re: Advertising Trends

From: Jan Olde Loohuis <sales_at_dan.nl>
Date: Mon, 19 Jul 1999 02:42:08 -0500 (CDT)

RUUD SJOERDSMA WROTE:
>I would like to know what members on this list think are
>going to be the most important advertising trends for the
>next 5 years, online and offline.

Although I agree with our moderator in his perception that
it's even hard to predict the online advertising future for
5 months let alone 5 years, I'll try to state my vision on
the online adworld for the next year.

I think the decrease in traditional banner ad
attention/spending will continue. Clickthrough rates are
still lowering while also the average CPM decreases. This
way, both players in the preferable ultimate win-win
situation get less worth for their money/space. Both sellers
and buyers of adspace will have to find a way to
stabilise/increase their ROI.

Solutions ? I've come up with a combination of several
online advertising methods that I'll explain.

Sponsored Interactive experience-branding super-ads: a mouth
full of buzzwords. The tradition online ad, be it a button
or a banner, animated or html, is *static*. In fact, these
online ads do not differ from ads in paper. You say the
user can/does interact with the ad by clicking on it and
going to a website ? Yeah right, 2.5 per 1000...., the
other watchers're still static.

A step further is the interactive experience associated with
a certain brand/corp. The user can directly interact with
the ad itself, the ad carries the message, or rather; the
experience; the website is only the final destination, not
the starting point of the experience. This ad can be used
for (a combination of) three elements: selling products,
selling or providing (instant) information, or branding.

How to do this ? Supposedly, when the time's right (read:
when there's enough bandwidth), the ads will come streaming
into your browser. For now, I think we only have DHTML,
Flash and Java, which are sufficiently supported by todays
browsers. Streaming ads, be it Enliven, Realmedia or
Bluestreaks E*Banner are yet not widely enough supported,
nor by the Internet users, nor by the sites selling adspace.

But hey, can these sort of ads be integrated within a
webpage ? It *could* technically be possible, but I'd
recommend another method. Packing links to the super-ads
within related/editorial content. On our website, we have
editorial content that is of interest to our visitor. In our
case, we're a niche searchengine/cultural agenda, we have
linked content on subjects as art, films, expositions and
(music-)festivals. Response to/CTR of these editorials is
about forty times higher than on traditional ads, some 10%.

With these super-ads, many elements of a website like
e-commerce, branding or direct email purposes can be
integrated within one element. When respons on the linked
content drops, you can simply put in other content
stressing another element of the super-ad.

Finally, the first word of the mouth full of buzz:
Sponsored. As I stated in the example of our own website,
linked (editorial) content must be of interest to the
average visitor. Why do sponsors sponsor ? One of the
reasons is because they think/feel their business/vision is
related to the sponsored activity. People interested in the
sponsored activity (be it a sportsevent or, in our case, a
website) will probably be more susceptible to the message
(*experience*) of the sponsor.

The win-win situation is there again: the advertiser gets a
targeted interacting audience while the website offers it's
visitors an extra experience and receives the money.

Of course this is only one method of online advertising,
many others will be useful too, but I predict this kind of
sponsored interactive experiences will gain marketshare.


Regards,

Jan Olde Loohuis
sales_at_dan.nl
De Agenda van Nederland - http://www.dan.nl
Dutch Culture presented Online
tel: (+31) 30-2544519
fax: (+31) 30-2543424


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Received on Mon Jul 19 1999 - 07:33:08 CDT