Advertising Age last week devoted its entire issue to digital media, an unusual move for the weekly. Editor Jonah Bloom, in a note to readers, underscored the significance by reminding us that they usually do only two single-subject editions, like the Year in Review during the slow-news period between Christmas and New Year's.
An article by Matthew Creamer is worthy of note, I think, in this noteworthy issue. Titled "Think different: The web's not a place to stick your ads," it challenges traditional thinking about online ads.
Has web advertising moved beyond simply banners and click-throughs? Of
course it has. But how effective is it, really, as an ad medium? That's the million-dollar question.
A key difference between the web and other media is that the user controls it. Other media program their space and we, as users, have the simple choice to change the channel, turn the page or shut the TV off altogether. But users determine what they see online, even within the same site or channel.
Jakob Nielsen, an expert in user behavior who advises major companies on their corporate websites, long ago said, "The basic point about the web is that it is not an advertising medium. It is not a selling medium, but a buying medium. It is user-controlled so the user controls the user experience."
Before DVRs, you pretty much had to watch the ads during a show. Remote controls made it easy to avoid ads way before DVRs, although it's common knowledge that channel surfing has led to man a spat between husbands and wives.
But the web is a whole different story, where it's easy to totally ignore ads. Even those that try to engage you by some sort of an on-screen game, like a web version of the shooting gallery game where you try to hit the marching ducks, might catch you for a few minutes. But will it get you to actually read the ad or click through for the real sales pitch? Very unlikely.
The article talks about paid media vs. earned media, getting into public relations jargon. What they're saying is a message that is part of the editorial content has a better chance of being read and responded to. That's one of the selling points we p.r. folks use on why public relations/publicity messages can have more clout than much more costly ad messages.
The article talks about Johnson & Johnson, whose BabyCenter website is cited as a good way to use the web to get a sales message across. The site is chock full of parenting information, like a magazine, with the J&J branding clear yet subtle and not interfering at all with the user experience.
Banner ads on someone else's site probably don't have the same impact as the overall impression and selling opportunities created by that site.
Nielsen says, "Most of the time, when I go to the web, I go to get something done, and I don't want to be distracted."
In other words, a traditional ad probably won't get noticed. So why pay for it? The challenge is to create something -- content -- that people want, where your message or product information can be subtly and logically included.
That's quite a challenge. But I'm confident we're up to it.
The reasons companies are so drawn to online ads is because as a process, it's easily scalable and measurable, and institutions exist to quickly change and try different things, relatively inexpensively.
The cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) is so low that it can sometimes make a great deal of sense, even with a .14% click-through rate (It is very, as you say, easy to ignore the ads). The tools for tracking online advertising effectiveness are getting pretty sophisticated -- and they are getting more sophisticated.
By contrast, building brand awareness and loyalty through a comprehensive content strategy is much slower, more risky, and difficult.
Though as you (correctly, I think) point out, it's the way things need to be, it understandably stirs fear in CMOs who have a job expectancy of two years or less, when the strategy is going to have to build results over a much longer period of time to justify the investment, in many cases.
Posted by: Cam Beck | March 25, 2008 at 05:54 PM
Thanks for the explanation, Cam. I agree that with such a low CPM, it can make sense to do online ads, even with the low clock-through.
The fact that many CMOs fear anything that doesn't bring a fast return points up a long-standing problem in American business. Too many business leaders live for quarter-to-quarter results, and take action based on short term rather than long term, even though some long term marketing activities can be better for the company over time. Executives don't want to wait, because their success is too often based on the short term. That's a problem advertising and marketing canb't fix,unfortunately.
Posted by: David Reich | March 25, 2008 at 06:39 PM
Online ads and sponsored links can be better measured for particular actions than offline media, but they won't necessarily perform better. The distribution model is simply different.
One particular thing that has improved is the degree of ad relevance to the viewer; however this is largely dependent on where the visitor originally came from and if there's any tracking data available - from previous visits or cookies. Whether or not companies take advantage of this relevance-ability is another matter altogether.
10 years ago, the web really wasn't friendly to video. By now, traditional tv ads can be effectively transferred to online channels. But just because viewers are now on a computer, doesn't mean they'll even slightly act on ads. They'll simply act just like they're watching tv. BUT, if the ad is really enticing (like for an amusement item like film trailers, video games, some high-tech, fancy car) the propensity to act will be higher in comparison to other product/service ads.
Nonetheless, ads are ads, and folks are well versed in selective attention patterns and auto-blinders. The best hope for ads online is to increase relevance to viewers and move away creating what people would perceive as ad-like.
Posted by: Mario Vellandi | March 25, 2008 at 11:41 PM