RE: Why online advertising sucks

From: Robert Knight <rKnight_at_corp.RU4.COM>
Date: Wed 14 Mar 2001 18:02:32 -0600

GERI STUNZ KONSTANTIN <geri_at_virtualadv.com> WROTE:

> 4) There is no credible ad delivery system online.
>
> 5) There is no advertising consistency online. It is
> not easy to specify "drive times"' to advertise
> online.

I have to respectfully disagree with your assessment of
the Online space. There most certainly are "credible"
delivery systems today, systems which deliver the
desired ad to the desired viewer 99% of the time. Sure,
there are still publishers who are unable to self-serve
their ad content, thereby resulting in the occasional
site with a blank ad depending on the browser version
you are using. But let's face it, you get what you pay
for. If you want your ad content to reach 99% of
Internet users then use a real third-party ad server who
is in the business of delivering ads not publishing
content. Our company provides just such high-quality
third-party serving. We carefully test ad tags across
every version of both Netscape and IE before publishing
tags so that we can be 99.9% sure that every viewer who
visits the site will see the ad. That's our business
and we guarantee our performance.

Furthermore, with technology like ours, advertisers can
in fact serve highly targeted content. Honda can show
current available inventory and pricing from your local
dealership. That's right; we can combine current car
dealership database information with a viewer's location
(based on anonymous IP address mapping) in real-time to
produce a highly targeted ad just for you. In fact, we
can do pretty much any kind of targeting you can imagine.

> 9) Other advertising media work fine. So why risk loss
> of market share & a client?

Again, I don't agree. Other ad media may work "fine",
but advertisers rarely have a sense of specifically how
well a campaign performs. With real-time performance
measurement, post-click analysis and/or latent-click
analysis, advertisers today can understand much more
thoroughly which ads actually work and when. Clearly
the available data is under-utilized today, but at least
in the online space the data is available. I think the
real risk for offline advertisers today is not opening up
to the online medium. Ignoring a medium which is quickly
approaching 10% of all advertising spending is a much
surer way to lose clients. And lack of knowledge or
inability to use computers cannot be an acceptable
excuse! Partner with someone who understands the space
or hire competent people.

> 10) Costs are unreasonable, placement difficult, results
> too hard to prove.

An excellent study completed by the interactive agency
Exile on 7th provides data on the cost of online campaigns
versus offline campaigns across print, TV and radio and
concludes that in most cases, online campaigns cost less.
See http://www.exileonseventh.com/AAAA/index04.html
(note: our company has no affiliation with Exile on 7th).

All signs point to a future in which online advertising
holds a more and more important role. Sure, the ride will
have some bumps along the way, but when we get where were
going, it'll all have been worth it.

Best regards,

Robert Knight, ru4, Inc. (www.ru4.com)
Director, Finance & Operations
435 Hudson Street, Floor 7 / New York, NY 10014
phone 212.741.4222 / fax 212.741.4224
email: rknight_at_corp.ru4.com <mailto: rknight_at_corp.ru4.com>



Received on Wed Mar 14 2001 - 18:02:32 CST