Yay! I get to write about advertising!

Let me start by saying, I really enjoyed the readings this week as they are in my field of interest and work experience. I have spent about 7 years studying and working in the advertising and research field and I am finally excited about the direction things are headed for the advertising industry. But before talking about the future, I have some thoughts on the current articles and studies. I’ll apologize in advance for the length of this blog post. ☺

Firstly, Creamer’s article is humorous to me. I wasn’t as fluent in online advertising strategies when the dotcom bubble burst, but now that I look back on it – it seems that too many people jumped on the bandwagon at one time and the content wasn’t meaningful or relevant enough for consumers….yet. The people who developed the skills needed to create advanced interactive technologies online got dumped simply because the business model didn’t work. Now that the content is innovated and meaningful, it doesn’t surprise me that agencies cannot afford to hire these specialists. I would charge a ton myself knowing that I am one of a “small” community of people capable of Flash, InDesign, and other software skills. A side note on this one – what’s with everyone jumping ship at Omnicom’s Organic? Could it be that the company still doesn’t pay you for overtime when you are working an average of 70 hours a week?

Marken’s article reminds me of a workshop I had to attend when working at Millward Brown. It was designed to help us effectively and efficiently construct emails and other forms of online communication to project teams and other departments. Emails should be short, simple, separated into short paragraphs when there is a lot of information to convey, and the use of bullets is highly recommended to organize thoughts. In regards to users’ actions online, the data is not surprising to me. I see that number for purchasing items online growing significantly over the next few years. In regards to businesses online, I loved this quote: “The Internet puts all businesses – large and small – on a competitively equal footing if it is properly and effectively used.” I completely agree with that and I will take that a bit further by saying – if you don’t have a presence online in the current market, you don’t have a chance.

This topic leads into the chapter in our book. The Internet is definitely becoming a powerhouse for revenue and commerce. Since this book was written, I’m sure these numbers are tremendously higher given the growing number of consumers becoming more comfortable with purchasing products and services online. A lot of businesses popping up on the Internet have been fortunate in that it doesn’t cost a lot of money to start, you can find the type of audience you are looking for no matter how obscure, and if you have it to sell, there is someone out there who will buy it. With that in mind, advertising will always be what helps these online centric sites survive and generate profit outside of selling goods and services.

Regarding Huang and Lin’s study on exposure to banner advertising, I am going to be extremely bold and call bull*&^% on this one. Here is why – effective advertising cannot and is not judged by the number of times someone could possibly see your advertisement. They state in this study’s findings, “the audience’s on-line banner exposure can be best analyzed by its web site visits.” After millions of dollars in online advertising research every year, brands are completely aware that just because they are present somewhere and the web site gets hundreds of thousands hits per day, it does not dictate whether or not someone actually saw your advertisement even one time visiting. In fact, that is why first party cookies have become the backbone of online research. Once someone is exposed to a test ad, the cookie attaches itself to their IP address. Then when that person is solicited to take a survey and chooses to participate that cookie is then relayed back to the data processing program along with their answers to brand equity questions. If the ad was not appealing or eye-catching, people who have an exposure cookie, meaning the ad was present on the site when they visited, do not remember it being there and definitely don’t remember what brand or product it was for. And they will “not remember” it no matter how many times it shows up in the rotation of ads. So my point would be that the term “exposure” in this study would have to mean that the ad was present, not that a consumer or visitor actually saw it.

Wu’s study is more relevant in that it is about the user/viewer’s perception of interactivity. I can relate that to advertising because “message responsiveness” determines the success or failure of advertising and it is completely about the consumer’s view of things, not the technicality of the advertisement. I do have one issue with this study and that is I wish Wu had performed analysis on more than one web site. He chose the nutritional supplement category and the category is everything when it comes to the amount of involvement the consumer wants when viewing it. Involvement and interactivity go hand-in-hand for me.

Now – on to strategy. Tim O’Brien’s article discussing the ideas of Greenberg is right on track. While the Internet can make it very easy to become too complex, the challenge for advertisers will be simplifying that so that consumers don’t overlook your message. There are too many alternative options out there now for consumers so if you screw any part of it up (by being too complex or requiring too much from the consumer) then they will move right past you to find an easier way. And, yes, a lot of consumers are “tuning out” advertising messages with the use of TiVo; however, they are interacting with brands more now than ever before even if they don’t realize it. If you surf You Tube for a little while, you will find that consumers are making their own commercials about brands they have strong feelings about, whether good or bad. That is why IMC has become a large part of an advertising plan when about 10 years back, it was a separate department or outsourced to a promotions agency.

