Traditional Media - Essay Example

Introduction Traditional media should pave way for the new wave in advertising; the internet. Today, Industry players agree that internet advertising is a force to recon with. According to research carried out by centre for research in electronic commerce, internet advertising is predicted to revolutionise industries in the 21st century. Economy of the internet continues to increase robustly. Many companies both new and well established continue getting profits through internet advertising. Internet advertising still has a big market which has not been tapped. As Hoffman & Novak (1996) points out its effects on industrial economy may be compared to what happened when the world shifted from agricultural to industrialisation in the 17th century. Since customers today want more information about a company and their services before buying its products or services then this mode of advertising is quite ideal. Traditional media has been in place ever since time immemorial but technology has brought something fresh in the advertising industry. There are a number of reasons why traditional media was and still is being used by Companies. This does not undermine the importance of web advertising. All these reasons will be examined in detail in the subsequent sections of the essay. Literature review The decline of traditional media has been recorded by research companies and bodies conducting surveys. There are statistics that support the latter statement. Here are some sample findings to support this view; Newspapers have recorded reduced circulation. In the US, newspaper sales have gone down by about three percent from what they were last year. This has been backed by the job cuts observed in most newspaper Companies in that country. Carr (2007) of the New York Times reports that the Los Angeles Times dismissed eighty five of its employees, the Philadelphia Inquirer eliminated five percent of its employees, and similarly the Chicago Tribune has eliminated one hundred of its staff members from its payroll. All the above findings go to show that there is serious decrease in the demand of this traditional medium implying that there must be an underlying factor causing the shift in preference; internet use and internet advertising. There are increased sales of published materials placed on the internet. For example, articles written by well known columnists have been posted. These articles require subscription prior to viewing. The idea has received a very positive response from readers meaning that advertisements placed on those articles can also be viewed through these subscriptions. In the United States, research has shown that close to ten million homes have digital video recorders. This means that these people can be able to send and receive images via the net. Companies using this mode of advertising will also be favoured because most people relate to it. It has been estimate that this number will increase by threefold within the next five years. Such statistics from the US give n indication of what is to follow in other developed countries including the United Kingdom. It was also shown that print advertisements have reduced in terms of the kind of profits they generate. Currently they bring sixty six percent of earnings for Companies engaging in advertisement. The remaining percentage has gone to internet advertising. And judging by the looks of things, these percentages are most likely going to increase with time. Online advertising has caused the decline of use of traditional media because there are some advantages it offers that are exclusive to that form of advertising. (Kilter, 2006) The first is that it is now possible to track sales that come from the use of online advertising. In other words, Complies can be able to monitor the effect of their efforts and quantify them. This is because it is very easy to measure the number of people that visit/click through a certain website containing advertising information and it is also easy to track the lead that followed a click on an online advertisement. This feature is something that is unique to that form of advertisement. Traditional media does not offer that option as estimates of who has viewed a given message and the effect it has on them is quite ambiguous. This is an essential aspect because businesses now want to gauge their return on investment. They now want to now whether a business undertaking like advertising yields the desired results. Another feature that can only be found in online advertisement is 'search based advertisement.' It was found that in the year 2006, Google attributed forty percent of their profit to search advertisement while other forms of advertising for the Company like banner advertisement brought in thirty percent of earnings. This goes to show that there is a new aspect to this medium that is only exclusive to it. In this form of advertisement, consumers can be able to specify what they are looking for by the use of key words. This form of advertisement is important to both parties involved because Companies can be able to influence a customer's choice to a large extent; when they are searching for advertisements, then they are very close to purchase and more advertising seals the deal. These consumers are spared from having to wait for an advert and can find it at their own convenience. Besides, companies can be able to track the effect of their advert