A Different Look At Internet Advertising

from the not-so-bad dept

Everybody has been talking about how the bottom dropped out of the internet advertising market. Yet, we see more (and much much more annoying) online ads every day. While these newer, more intrusive ads are designed to "cut throught the clutter", they are actually adding to the clutter problem. The article also compares internet advertising to cable advertising at the same levels of household penetration and discovers that internet advertising is actually doing much better. In the end, the writer suggests that content companies that want advertising are wrong in focusing on the "big spenders" when it comes to TV advertising. Those people are focused on building brand, and have no use for the actual benefits that the internet offers (targeting, click through data, etc.). So, just as cable made its mark by finding local advertisers who never would pay for broadcast TV advertising, people looking for companies to buy internet advertising should find different types of companies who can really benefit. It's an interesting theory, but I doubt anyone will pay attention. Instead, they'll just take the simple (but wrong) way out - and make the ads even more intrusive. If advertising were less intrusive, but more targeted and useful, people wouldn't be quite so annoyed - and the value of each advertisement would go up tremendously.

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