So what's the future of web advertising?
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Despite chest pounding by the big advertising firms, all appearances are that on-line advertising is having a pretty major meltdown. Companies like Engage have laid off large numbers of staff, rates are falling and there is a general cooling in attitudes about the way people feel about web ads. As viewers, I think we'd all like to see advertising go away, but like advertising on television, in newspapers and in other media I also think we realize that it's a necessary evil. Personally, I don't mind well targeted, appropriate and on-topic ads. I find them interesting. If Microsoft releases a new computerphone, I'm interested, if there's a new version of TrueTime, I'm interested in that too. What do you guys think? Are the on-line ad companies going to take a bath? (I'd sure love to see rates fall dramatically lower!
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Despite chest pounding by the big advertising firms, all appearances are that on-line advertising is having a pretty major meltdown. Companies like Engage have laid off large numbers of staff, rates are falling and there is a general cooling in attitudes about the way people feel about web ads. As viewers, I think we'd all like to see advertising go away, but like advertising on television, in newspapers and in other media I also think we realize that it's a necessary evil. Personally, I don't mind well targeted, appropriate and on-topic ads. I find them interesting. If Microsoft releases a new computerphone, I'm interested, if there's a new version of TrueTime, I'm interested in that too. What do you guys think? Are the on-line ad companies going to take a bath? (I'd sure love to see rates fall dramatically lower!
One interesting difference to note between television advertising and online advertising is that online advertising tracks who actually CARES about an advertisement. With television advertising, the Neilson box shows what channel was on at what time, not that everybody in the room got up to go to the kitchen or has already fallen asleep.
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One interesting difference to note between television advertising and online advertising is that online advertising tracks who actually CARES about an advertisement. With television advertising, the Neilson box shows what channel was on at what time, not that everybody in the room got up to go to the kitchen or has already fallen asleep.
True, fundamentally web advertising offers the promise of providing exactly the right ad, at exactly the right time, which would theoretically be ideal for everyone. TV ads have matured, and the big decisions have been made there. On the web however, I think we still have much to learn. Do people really look at banner ads? I'm skeptical (as both an advertiser and as a web user). I think more fundamental sponsorships (like the cigarette industry and golf for example) make more sense, or offerings like Google.com where advertisers listing are integrated into the search results. Google's success seems to indicate that users don't find this bias in search results offensive.
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True, fundamentally web advertising offers the promise of providing exactly the right ad, at exactly the right time, which would theoretically be ideal for everyone. TV ads have matured, and the big decisions have been made there. On the web however, I think we still have much to learn. Do people really look at banner ads? I'm skeptical (as both an advertiser and as a web user). I think more fundamental sponsorships (like the cigarette industry and golf for example) make more sense, or offerings like Google.com where advertisers listing are integrated into the search results. Google's success seems to indicate that users don't find this bias in search results offensive.
I find ads on web pages (and elsewhere) intrusive and offensive. Thus I run an ad blocker and never have to see the crap. :) Google's way of advertising is to have a "sponsored link" at the top of the list of hits, which is easily ignored. In fact, I did a Google search not 5 minutes ago, and I reflexively started reading at the second hit, skipping right over the advertiser link. At least that way is better than what some other site was doing. (I saw this a long time ago, so I forget which site it was.) You'd have a list of hits about, say cats, and the first 5 would be relevant, and the 6th "hit" would be "Go to SomeBookStore.com". IOW, total crap thrown in the middle of the search results
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True, fundamentally web advertising offers the promise of providing exactly the right ad, at exactly the right time, which would theoretically be ideal for everyone. TV ads have matured, and the big decisions have been made there. On the web however, I think we still have much to learn. Do people really look at banner ads? I'm skeptical (as both an advertiser and as a web user). I think more fundamental sponsorships (like the cigarette industry and golf for example) make more sense, or offerings like Google.com where advertisers listing are integrated into the search results. Google's success seems to indicate that users don't find this bias in search results offensive.
