The Online Advertising Discussion List Archives

Online Advertising Discussion List -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- List Moderator: Supported by: Kevin Fadden InterEdge kfad_at_interedge.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- May 21, 1996 Digest#0039 -------------------------------------------------------------------- ******************************************************************** This week's sponsor: -------------------------------------------------------------------- DirectChoice - One-to-one marketing on the Web. Everyone likes to be treated like an individual. Especially on the Web. Now they can with DirectChoice relationship marketing software. Download a 30 day free evaluation copy or request one by email. ******************************************************************** In this Digest... NEW ------- "Moderator's Comment" ~ Kevin Fadden CONTINUING ------- "Trade Shows" ~ Bob Hanna ~ John Sanders ~ Nikki Murphy "Re: Fast Forward" ~ Robert Raisch, The Internet Company ~ M. Wolf PERSONAL INTRODUCTIONS ------- REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION ------- BANNER SWAP MEET ------- Look here for a *short* listing of sites that are looking to swap ad banners with each other, you, and everyone else. ***************** NEW ***************** -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: kfad_at_interedge.com (Kevin Fadden) Subject: Moderator's Comment My apologies to those on the list that were sent DIGEST #0038 twice. I really don't what happened, and when I caught it, it had probably already gone out to more then half of the list. Peace, - Kevin Fadden -------------------------------------------------------------------- ***************** CONTINUING ***************** -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Bob Hanna" Subject: Trade Shows Kevin, I've been to more trade shows than I care to remember...as both an exhibitor and a visitor. Trust me...many exhibitors have a pretty low opinion of the value of these affairs, too. We used to refer to the way we felt after four days of dealing with stupid questions, rude comments, too little sleep and too many parties as "show coma". And I can recall being told more than once that the only reason a company spent the money to be at a show was because their competition was there. They felt that it would "look bad" if they didn't show up as well. But these shows do offer a way of getting your message out to a large part of your current and prospective customer base in one relatively painless shot. Can companies do a better job of presenting themselves at these shows? Should they? Absolutely! But we shouldn't condemn the process simply because some (most?) participants handle it badly. Besides...you can always just walk away from someone's booth! ------------------------------------------------ Bob Hanna New York, NY ------------------------------------------------ *** Moderator: For clarity's sake: I was condemening the infomercial approach -- not the trade show or the concept of trade shows. I love trade shows. I hate infomercials. Over and out. KF *** -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: John Sanders Subject: Re: Online-Ads DIGEST #0038 At 05:48 1996-05-20 -0500, you wrote: >One thing I have to say about the trade shows I've been to, and something >that really bothers me, personally. (snip) >I think it's worse than any spam or banner ad or even >an infomercial on TV -- people (such as myself) travel a long way for these >shows AND pay good money to get in. Give us our money's worth, not an >excuse to take a nap. I didn't attends either of the shows mentioned .. and I try and be very selective in only going to events where I think I will get value for money, but .. Don't forget the vendor, he's probably paid a good deal more than you to exhibit and, sure, he wants to prersent his wares in selling mode. I would agree though that there is good and bad marketing, but, unfortunately, the millionaires are more often than not those who sell in the most tacky way. Any of you who have been to Hong Kong will know what I mean !! And don't forget the speaker (if it's a conference) .. he's almost certainly had to pay his own expenses (the organiser might have graciously given him fee admission but not always) - has spent many hours and much money in preparing his presentation only to be told that mentioning his company more than twice is blatant commercialisation. Yes Kevin, I agree. MANY shows are rip-offs but the profiteers are invariably the organisers not the exhibitors or speakers. But there again, who falls for the marketing hype of the organisers ;-) Regards John Sanders bigjohn ============================================================= bigjohn = Thank you for reading an E-Mail from The EDI Shop in HK = bigjohn = Voice +852 2954 9133 Fax +852 2333 9603 = bigjohn = bigjohn_at_edishop.com.hk URL http://www.edishop.com.hk bigjohn ============================================================= -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Nikki Murphy Subject: Exhibitions I totally agree with kevin about these 'infomercials' at some companies booths. It was always the tradition to have a long, boring technical product demonstration, which didn't work very well, and now the switch seems to have gone the other way! It seems to me that most presenters nowadays really are actors or dancers that are there for sheer entertainment value. I remember being at Comdex, Atlanta a couple of years ago watching 6 female dancers in catsuits doing handstands and opening their legs! Even the men were commenting 'fine - but what does this tell me about their database product? (the company shall remain nameless...) I am slightly biased as i used to do a lot of presentation myself. I used to concentrate on the product - I'd always make a point of showing the 'cool' features as well as the practicalities, and I used to tailor the odd joke around the audience. I found that if you offer a slightly personalised demo and try and involve the audience members without embarrassing them, then you can get the information across that the audience wants, and leave them with a nice 'warm fuzzy feeling' about your booth. It never took me that much money, time or effort to put on a 'good show' so why can't other companies do the same thing? Nikki Murphy AlphaBlox Corporation Tel: (Direct line) + 44 1628 414 237 Fax: +44 1628 771136 email: nmurphy_at_blox.com Internet: http://www.blox.