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Soru What big
online opportunities do you see for advertisers?
But traditional
advertisers have to be realistic in their expectations of the Web.
They need to keep in-mind the big picture, that it’s human beings
on the Web who still read and watch TV. They have to understand
how all media works together. I think the Internet is the
place for these advertisers to go, because it actually delivers
the values of all other media. If I had a limited budget,
where would I spend it? I would definitely consider spending
it on the Web.
What do advertisers
need to do to be successful online? To be successful
online, advertisers need to approach the Internet in three ways.
They need to understand that it is still a relatively new medium,
especially for branding and they are testing it. Advertisers
have to know that even in huge campaigns, not everything is going
to work perfectly and that it’s a constant process to figure out
what’s working best. Number two, advertisers
have to realize it’s a medium that works with other media.
It’s important to see the big picture to understand that it’s not
about running just one ad online; any result can be influenced by
other media. An online advertiser needs to think of delivering a
message across different media with the online piece inherent in
all of it, because the Web brings attributes of broad reach as well
as targeted audiences. And three, I think
advertisers have to understand the technology they are working with,
such as measurement technology and creative technology. This
leads to understanding how to do things right and how it is measured. Soru What kind of information
do you think advertisers need to have at their fingertips to really
track and measure appropriately? site. Soru How can advertisers
stay on top of all this real-time information? The onus is on
both sides – the sites’ and the advertisers’ - to look at what's
going-on and share that information. An advertising site should
call the client and say, “I'm watching your campaign run and
I'm seeing that certain ads and background colors could work better,
so let’s change them.” Or, “Let's move your inventory
to places where it'll get higher productivity.” So it's on
both sides. Soru What kind of expectations
should advertisers have of online advertising? I think there are
a lot of expectations that online advertising should be simple and
that it works in a certain way. In fact it works a lot of
different ways, depending on how it’s used. Advertisers should understand
what the Web really is. The expectation is that the Internet
is not like other media they’ve dealt with. Yet the Internet
media space involves attributes of a lot of other media. We are
still learning about it. And I think the industry gets judged
unfairly because it doesn’t do certain things the same as in other
media. One of the worst
things advertisers can do is to jump to the conclusion that because
banners aren’t being clicked on, they don’t work. Putting-up a banner
ad in its simplest form is not an answer. It works with other
media, and according to the buy and what kind of creative and technology
are being used. Soru Can you give me
an example? I’ve seen where,
for example, a software company was running banner ads that were
driving people to a special Web site. The campaign was built around
the creative for the print ads, and they were leveraging the ability
to drive people to print, from print to online and from online to
print, by using a synergistic creative. The banner ads
weren’t placed on traditional technical sites, but on MTV, and other
sites to draw a different audience. So they looked to who
the audience was, they looked at synergies between what they were
doing online and in print, and tried to move audiences between the
two. Each media delivered different values. So print was a
full-page ad with just a URL, which created an image and the Web
site had all the detail. In this way they were able to build
from one media to another. Soru If a banner doesn’t
get the expected amount of clicks, does that mean it’s not effective? Not at all.
This is probably my favorite topic to talk about. I think
we have over-emphasized what the click and the banner mean in our
industry and ignored other things that messages are about.
Advertising is about delivering messages - the right eyeballs at
the right time. Just because a banner isn’t clicked-on, it
doesn’t mean it’s not effective. In fact there are a lot of
studies showing that even without the click, the more consumers
see banners, the more effective the advertising in terms of raising
awareness and recall for brands. Early on, clicking
on banners became a useful metric or tool because we could measure
it. The earliest ad servers could measure this click and everybody
jumped on it as sort of the holy grail of Internet advertising.
It’s not. Clicking is more like opening the envelope.
When we deliver direct mail, we don’t care as much that consumers
open the envelope but we care that there was a action taken in some
way. If we only look at clicks, then the reaction is being
ignored. So banner clicks
are not truly communicating the value of seeing the message. The
other thing that happens is that we equate delivering banners to
Web pages with home delivery of direct mail or telemarketing calls.
That mail and those calls are made through direct response vehicles
because consumers did something prior to that to get on a list. Ad serving is about
delivering ads into the right or targeted content. And that’s not
the premise of direct marketing, which reaches out to audiences
that have shown or proven their propensity to buy or react to an
offer through previous actions. So equating direct marketing
attributes to Internet advertising, vis a vis the clicking on the
banner doesn’t make sense. They are starting from two different
places. Soru But if a banner
is not measurably generating traffic, what is its value? Banners are delivering
media value. They are delivering branding by telling consumers,
“I’m here, a product is online, a product that is associated with
this content.” It’s definitely communicating. A
lot of people say banners don’t work, because they don’t think consumers
see them. But they do. Research is proving it.