I know I don't look at banner ads. The only time I have seen web advertising work in any sense is on launch.com when I selected a music video. They play a quick 8 second ad up front before the video comes on. That, in my opinion, is the only way to guarantee that anyone looks at an ad. (And what do you know, it's based on TV!) The future of Web advertising may just be the same ol' crap we're used to already. Brando
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I know I don't look at banner ads. The only time I have seen web advertising work in any sense is on launch.com when I selected a music video. They play a quick 8 second ad up front before the video comes on. That, in my opinion, is the only way to guarantee that anyone looks at an ad. (And what do you know, it's based on TV!) The future of Web advertising may just be the same ol' crap we're used to already. Brando
I have to agree with you Brandon, But where they are more powerful is you have to watch the darn thing and you can't even flick between channel whilst the Darn ADD is playing. Regardz
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Despite chest pounding by the big advertising firms, all appearances are that on-line advertising is having a pretty major meltdown. Companies like Engage have laid off large numbers of staff, rates are falling and there is a general cooling in attitudes about the way people feel about web ads. As viewers, I think we'd all like to see advertising go away, but like advertising on television, in newspapers and in other media I also think we realize that it's a necessary evil. Personally, I don't mind well targeted, appropriate and on-topic ads. I find them interesting. If Microsoft releases a new computerphone, I'm interested, if there's a new version of TrueTime, I'm interested in that too. What do you guys think? Are the on-line ad companies going to take a bath? (I'd sure love to see rates fall dramatically lower!
Dave-- This is a great question. By the way... total web advertising dollars spent is going to exceed $5B this year, which is more than both TV and Radio saw in its first 5 years. And it is also still growing at a nice clip. But TV and radio are passive mediums which can mix passive advertising content with passive "entertainment." That model doesn't work on the web because the bandwidth and technology constraints don't allows totally "passive viewing" like you get on radio and TV. In the golden years of TV, you had a new medium, and 90 million attentive viewers tuning into 3 networks. Those are ideal conditions for growing a new "brand." But people who think they can grow a "brand" on a million channel, low bandwidth interactive medium like the Web are dreaming. Besides Yahoo (still a question mark), Amazon (fading fast), and eBay (never going to make big dollars)... no one has come close to building a big brand on the web through web advertising. We don't live in the age of the "Brand" anymore. That's yesterday's news. Today we live in the age of "Personality." It's the personality that is key today. Personality and positioning are the motherlode. So I think web dollars spent to make a personality, rather than build a brand, are dollars well spent. Oprah has a perfect 11-0 record on the last 11 books she has recommended in terms of making the NYT bestseller list. When information overload overwhelms us we look for a personality we can trust to help us make "decisions"... commercial and otherwise. A really interesting question would be has anyone spent web advertising dollars intelligently enough to build a commercially valuable "personality" on the web? I can't say that anyone comes to mind. Certaintly "personality" isn't the whole story in terms of commercially successful products in the IT world, but I think it is going to become more and more important in the years to come. The other thing that is holding back web advertising is that it doesn't have any home runs yet in terms of "making" an important commercial product. My point is that the home run will probably come through "personality" building and not "brand" building. Personality dovetails nicely with the "interactive" nature of the web. Time will tell... John
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Dave-- This is a great question. By the way... total web advertising dollars spent is going to exceed $5B this year, which is more than both TV and Radio saw in its first 5 years. And it is also still growing at a nice clip. But TV and radio are passive mediums which can mix passive advertising content with passive "entertainment." That model doesn't work on the web because the bandwidth and technology constraints don't allows totally "passive viewing" like you get on radio and TV. In the golden years of TV, you had a new medium, and 90 million attentive viewers tuning into 3 networks. Those are ideal conditions for growing a new "brand." But people who think they can grow a "brand" on a million channel, low bandwidth interactive medium like the Web are dreaming. Besides Yahoo (still a question mark), Amazon (fading fast), and eBay (never going to make big dollars)... no one has come close to building a big brand on the web through web advertising. We don't live in the age of the "Brand" anymore. That's yesterday's news. Today we live in the age of "Personality." It's the personality that is key today. Personality and positioning are the motherlode. So I think web dollars spent to make a personality, rather than build a brand, are dollars well spent. Oprah has a perfect 11-0 record on the last 11 books she has recommended in terms of making the NYT bestseller list. When information overload overwhelms us we look for a personality we can trust to help us make "decisions"... commercial and otherwise. A really interesting question would be has anyone spent web advertising dollars intelligently enough to build a commercially valuable "personality" on the web? I can't say that anyone comes to mind. Certaintly "personality" isn't the whole story in terms of commercially successful products in the IT world, but I think it is going to become more and more important in the years to come. The other thing that is holding back web advertising is that it doesn't have any home runs yet in terms of "making" an important commercial product. My point is that the home run will probably come through "personality" building and not "brand" building. Personality dovetails nicely with the "interactive" nature of the web. Time will tell... John