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Robert Raisch, The Internet Company" Subject: Re: Internet Fast Forward Re: Comments regarding Internet Fast Forward, this might be of interest. Title: Oh Whistle and I Will Come For You, My Lad: Agent Technology, Search Engines and Advertising Author: Robert Raisch, Chief Scientist of The Internet Company Date: May 7, 1996 Source: Mecklermedia's IWORLD Business.Net Section, Advertising & Marketing Feature URL: For those living under the cyberequivalent of a rock, agents are tiny bundles of programming that leave your computer to travel the global Internet, gathering and returning interesting bits of information to your hard drive. However, in the current state of the art, agents do not quite meet this ideal. They are usually applications, running on your own computer, that continually retrieve and categorize information from elsewhere on the Net. The difference is that, in the absence of agreed on open systems standards, few companies find the idea of running your program on their computer particularly appealing. Ignoring for the moment the problems that running unknown programming on someone else's computer present in terms of security (see Java) or accounting, there is an interesting side-effect of agent technology that I do not believe has been fully thought out, and that I believe will severely affect the business model of search engines like Lycos, Yahoo and AltaVista. Due to the enormity of the global Internet and the lack of a centralized directory service, indices of content have become immensely popular and have, in some ways, become replacements for an Internet "telephone white pages." If such a white pages service were feasible and became popular, it would mean the end of search engines under their current business model. I doubt, however, that this will be much of a problem, since I donat believe that the current business model of search engines services will last that long. Please do not misunderstand. I do not mean to denigrate the fine services that companies like Lycos, Yahoo and AltaVista perform. They provide much needed navigational context to an otherwise chaotic collection of online information resources. I just donat believe that the business model that they currently support will last much longer. Imagine, if you will, my agent acting on my behalf, proposing a search request to Lycos, Yahoo and AltaVista. Back come the results, which my agent dutifully collates, organizes and formats for me, on a single easily consumable HTML page. "What a wonderful tool!" I exclaim. "Just what I need. No longer will I need to slog over to all of my favorite search engines, wade through their clunky user interfaces, and submit my queries individually, remembering arcane search query languages. No longer will I need to endure their incessant advertising." And herein lies the rub. Meta-search agents treat the product of search engines as data: Changing it, organizing it, making it more usable to the consumer, without understanding that this information is more like a publication than raw data. At least that is how it is paid for. Most of the popular search engines available today base their business model on advertising sponsorship. They have a product to sell to their customers and like all advertising-subsidized publications, their product is you, the reader, and their customer is the advertiser. If I can dispatch my agent to search multiple indices, each providing their own brand and advertising, only to return with an amalgam of the results, the publisher no longer reaps the benefits of advertising exposure to their readers. If the agent does indeed return and present the advertising to the consumer, the fact that it must collate the results before presenting the fruits of its labors severely affects the value of the included advertising. Ford does not advertise on any page facing a Chrysler ad, and vice versa. In fact, most publishers must be very careful not to diminish the value their advertising presents to their customer. Magazine publishers, for example, expend large amounts of effort planning the advertising placement in their publications, all in an effort to maximize the value that placement offers to "those that pay the bills." So what options have these publications (search engines) to protect their value (exposure to their readers) to their customer (the advertiser)? I can see three: 1. Devise methods to defeat the automated searching of their indices. 2. Create a universal consortium of search engines and agent providers that all share the same advertising pool and work toward the same ends. 3. Develop new business models that do not rely on advertising for revenue. The first option will fail simply because it is based on a flawed assumption: that an automated search request can be distinguished from a "live" one. It cannot since most simple communications that can be accomplished by a human online can be easily mimicked by a computer. The second will not come about based on the entrepreneurial spirit of the companies involved. Most see the other companies as competitors and would rather defeat them than cooperate with them. Does Macy's tell Gimble's? Which leaves the only solution I believe has any possibility of succeeding: to change the source of the money. The most logical business model that emerges from this solution is that of "for-fee" access, most likely on a subscription basis. So I believe that we can expect Lycos, Yahoo and AltaVista to begin to charge an entry fee for their services in the near future. O.K. So I lied. There is a fourth option. It is far more difficult to accomplish and poses significant expense to the search engine companies, but it will work. A few have already begun to pursue it. Let's see if you can guess what it is. I'll make it easy for you. I've even mentioned it in this article. Please drop me a line telling me what you think this fourth option might be, either using the form below or directly via e-mail. I promise it will be the subject of the next installment of this column. -- Rob Raisch, The Internet Company Rob writes weekly on the topic of Internet-enabled advertising and marketing for Mecklermedia's IWORLD Original portions copyright 1996 by Rob Raisch -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "M. Wolf" Subject: Internet Fast Forward Joe McWilliams wrote: >> I'm sure many of you have heard about the new software, Internet Fast Forward, that allows browsers to totally block out ad banners when visiting sites. Since our site depends on advertising, this poses a threat to our business. I have two questions. Do you think that this type of software will become as popular as some suggest? If so, does anybody know a way around it? << I personally enjoy seeing the ad banners as I surf. I ignore what I am not interested in and often find new products and sites by reading the ads which grab my attention. As long as ads are kept fairly unobtrusive and don't become huge files to download, I wouldn't be bothered with loading special software to avoid them. -- Mary Wolf, webmaster_at_buyitonline.com BUY IT OnLine: Your online GUIDE to locating products and services! http://www.buyitonline.com -------------------------------------------------------------------- ***************** PERSONAL INTRODUCTIONS ***************** -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- ***************** REQUESTS FOR INFORMATION ***************** -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- ***************** BANNER SWAP MEET ***************** -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ ShareTheMac City - your Mac companion on the net Latest news / Technical Support / Library Apple links / Helpful links Internet Training & Consulting Services http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/sharethemac/STN.html alm.carrico_at_mail.telepac.pt -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ The Puzzle Depot: Crosswords, Games, Trivia and Prize Contests Scott Gilley http://www.puzzledepot.com/index.shtml -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ The Washington, D.C. 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