Advertising in context - Essay Example

? Why internet advertising is important? Introduction Advertising is very important for every kind of business. Every businessman is constantly looking for the new advantageous ways to attract new customers and get more profit with low expenses. In the modern world information technologies offer new opportunities and new kinds of advertising. According to recent researches, ‘online advertising to consumer time ratio is circa 50%’, which is quite significant amount and thus, implies great advertising possibilities hidden in internet marketing (Walters, 2009). This point of view was confirmed with general opinion expressed in BBC News in 2006 that print and TV media are not able to meet current marketing needs, which could be satisfied with online resources. It can be explained by low cost of internet advertising and by the fact that now when people spend much time in the internet, internet advertising can be used not only for internet business but for any kind of business (Walters J., 2009). Origin of internet advertising It is commonly accepted that history of internet advertising originated in far away 1991, when CERN presented their brainchild – World Wide Web in Switzerland (Abbate, 1999). Firstly, internet was exploited by grass roots around 1994, when such companies as AT&T, MCI, Sprint, and Volvo asked HotWired to develop online ads for their sites (Singel, 2010). However the practice was not very popular because online connection was pretty slow, internet resources were not developed, which caused serious inconveniences. At the end of 1994 Roy Schwedelson, one of the first promoters of internet usage for commercial goals, made a speech about online marketing possibilities at the Information Superhighway conference in order to stimulate more agencies to exploit the Web for advertisement goals. In January 1995 Prodigy firstly put their online site on commercial base for the subscribers. Soon, such companies as MCI, Air Walk, and Jim Beam followed their example. In response for increased interest in online ads NetScape, Google, and InfoSeek started to develop structured official platforms for advertising. In 1996 further initiative in internet marketing was taken by Microsoft, which became the leading Web advertiser in short time (The history of internet advertising, 2007). Probably, the first noticeable online advertisements appeared at AT&T and Procter & Gamble sites, when they realized advantages and great future of internet technologies and started to invested serious money in their web pages development (Herman & McChesney, 2004). Gradually, more companies and marketing agencies appreciated how they could gain from internet advertising and it could be said that at the end of 1997 – beginning of 1998 the industry got general commercial acceptance. By 2001 such dinosaurs of World Wide Web as Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, American Online, and Amazon achieved record number of views, which contributed about 125 to 442 million users. (Silk, Klein, Berndt, 2001) Types of internet advertisements There are several types of internet advertising, which are widely applied nowadays: banner ads, unicast, sidebar, blogging and social network ads, pop-up ads, search engine submission and optimization, text links, floating ads, e-mail ads and many others (Rivers). Banner ads were developed to favor direct sales, which are also called branding sales, primarily. This kind of ads is similar to brick and mortar billboard ads, which main task is to provide consumers with certain information about particular brand briefly and awake their interest (Harris). Moreover, online banners usually imply that users would undertake some actions like clicking the banner or searching for further information. However, recent researches showed that nowadays banner ads are supposed to be quite ineffective: just 2-5 people out of 1000 click the banner while others simply ignore it (Wilson, 2009). Unicast ads are supposed to be more effective than classic banner ads and are presented with some kind of mini video commercials, which motivate people to learn about goods advertised more and buy them (Brain). Sidebar ads are also known as ‘skyscraper ads’ and are usually located on both sides of web pages in vertical position. Such location allows making sidebar ads of larger size without interfering the main content of sites. Sidebar ads have proved their effectiveness having click-through rate 2-3 times larger than standard banner ads offer. Pop-up ads are designed as separate windows, which pop-up when users visit some site. They are regarded as quite irritative, but still bring more profit than classic banners (Wegert, 2002). Floating ads appear on certain sites for several seconds (usually, from 5 to 30 seconds) as separate windows drifting on screen. Floating ads are quite effective as they provide about 30 clicks per 1000 appearances; although a lot of people consider them as very annoying. Blogging ads are considered to be indirect advertisements, which are located on various free blogs or social networks in comments or just within main content of sites. Recently, blogging and social network ads have become one of the most popular and effective way of marketing due to their cheapness, low-pressure and prevalence. (Brown, 2007) Search engine submission means that certain site is registered in search engines, which would provide information about it when users enter particular key words. Obviously, the higher rank sites have, the closer to the top they appear and thus, more internet users visit them (Search Engine Marketing and Online Display Advertising Integration Study, 2009). In order to get higher rank sites should be connected to other sites and provide qualitative content. Text links are designed as HTML addresses of sites in internet, which enable users to switch to web pages with needful information, and are widely used in World Wide Web (Stirn). Usually, several sites agree for cooperation and locate links of each other on their own sites for free or on paid basis to make surfing in internet more convenient. Real-world online advertising campaigns According to Donaldson (2009), the most prevalent advantage of internet advertising is that ‘several ads can be served against the same content all updated in real time’. Therefore, it is not surprisingly that a lot of companies have began to launch their own online advertising campaigns competing in attractiveness and originality, which could sometime verge on madness (Herman E., McChesney R., 2004). One of the most successful examples o online marketing is associated with Coca-Cola Company, which made an agreement with such powerful search engines as Google and Yahoo! in order to spread the information about their products more effectively. The company also created pages in Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, which are nowadays powerful social networks allowing Coca-Cola fans to cooperate and exchange their experience (Berkowitz, 2007). Coca-Cola Company posted a lot of links on YouTube, which are aimed to attract and entertain people with Coca-Cola advertising videos online at any time. Such stable internet marketing has provided the company with strong popularity among all circles of young people, which are their target consumers (Herman E., McChesney R., 2004). Apple Corporation, which developed their first computer in 1976, started successful and effective advertising campaign just from their first presentation in public. In 1984 they organized online real time SuperBowl broadcasting of their Macintosh personal computer and conducted online demonstrations of Apple computers’ possibilities (Bruno, 2005). Conclusion In the modern world information technologies offer new opportunities and new kinds of advertising. Present time is strongly associated with high technologies and huge possibilities in all spheres of human activities, which World Wide Web offers. According to recent researches, ‘online advertising to consumer time ratio is circa 50%’, which is quite significant amount and thus, implies great advertising possibilities hidden in internet marketing (Herman E., McChesney R., 2004). Advertisement industry is one of the most innovative spheres of business and it is not surprisingly that companies quickly perceived all the advantages of online advertisements and have used it heavily for various marketing purposes recently (Herman E., McChesney R., 2004). There are many types of online marketing, which include banner ads, unicast, sidebar, blogging and social network ads, pop-up ads, search engine submission and optimization, text links, floating ads, e-mail ads and many others. In case of wise and timely application of numerous online means of advertisement as and Coca-Cola and Apple Corporation have demonstrated, companies could achieve astonishing results spending much less than for print and TV marketing campaigns. References 1. 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