• Banner Ads : The most common form of online advertising, banners can be found all types of Web sites with many forms. "Plain old banners have gotten a bad rap for being too boring and unattractive and for doing nothing to build sales or audience. In response, advertisers and industry experts have closely scrutinized the performance of banners and found the even modest banner campaign can significantly boost their audience size" (Kaye & Medoff, 2001,p.36).
• Pop-up Ads : They pop-up on users' screen unexpectedly. Interstitials pop-up ads appears in between pages or sites, popping up in a separate browser window that almost completely covers the screen and appears for several seconds until a site or page is fully downloaded: Superstitials, developed by the Unicast Corporation , are often referred to as 'polite' ads because they only play when intimated (such as by clicking the mouse) by users and only when fully downloaded (Kaye & Medoff, 2001); Extramercials : "Extramercials, developed by ZDNet to gives its advertisers more space to promote their products and services., is a three-inch space to the right of the screen they is usually not visible unless users scroll sideways or their monitor resolution is sized at 832 x 624 or smaller" (Kaye & Medoff, 2001, p.41).
• Video Banners (v-banners): They contain a video clip and thus tend to click on more frequently then nonvideo banners (example).
• Webmercials : As new wave of online advertising, they show TV-quality video promotion lasting from about 5-30 seconds (example).

3. Internet Users as Ad Consumers

Internet users are different from general customers on in that they own or use computer. Internet/WWW users are mostly highly educated, young, male people, and of whom 63 percent have over $ 35,000 as their annual incomes. Women are fast-growing group.

Figure. Demographic of Internet/WWW Users

Source: Merkowitz. E. N. (et al.). (2000). Marketing. Irwin-McGraw-Hill. p.209

SRI Consulting Business Intelligence has identified 10 distinct Internet/Web user profiles, called iVALS segments, which illustrate how diverse Internet/Web users can be along two dimensions: how heavily and enthusiastically they use the Internet and the reason for usage.

• Wizard: As the most active and skilled Internet/Web users, they possess sophisticated technical skills. Mostly male, relatively young, and active online consumers.
• Immigrants: Skeptical of the Internet, they use it if forced to do so at school or at work. Limited technological skills and the least promising online consumers.
• Pioneers and Surfers: Accreted to recreational possibilities of the Internet, they visit Web sites for the enjoyment of seeing what's there. Good prospect for online buying.
• Socialites & Sociable : The youngest Internet users. Heavy users of chat rooms and online communities.
• Workers and Seekers: Using the Internet as a professional tool, they seek the Internet as a source of information and research. Usually upscale and professional males.
• Upstreamers and Mainstreamers: Both are generalists in that they use the Internet for a combination of personal and professional reasons. Upstreamers is much closer to Wizard than mainstreamers.

"The current demographics reveal that there are nearly forty million on the Internet. Of the forty million on the Internet, the statistics reveals that nearly twenty million have access to the WWW "(Shiva, 1997, p.12).