more precisely. Justification of study The Pricewaterhouse and Coopers Company have done a survey on how online advertisements have been revolutionised. The results are that a huge percentage of expenditure on advertising is going online. This has been proved by the continuous rise in profits of well-known internet Companies like Google, Yahoo and MSN. It was seen that profits from online advertising has increased by thirty five percent in the year 2006; they are now standing at almost seventeen million dollars. This means that there are serious indications that advertisements on traditional media are declining but a quantifiable figure needs to be reached. This will form the bulk of the research work. (Flaming and Connor, 2006) Indicative mythology The research aims at the following; Estimating how many people are influenced by online advertisement Determine the percentage reduction in use of traditional media Determine perceptions of people with regards to online advertisement The research will be done by mean of a questionnaire. There are a number of advantages that come out of use of this method of research; the first being that it is easy to quantify data as all the answers will lie within a uniform range. It is therefore easy to verify or nullify a given hypothesis using this method. The method allows researchers to lead on members under survey. This is because other research tools like interviews tend to generate answers that may dig race from what the researcher is looking for. An investigation seeking online advertisers will be posted online from a given date to another. This will be for duration of about a month. The investigation will be tied to 150 Web advertisements and 15 advertisement oriented bulletin boards and a similar number for electronic mailing lists. Respondents will also include a survey from announcements forwarded to advertisement-oriented chat rooms and to bloggers who consented to send the survey URL. On top of this, a run on technique will be used where readers can automatically forward the survey to fellow readers when they want to. (Flanigan, 2004) There are a number of research questions that will be asked in regards to this research. People surveyed will be asked to give information concerning how online advertisements influence their purchases. They will be asked to rate the degree to which an online advertisement caused them to purchase the item advertised. Their answers will lie within four points. The choices are; Never influenced by the online advert Somewhat influenced by the online advert Moderately influenced by the advert Influenced largely by the advert Then the percentages will be added up and the overall result calculated. The word 'influence' in the questionnaire can be interpreted differently. This could mean getting an idea of a purchase, getting a reminder of the item and hence purchasing it or getting the immediate compulsion to but the item and actually purchasing it. (Perrier and Jeffay, 2002) Questions will also be asked with regards to traditional media. The choices above will be the same ones asked in the latter part of the essay but this time, the questions will be in reference to five categories of traditional media. These are; cable television, newspapers, magazines, broadcast television and radio. All the numbers will be assigned to a specific category and overall percentages determined. If online advertisements yield the highest response in the 'influenced largely category' then it will certify that use of traditional media is declining Timetable for research within twelve weeks Duration Activity Week 1-2 Generate sample questions Week 3-4 Get consent from Google and Yahoo Week 5-9 Start the survey and monitor responses Week 10-12 Compilation of data and coming up with conclusion Contingency plan If it is impossible to get consent from the respective Companies, then another form of research shall be carried out. This will be through interviews of randomly selected people within the surrounding environment. The same questions will be asked as those ones in the questionnaire mentioned above, the only difference is that this will be done on a personal level. Conclusion Finally, Internet advertising for businesses has advanced into different sectors over time and it has continued to grow. (Hoffman, 2006) The most popular feature for this form of advertising is that it can offer a simple yet effective way of measuring returns on investments. It is considered that the internet has taken advertising to higher heights and this will be proved through the research findings. Reference: Hoffman, D. and Novak, T. (2006): Marketing in Hypermedia Computer-mediated Environments: - Conceptual Foundations: Journal of Marketing, Vol. 60(July), pp 50 - 68 Flanigan, G (2004). Internet Applications New York publications Kilter, P (2006): Principles of Marketing: Stages of customer relationships. 4th European Edition Prentice Hall Harlow (UK) Parries, M K. and Jeffay, F.D (Dec.2002); the proceedings of the 9th International workshop on internet interface elements Flaming, L. and Connor B. (1999), Real-Time internet applications; Linux Journals pp 5-12 Mark, D. (2001): Principles and Practice of Marketing; 3rd Edition of Chartered Institute of Marketing, Washington, U.S Connor, B. (1999), Internet advertisement; Linux Journals pp 5-12 Corr, R. (2005): Job cuts in traditional media; The New York Times (21st November 2005) Read More