Advertising in Ubiquitous Environment
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Advertising in the Enviroment
Internet Advertising
The Present of Internet AdvertisingAdvertising seeks to disseminate information in order to affect a buyer-seller transaction. However, Internet advertising differs from other mediums by enabling consumers to directly interact with the advertisement. Internet use in the United States has substantially impacted the way people shop, trade stocks, manage funds, educate, and even participate in politics. A consumer can click with his or her mouse on the ad for more information, or take the next step and purchase the product in the same online session.
Internet advertising also gives advertisers the chance to accurately target an audience, enabling them to deliver ads that are customized to each user’s particular interests and tastes(Yang, 2004). Internet advertising also allows advertisers to focus on users from specific companies, SIC codes, geographical regions and nations. In addition, marketers can track how users interact with their brands and learn what is of significance to their current customers and prospects. Most importantly, an Internet ad is delivered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 31 days a month.
As existing companies struggle to maintain and expand market share and new participants enter the marketplace, the role of advertising will become more important. The need to effectively market products and services in the future will require that Internet advertising dollars be spent on more than just banner ads, leaving endless possibilities for eCommerce solutions which are based on developing and enhancing powerful symbiotic relationship between different companies and complementing web sites.
(adapted source from:Economist)
So why is Internet advertising so effective? Companies like AT&T, MCI, Sprint, Club Med, Coors Brewing, IBM, Harman International Industries, and Volvo felt the entrepreneurship and jumped into the Internet advertising adventure right away. These companies dabbled in Internet advertising and came up with what they thought was a perfect potion to cast spells on millions of Internet viewers.
So what makes an Internet advertisement good?
Also, it was accountable, because software could track which ads led to which sales. It was non-disruptive, meaning that, unlike TV and radio ads, it did not need to interrupt a viewer. It could be targeted, so that only the most likely prospective customers would see an ad, improving response rates. And it was entertainingly interactive, encouraging viewers to learn as much or as little about the products as they wanted to.
Internet Advertising MachanismTo sell goods or services, advertisement is the first step to making them available to the public. TV and newspapers are representative media that have advertising spaces for commercial purposes. The operational cost of commercial TV stations and newspaper publishing companies is covered by the advertising revenue. This makes it possible for people to receive TV programs at no charge and to subscribe to newspapers very cheaply.
Service providers on the WWW such as Yahoo!, a popular Internet directory service, prepare advertising space in their Web pages and sell this space to advertisers by the hour. The anchors (links to advertiser's Web servers) are placed on the sold small spaces, and are displayed to users as small clickable images. When they click one of the anchors, they are then connected to that advertiser's own commercial Web server.
Pitfalls of Internet Advertising
Internet advertising in its current state is better than nothing, but the cost benefit is questionable for the following reasons. Firstly, the host Web server must be very popular on the Internet. If the host is not sufficiently popular, the number of the people seeing advertisements placed on the server will be small. Secondly, the advertising host server does not usually permit a competitor company's advertisements to be displayed. For instance, Microsoft is most unlikely to advertise IBM products in their Web server. Therefore, the advertising host server should be very popular on the Internet and, at the same time, unbiased, to earn enough money from the advertising business. Network directory services and virtual shopping/business malls are possible candidates.
Also, online advertising has shown a dark side. The old cliché of the offline advertising industry is that you know half of your advertising will be wasted, but not which half. On the web the answer is only too clear: it is the half that generates the fewest clicks. As a result, advertisers increasingly insist on payment based on performance—measured either by clicks or actual customer acquisitions—rather than just ad “impressions” (viewings).
(adapted source from:economist.com/images/ 20010224/0801wb1.jpg)
In addition, if a viewer does not click on a banner ad, whose fault is it? Is it the publisher’s, for having the wrong sort of readers or poor placement, or the advertiser’s, for having a boring ad? Likewise for customer acquisition: the fact that a “click-through” does not turn into a client can mean that the viewer was the wrong sort of prospect, or that the advertiser has discouraged him with an off-putting pitch on its own site.
(adapted source from: www.iconocast.com/.../ computers124.gif )
The notion that the online ad is non-disruptive also has a sting in its tail. Banners may not interrupt reading, but they are very easy to ignore: average click-through rates have fallen to less than one in 200, half that of the early days. As a result, advertisers and web publishers are adopting increasingly disruptive devices to keep their click-throughs up. For instance, many sites now feature infuriating “pop-ups”, advertising mini-windows that open on their own and will not go away until a viewer manually closes them.