Merwe, Pitt, and Abratt talk about the implications for Public Relations in all this innovation of advertising. Given that consumers are creating more and more of the content online, PR is experiencing a dramatic increase in unplanned messages and having to respond. I like the term “killing the physical distance” in this article because it shows how much the Internet is eliminating the gatekeepers that exist with traditional forms of media and bringing messages to everyone in the world no matter the geographic location. The result of advertising moving to personal, two-way relationships with consumers means that PR’s role becomes vital in “policing” that communication. Can you imagine the nightmare for the PR firms for Chase and Microsoft? ChaseBankSucks.com and, my personal favorite, MS-Evil: The Evil Empire are both web sites giving the consumer the voice, but a PR professional has to work with it, not against it, to be successful in the current realm of online messages.

Chrysler’s strategy in moving money from traditional media to online is one that I think many other brands will be following in the next few years. Because the research isn’t solid enough just yet to justify a significant increase in prices for online advertising placement, it is a gold mine for big brands. Television spots are extremely expensive to produce and place and are getting more expensive due to decreasing overall ad revenue for broadcast. Magazine placements are also expensive and full of clutter, probably as much as television, and we all know newspaper subscriptions are the lowest they have ever been. It simply makes sense to move ad money online. Where else can you specifically target the consumers you need to talk to, develop individual relationships with them, and generate a nice ROI when it comes to long-term brand equity? Chrysler’s strategy of being open-minded and on the edge will benefit them greatly in the grand scheme of their brand image.

Brawny, on the other hand, is wasting money…and wasting it in poor taste. I agree with Garfield’s thoughts about the brand not knowing its consumer very well. I’ll add to that by saying Brawny obviously doesn’t know enough about the purchase process for its product either. Paper towels are an extremely low involvement product. The only thing a brand can hope for in this category is to be top-of-mind or have a great shelf placement when the consumer is hurrying down the paper products aisle looking for the reasonably priced, better soaker-upper brand. Maybe a catchy slogan or memorable icon or mascot will help you out here but you are wasting money with an online television series that grocery shoppers have no interest in watching or time to even devote to what paper towel brand they will buy the next time they are at the store. About as far as I get is “Hey, that one has eight rolls and costs as much as that one with four. That’ll work.”

Nike and Google have a cool idea with the soccer social networking web site; however, I can foresee some obvious problems here, which I am sure they are aware of as well. One being that an invitation only social site is not going to give them the numbers required to make this venture worthwhile to Nike. While it may help Google get a foot in the door with social networking (in 2006), Nike will suffer in the ROI department. Their apparent solution is to start creating ones for other sports, but that means going against the new model of OpenSocial and connecting all SNS to reduce the maintenance and profile creation requirements on the part of SNS users. While it sounds cool, I don’t think it will take off and that is why they weren’t as “public” with its release as any other venture between two massive brand icons would be otherwise.

Now, after ALL that – the future of ad/pr strategies, in my opinion, is headed in the direction that Nine Inch Nails singer, Trent Reznor, and 42 Entertainment went with the marketing strategy for his new albums and tours. What an amazingly creative and engaging way to get consumers excited about your brand (because a band is brand icon as well). I had never heard of anything like this before and it reminded me of that movie, The Game, with Michael Douglas.

Point being with that example is that when consumers feel as though they have more control over exposure to advertising and the degree to which they interact with brands, advertising becomes more successful. When I teach the Media Planning chapter in the Intro to Advertising class, I use the term “Touchpoints” a lot. The industry calls it brand contacts, but it is basically the idea that advertising has to find a way to become a subtle part of a consumer’s everyday life and appear to be something chosen, not shoved down their throat. I think the movement away from traditional forms of advertising, with the exception of product placement in television programming and movies, is going to be the next major trend because it is becoming all about Integration. How can you make yourself relevant and meaningful enough to every individual you encounter to influence him or her to WANT to interact with your brand?