We've proven that the eyeballs are there, and that those eyeballs are hard, if not impossible, to reach with more mainstream media. We've proven that online has branding value. We've addressed the notion of Online's overbearing complexity with tools that help streamline our process. We've developed tools to show marketers how Online's contribution affects the media mix. One by one, we've removed all or most of the tangible barriers to using online media.
Granted, many marketers will require additional time to overcome inertia, but Online's renaissance is definitely on its way.
But why is the turnaround happening slowly, as opposed to at Internet speed? Sure, there are economic and risk factors involved, but there are also some less tangible reasons for avoiding online that we all need to address as an industry. Here are some of them...
advertisement
advertisement
There's something about a wide reach ad, particularly in broadcast, that massages the ego. By its nature, online advertising is targeted and often a different experience for each user. A CEO can reach a wide target cheaply and easily with broadcast and get the added benefit of an ego massage when his ads become shared experiences in the nation's collective consciousness. So how can online compete with broadcast and other high-reach media in this regard?
One way would be to show case studies that tout the benefits of high-impact, fixed placements. Marketers need to know what sort of brand impact they can make with a campaign that includes things like home page rich media placements and owning particular dayparts.
As an industry, we need to shed the image of being a loss leader. Otherwise, we'll lose market share at every communications planning kickoff meeting. We can do this by chugging forward on standardization and the development of planning and operational tools that streamline the online planning process. Any agency that thinks online isn't profitable had better have planning and implementation tools in place from DoubleClick, Atlas DMT or another major provider. Otherwise, they're not getting the whole story.
But this can't last forever. Media fragmentation alone will erode the effectiveness of older media strategies. What we need to do is show marketers what online (and the increased number of media choices in general) has done to the media landscape. Advertisers have to understand what's happened to their audience over the past several years. A simple quintile analysis of media vehicles should illustrate this nicely.
If we work on some of these intangibles, I think we can make even more progress in booking solid, long-term relationship deals.