Traditional Media Value Systems Commoditizing Web Advertising?
- by February 21, 2001
"This is the second year that we conducted a study to assess advertisers' uses of, satisfaction with and plans for online advertising," said Jack Myers, chief economist, Myers Reports. "All of our research points to continued growth and vitality for the medium, including our forecast of 60-70% growth in online spending in 2001. By better understanding advertisers' needs, the online medium can better focus its ad sales strategies and investments. This study provides a roadmap for the next 18 months, identifying strategic imperatives for online sales organizations as well as opportunities for marketers and media buyers."
"Medium on the Verge of a Commodity Breakdown/Myers Mediaenomics Report on the Online Media Advertising Marketplace: Revenues, Relationships, Performance and Forecast" is based on a study conducted in September 2000 among 278 advertising and agency executives who have used the Internet as an advertising medium in the past 12 months. The report reveals that the Internet's unique traits - its one-to-one marketing capabilities and real-time access to consumers - are overshadowed by other Internet attributes that are shared by other, more established media.
In top-line study results released in December by Myers Reports, respondents identified "Driving Traffic to Site," "Branding," Integrated Marketing/Multimedia Packages" and "Sponsorship Opportunities" as the top four reasons for using online advertising.
There is, however, little correlation between the top reasons for advertising on the Internet and satisfaction levels - the above categories placed first, 22nd (out of 22), 17th and 15th respectively on the satisfaction scale.: Along with direct response/driving traffic, the remaining top five satisfaction scores for Internet advertising were garnered by "Optimize Campaigns in Real Time," "Creation of Custom Content," "Test Creative" and "Customer Relations (via email)."
"High satisfaction levels are reported for the activities and reasons that Internet can uniquely satisfy," notes the report. "In other words, when ad executives use the Internet to do what it does best, they're generally happy. If they try to use it in ways that mimic mass media usage, they are generally unhappy. The lack of adequate measurement standards and research has probably also contributed to the level of unhappiness among advertisers."
Interestingly, an examination of the metrics being used by advertisers to plan and measure their Internet campaigns reveals that the top metric is still Click-Throughs (used by 93% of respondents), followed closely by Ad Impressions (88%), Unique Visitors (80%), Page Views (73%) and Conversion Rates (69%).
Only 65% of the respondents who cited brand building as their top reason for Internet advertising said they use "bran
