Why Not the 'Net?

The Castle Press newsletter for last month had an interesting news item on it about why large companies are avoiding Internet advertising -- and why they should stop avoiding online ads and embrace them. I found that both sets of arguments (the ones Castle Press is using to advocate Internet advertising and the ones described as the reasons why many companies do not) say more about the businesses and their management teams than they do about advertising or the 'Net...

First off, it is believed that the majority of consumers today will make use of Internet research before making a purchase, in order to inform themselves about the product choices. This is probably true in the strictest sense - if we include in the description of "research" all of the people who merely see/hear about a product online and decide that because they saw it on the Internet it must be true. It's like saying that people use television ads to "research" product choices: they do, in the sense that "research" means "gain information about." But Internet research is becoming more difficult at time goes on, not less, and gaining information online that actually applies to what you are trying to do (especially credible information) is becoming more and more of a professional skill.

Then there's the fact that Internet use makes up 30% of all the media exposure the average person gets, but most companies are only spending 7.5% of their advertising budget on online ads. This sounds completely incompetent, doesn't it? But the problem with Internet advertising is that there are so many places available to put it. In most cities you have only a half-dozen television stations, twenty or thirty radio stations, and two or three newspapers. Just a few choice ad placements can be expected to reach virtually everyone in your territory who would buy your product in the first place. Local cable advertising may offer hundreds of additional channels, but the ability to target your ads more precisely (for example, placing ads for a kitchen supply store or gourmet wine shop on the Food Network) more than makes up for this.

By contrast, there are literally thousands of web sites available on any given subject, and no way to know which ones your particular customers will even look at. A quick Google search for "news," to take the obvious example, yields 3,600,000,000 hits. That's right, folks; over THREE BILLION Internet news pages, and your customers could be on any one of them, depending on how they phrased their search. Or, they could be the type who prefers to get their news from a talking head in a box in their living room and only read Internet entertainment pages (of which there are a much higher number). Even worse, unlike television or radio channels, there is no rating system for Internet sites. Counters are no help; they're too easy to manipulate, and even if they weren't there would be no guarantee that 100 hits is actually 100 people going there, as opposed to one hacker swinging by every few minutes (or a pirate link sending people to the site against their wishes). Until you can measure the benefit to be gained by Internet ads, no rational businessperson is likely to spend money on them.

Of course, there are also internal objections to Internet advertising, ranging from senior management who don't trust the entire medium to cynics who doubt the effectiveness of specific ads and placement, to companies that simply do not have the in-house ability to create web ads or place them anywhere. Too many people believe that Internet advertising is only practical for online and e-commerce companies, worry about the drain on the advertising budget for unproven marketing channels, or fear change in the form of disrupting their existing business model, breaking existing business relationships, or losing loyal customers. Needless to say, some of this can be mere empire-building, or managers objecting to new concepts simply because someone else thought of them (the infamous "Not Invented Here" syndrome)...

But that's a post for another day.