MSN has done research showing that there is an increase in brand
awareness and recall, and ads are working even though we may not
be clicking. It’s sort of like when people say,
“I don’t read ads.” Yet if you ask them about the newest product,
they will know all about it because they’ve been exposed to its
ads, even though they swear they don’t read them. At this point,
I think the message that banners do work has to be communicated
loud and clear. The challenge of our industry is to spread
the word that branding and media values are being delivered through
banners, as well as with buttons and other ad units on the Web. Soru Is there a need
for more ad effectiveness research? Yes, absolutely.
Ad effectiveness research is probably one of the most important
things we can do as an industry right now. I also think we
need more cross media research. We really must understand
what happens when messages are seen across media, from TV to print
to online. The banner burnout
talk is now going the other way: the more a message is seen, the
greater the impact. I think there are a lot of people who think
they have to make banner ads more tricky with more technology and
animation. More studies have to be done to show that maybe
we don’t have to be so complex. Soru What kind of things
need to be studied - ad awareness… brand awareness… intent
to buy…? Or do we need to do something else? To understand online
advertising, we need to do ad effectiveness studies. Not just
ad recall, but how seeing ads is impacting opinions and emotions
about brands. I think we also have to study how ads work on
pages to determine the most effective placements. There’s an opinion
that ads at the bottom of the page don’t work because they don’t
get clicked-on. But maybe seeing an image at the bottom of
an article, once there’s involvement with content, might be effective
even without a click. I think we’ve rushed
far too quickly to judge that certain things don’t work without
really looking at all of the pieces. There needs to be more
ad effectiveness research at many different levels. The more
research the better. Soru You mentioned cross
media research. Why is it important? Cross media research
is important because we don’t live on the World Wide Web alone.
We are media consumers. We still watch TV, we still listen
to radio, and we still read magazines. I think cross
media research will help us understand why the Internet space is
used by consumers for certain information at certain times of day.
Also, the impact of online branding combined with another brand
message, on TV, and how they support each other. Studies in the
last year or so said that banner ads were delivering as much value
as 30-second TV commercials. A lot of people said, “That doesn’t
sound right, how could that be?” But think of sitting 18 inches
away from a computer screen versus six feet away from a television
set. On the Web, the user has control over the environment
in which they are seeing the ads. I don’t think that’s been
measured enough. Soru What is technology’s
role in online advertising? Technology plays
a big role in online advertising. First of all, technology
is a factor in what is being measured and how it’s measured.
There is technology to measure everything we do on the Web.
We can track what we do by looking at consumer behavior. There
is technology to make sure the right ads are delivered at the right
time, depending on the content the consumer is in now, or during
their last site visit. Understanding technology
can help in creating an appropriate environment to see ads and deliver
content. Technology is also important in how it impacts users’ interaction
with an ad. It’s a common misconception that everybody reacts
the same way to every kind of technology in the screen. It
doesn’t happen that way. So I think it’s more a matter of
understanding the user’s reaction to what they are seeing. And lastly, not
everybody’s computer is the same. What does it mean to see and interact
with ads via a 14.4 modem? Advertisers need to be cognizant
that it’s not all high-bandwidth on high-end computers. Soru What do you think
of rich media? I think rich media
is great. There is a lot of experimentation with it and some
great results. It seems the richer and more interactive the
media - the more, animation, video and audio coming through – the
more users are going to see and remember the ads. And the more quickly
they’ll react to them. So rich media is powerful. It does
have some issues, in that not everybody can access rich media.
So when delivering ads, it’s important to make sure that the system
being used can support rich media. There is a lot
of expectation from new users in the space who think they should
be able to watch TV commercials online. And when we can deliver
TV-quality ads over the Web, I think it’s going to be very powerful.
A large number of newbies are going to expect and want to see rich
media; it’s of high value to them in using the Internet. Soru What excites you
most about online advertising? What excites me
most? I think it's the learning process. Laredo Group
does Internet media training. I love it when I talk to media
professionals who come from a print or broadcast background and
they start to get how different and unique the Internet is.
When they really grasp the fullness and the richness of what they
have to work with and the applications of new tools, then it’s exciting.
Also, I like to go to sites and see great executions of Internet
advertising. That's what I do for a living. I watch
what goes on the Web in terms of ads and sponsorship programs. And
then, when I see other media that support what's going online, I
really get excited about it. Soru How should an advertiser who’s new to the Web
decide where to advertise?
An advertiser wants to locate the best sites
in terms of editorial relevance, demographic match or a fit to with
an audience or product. And that does change content areas or channels.
So you have to know where you want to find your audience as an advertiser Are you optimistic about the future of online
advertising? Oh, I'm incredibly optimistic. We talk to buyers,
marketers, and sales people. And there's this incredible amount
of enthusiasm. I hear everybody saying, “I need to understand
it, I want to be part of it.” We train thousands of
people a year. And by and large, they are saying, “I'm ready
to make it real and do the best job I can, and we'll invest in that.”
So I think it's a very positive environment to be in right now. |