If web ads were entertaining, the fact that they are increasingly distracting would be all right. But few go beyond crude slide shows, or just single slides. The blame for this lies mostly with the advertisers themselves. Getting Internet advertising right means creating lots of different, interactive ads that can be tested against each other and refined with up-to-the-minute monitoring of responses. That takes lots of money, time and effort. Yet the Internet market is not yet large enough for most advertisers to justify the expense. Five of the world’s top ten advertisers, which collectively spend billions of dollars each year on traditional advertising, spent less than $1m each last year on online ads.
New Framd of Internet Advertising
Internetadvertising proposes a new advertising framework on the World Wide Web. An advertising agent is placed between the advertisers and the users. Advertisements fetched from advertisers' Web servers are merged with Web pages from ordinary Web servers by the agent, and the merged pages are displayed on the users' Web browser. Thus, the users see advertisements on any server around on the Internet. Moreover the agent has chances to deliver appropriate advertisements which suit each user's taste. This is a move away from the current state of advertising on the internet and will make the advertising business on the internet really ubiquitous.
Kinds of Internet Advertising
- Banner or Rich Media Advertising
Graphical and interactive, these ads come in a variety of sizes. Some are static but more often than not, the ads are animated and can even include sound. More advanced rich media ads actually spawn additional 'mini-web' functionality to include the actual purchase of the advertised product.
- Keyword Advertising
Keyword advertising typically takes place on search engines, portals, and directories where a sizable amount of content and visitor traffic exists. Using the search function, a visitor searches for a keyword or key phrase. When web sites that match the search are returned, they are accompanied by ads purchased by companies with offerings relative to the search term. These ads can appear in the form of a 'preferred' or top ranking search listing, a sponsored listing (one that is highlighted), or even a banner advertisement. A variety of sales models are available including pay-per-click and pay-for-inclusion.
- Sponsorship Advertising
Sponsorship ads can appear in a number of online mediums. From 'premium' web content pages, to 'advetorials' (combination of an advertisement and an editorial) on trade web sites, to specific graphic and text blurbs on digital newsletters and magazines. Because sponsorship ads often help offset the cost producing the content, they are often a good value for the advertiser.
- Auction & Classified Advertising
Similar to keyword advertising, targeted ads can be placed within specific auction and classified web site content.
- Directory & Portal Advertising
Advertising on directories and portals (topic specific content) comes in a variety of offerings. Banners are offered in a number of sizes from micro-buttons to half banners, full banners, tower boards, leader boards, and skyscrapers (see the specification at the Interactive Advertising Bureau Association). Where search capabilities exist, keyword advertising is also frequently available (see above definition).
- Affiliate Advertising
Affiliate advertising utilizes a network of resellers to promote your offering. This advertising usually works in conjunction with your e-commerce system and a system for tracking affiliate sales. Typically, affiliates promote your products or services with either banner ads or text ads on their own web sites. The banners have a special link associated with them that tracks the affiliate's identifications whenever visitors click them. This special link ensures that the affiliate is credited with the sale for commissioning purposes.
- Multimedia Advertising
This form of advertising also comes in a variety of forms. The term multimedia implies animated graphics and/or video and audio. These ads can also conform to banner specifications or can come in the form of pop-up ads. Frequently, these ads implement advanced 'micro-web' functionality that allows the consumer to actually purchase the product directly from the ad itself. Multimedia advertising can also come in the form of viral ads and email direct mailers, to robust product catalogs.
- Viral Advertising
Viral advertising is a unique and often effective means of 'spreading' your message. Utilizing a highly creative approach such as a game, quiz, or multimedia design, viral ads propagate themselves through email 'word-of-mouth' referrals. This approach relies on a highly creative approach to ensure the message is passed-on to friends and colleagues.
- 'Advetorial' Advertising
When crafted properly, advetorial ads combine advertising and informative content, often appearing to be "just another article". These ads attempt to educate and inform while directing the viewer to 'helpful resources' (i.e., your web site). Advetorials typically are found on industry specific web sites and online versions of printed magazines.
- Pop-up, Pop-over & Pop-under Advertising
Pop ads can appear in their own window or as another layer of an existing web page (a good way to get around pop-up blockers). Ads can pop-up above or below the current web page only to be found when the current window is closed. The ads can conform to industry standard banner sizes or not. They can be static or animated and can offer a simple link to 'micro-site' functionality.The Future of Internet Advertising
Despite all this, the long-term future of web advertising is promising. The problem is not that the underlying theories are wrong, but that the necessary ingredients have not yet come together to make them work. Gradually, this will change. As the dotcom advertisers go away, they tend to be replaced by bricks-and-mortar firms, many of which are among the world’s largest offline advertisers. Since these firms tend to understand the value of building brands, and worry less about seeing measurable results in the short term, their arrival may move the top end of the online market closer to traditional advertising models.
