NONE: ONLINE-ADS>> A web "publishing" analogy
ONLINE-ADS>> A web "publishing" analogy
Peter Bull (peterb_at_dvp.com.au)
Tue, 2 Dec 1997 00:26:41 +1100
Here's an analogy that may help you all better to understand the argument
that has been my primary thesis over the last couple of weeks, because
judging from the mail I have received, I have still not communicated this
with crystal clarity.
Australians are great travellers. Wherever you go in the world today, city
centre or remotest wilderness, you'll hear English spoken with a "Strine"
accent, but in fact Australians make up less than three per cent of the
world's tourists.
If I had a tourist-oriented global business, I would want to talk to
tourists, any tourists, and it wouldn't matter where I put my ads as long
as it was a tourist type place, because a tourist is a tourist.
But if I am an Australian tourist-oriented business and I want to talk only
to Aussie tourists, and I'd like to get to as many of them as I can, where
then would I put my ads? In every
hotel/motel/resort/hostel/cathedral/zoo/museum/art gallery/theme park
destination in the entire world, hoping that all the Aussie tourists will
eventually stroll past them one day? Be serious. Or would I prefer to put
my ads inside Australian travel agencies, where almost every Australian
tourist begins their journey? There's no telling where they end up, but
nearly all them will start their journey in the same place.
The web is like that. Thousands and thousands of content sites are seen by
people all over the world every day, and these visitors flit about at
random visiting all kinds of weird and wonderful websites. Anybody with a
web connection could be visiting anywhere in the world at any time (and
also mostly being shown ads that mean diddly-squat to them). If I want to
target my local web surfers, where should I put my ads? Should I try to
guess their most likely destination, or perhaps I'll advertise
simultaneously in all the websites in the world? Be serious. Or would I
rather get to them through the ISP who puts them onto the Internet in the
first place?
Buying space in any one website doesn't make sense to me, and even a
website that is chock full of local content is likely to be only marginally
better. Going one step up the ladder and buying the space next to where
ALL my local surfers start their virtual journey, next to where all the
websites in the world get displayed, seems like a much better deal to a
local business advertiser like me.
Peter Bull
Director, DVP Media Pty Ltd, Brisbane, Australia
peterb_at_dvp.com.au
For samples of DVP's most recent work, see:
The world's best online wine store - www.thegrape.com.au
Australian Provincial Newspapers Classifieds - www.checkoutclassifieds.com.au
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