Interesting points, but I must disagree. In a homogeneous web, where barriers to entry are low and there are lots of companies providing similar products and services, the only differentiation is going to be on brand. If you have a choice of buying a book from Amazon.com or from MySmallBookshop.com, which one will you choose? As for Oprah, I would say that her personality is her 'brand'
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Dave-- This is a great question. By the way... total web advertising dollars spent is going to exceed $5B this year, which is more than both TV and Radio saw in its first 5 years. And it is also still growing at a nice clip. But TV and radio are passive mediums which can mix passive advertising content with passive "entertainment." That model doesn't work on the web because the bandwidth and technology constraints don't allows totally "passive viewing" like you get on radio and TV. In the golden years of TV, you had a new medium, and 90 million attentive viewers tuning into 3 networks. Those are ideal conditions for growing a new "brand." But people who think they can grow a "brand" on a million channel, low bandwidth interactive medium like the Web are dreaming. Besides Yahoo (still a question mark), Amazon (fading fast), and eBay (never going to make big dollars)... no one has come close to building a big brand on the web through web advertising. We don't live in the age of the "Brand" anymore. That's yesterday's news. Today we live in the age of "Personality." It's the personality that is key today. Personality and positioning are the motherlode. So I think web dollars spent to make a personality, rather than build a brand, are dollars well spent. Oprah has a perfect 11-0 record on the last 11 books she has recommended in terms of making the NYT bestseller list. When information overload overwhelms us we look for a personality we can trust to help us make "decisions"... commercial and otherwise. A really interesting question would be has anyone spent web advertising dollars intelligently enough to build a commercially valuable "personality" on the web? I can't say that anyone comes to mind. Certaintly "personality" isn't the whole story in terms of commercially successful products in the IT world, but I think it is going to become more and more important in the years to come. The other thing that is holding back web advertising is that it doesn't have any home runs yet in terms of "making" an important commercial product. My point is that the home run will probably come through "personality" building and not "brand" building. Personality dovetails nicely with the "interactive" nature of the web. Time will tell... John
Hmmm, lots to think about. It's interesting that you mention a "personality" I think you're bang-on with that. Yahoo was successful because "someone" sifted through all the crap and put everything into some kind of order that made sense, and actually tried to separate the valuable stuff from the garbage. In the IT world, books and magazines are very hesitant to do product reviews or endorse products because they favor one advertiser over another, despite the fact that product reviews are very well received statistically by readers. Although I find this whole issue intellectually stimulating, everyone knows (I think) that I'm also quite interested in finding the best ways to get our product information in the hands of the people who need it, in a timely and valuable way. Banner ads do work, but the net just screams for something better, way better, for both viewers and advertisers alike.
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Interesting points, but I must disagree. In a homogeneous web, where barriers to entry are low and there are lots of companies providing similar products and services, the only differentiation is going to be on brand. If you have a choice of buying a book from Amazon.com or from MySmallBookshop.com, which one will you choose? As for Oprah, I would say that her personality is her 'brand'
Abizern Point granted. Of all the billions spent on hundreds of thousands of web sites, Amazon did manage to build a bit of a brand in the online book business... but I don't think it is sustainable. Amazon was first, has plowed through hundreds of millions in losses, and got the benfit of huge prolonged journalistic exposure. But now Amazon is into everything and they are squandering their book "brand." But my point is that the web is not the medium to build a "brand." If "Survivor" proved nothing else it proved the incredible fascination and drawing power of "personality." Survivor the "brand" is not worth anything, if the second round has no "personality" to engage us it will be a big wash out. To stick to my point, I think that web advertising dollars spent to establish a personality would probably work better than trying to establish brand equity. And because I want to "interact" when I am on the web, I think that web advertsing will really start to pay off when the ad is dynamically generated on the fly and specifically targeted to me... with all of my quirks, preferences, interests, and temptations. That gives me an incentive to "interact with it," which is what the web is all about. I think people that are trying to bring "rich media" to the web, in order to mimic TV advertising, had better go back and read McLuhan again... that's not what this medium is all about. John