RE: UKNM: online ad tolerance collapsing

[Ross Sleight]

Steve said:

>Three selected datapoints from the recent AdAge Interactive Media Study 

>(2,000 telephone questionnaires in early October). This looks to me like a 

>trend that has nowhere to go but down. With no exceptions the survey 

>reveals increasing readiness to purchase online and collapsing tolerance of


>advertising. Specific responses from online ad folk?


Steve - I agree here (re: tolerance collapsing) as this is US based - too

much advertising which is not relevant to the user - an unfortunate

throwback to the decision to make most content / service based sites free

and ad supported (a major mistake imho - even Minitel charges for content!) 


However, several caveats to this:


(a)	I have UK figs from NOP which show over the past year and a half,

tolerance, awareness and clicking of ads has grown in a positive direction

in the UK (Caveat of a caveat - UK obviously not at market penetration or ad

saturation as US)


(b)	Does this study just concentrate on banner ads alone?  If so then we

miss the acceptance of sponsorships and innovative editorial placement such

as Phil's (well spotted) Hewlett Packard on HotBot (have you seen HP's

advertising on Dilbert as well? (e-mail Dilbert strips to friends in colour)

True media placement / strategic genius.)  I do not like 468 x60 banners and

hope that the industry will see these as one of the least effective ways of

marketing online, and that they will evolve into something that has more

impact, creativity and/or relevance to create greater ROI.  It will be hard

to do in the US due to installed base, but I bet we could look at this in

the UK...(please!)


(c)	Sorry to harp on about relevance but I believe that just slapping

ads online with a one size fits all targeting / creative strangles at birth

any attempt to utilise the medium's potential.  I believe we need to enter

into "value contracts" (damn - jargon alert) with consumers online - i.e. we

can bring you relevant offers / services / content etc. in a promotional

form if you tell us a little about yourself.  Highly targeted marketing

works - less wastage, better quality responses, greater ROI.  If we use the

net as a mass marketing medium (most ads online do treat the medium in the

same way as TV) then we will see increasing consumer disapproval and apathy.

We see this on TV now. (Caveat of caveat: Of course, this survey says

nothing about increasing brand awareness, changing brand perceptions etc.


which TV advertising can do and, I suppose by stretching the hypothetical

model to online, if the net is used as a mass marketing medium, online can

also achieve)  


Final random thought - on average we receive 2-3,000 commercial messages a

day from all media (and if you are online, add another 100 to that for a

couple of hours surfing). How many commercial messages do we actually act

upon?  1 or 2 a week? And is acting upon a commercial message offline the

equivalent of a clickthrough online?  And does this mean that lower

clickthroughs actually provides better quality leads/sales?  


I've been struggling with these issues for two weeks for a talk at a seminar

this week .  I have no answers, only opinions, but I feel confident that

advertising and marketing online will have to be addressed every day in

order to learn how this medium could work for individual companies.  I'm not

surprised to see these figures, or scared by them, but what I believe is

important is to look at their validity and then reassess where we may be

going wrong now.  After all, the consumer is always going to be king.


Ross        


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