Previous : Introduction to Traditional Advertising
There are several reasons why traditional advertising has, IMHO, failed on the net:
- Trustworthy Hit Counts
- There are very few methods of accurately tracking how many views of an ad have occured (because of caching/proxy/acceleration servers), and it is difficult for third
parties to audit that information to ensure that it is accurate. In the television world, for instance, there are organizations like Nielsen Media Research that are trusted, impartial authorities of television viewing ratings. Advertisers would be a lot more wary if it were up to the
networks themselves to tell them how many viewers watched a particular show and what the demographics were (otherwise every show would be a super hit and Golden Girls would have the desired 18-25 demographic).
- Viewer Profiling
- Similar to the previous point, advertisers need to know not only how many people are seeing their ad, but also what age, sex, and personality type (i.e. lifestyle, activity levels, etc. You don't want to sell weightlifting equipment on Slashdot for instance, just as you wouldn't want to advertise
Redhat 6.2 on a RagingRoids site) as this affects the sort of products we buy and the ads that we react to best. Advertisers don't like blindly buying "10,000,000" hits when they're trying to
sell ground coffee and the 10,000,000 hits ends up being largely children. At the same time though attempts to acquire such information is looked on very negatively by many users and privacy advocates on the net.
- Geographical Issues
- There are geographic concerns with advertisements (for marketing, legal, and commercial reasons). If GM advertises a vehicle in Canada the ad is often different than it is in the States, and most certainly different than Europe. Similarily it'd be silly for The Black Bull ("Burlington's Best Karaoke Bar"!) to advertise
on Google and be seen by the world when it's not really something you fly around the world for (in fact I have no idea how good of a place it is, but I thought it was a funny moniker). Without effective
geographical/regional filtering for advertisers there is a massive contigent of advertisers that don't see it as worthwhile, and for good reason.
- Client Ad Blocking
- There are numerous simple "ad blocking" technologies for the web, as simple as putting in bogus hosts entries for Doubleclick for instance. An elite technology related site might have a high-tech advertiser's dream-come-true mixture of users, yet they
might present a double edged sword by representing those most likely to have systems in place to filter ads. Filtering of ads isn't a huge concern right now but most advertisers know that
the resentment of advertisements is so high that could become prevelant extremely quickly, so they are wary of making investments in the foundations when it could be so easily bypassed.
- Negative Implications of Advertisements
- There is a large degree of resentment on the net in regards to advertisers. A lot of users still have an "educational system" type mentality that the net is no
place for commercialization, and should be pure and free for all (despite the fact that the vast majority of the infrastructure of the net is built and owned by commercial entities). These same people of course happily partake of the benefits and content that is supported by said advertisers, however the advertisers feel that their
message is if anything counterproductive to these users.
- Limited or Nonexistant Impact
- The advertisers that do advertise on the net feel that their ads aren't having an impact. When a TV ad comes on most of us just sit through it (presuming there aren't pressing bladder needs) and endure it (and the variability of the media allows for some very creative ads that are often better than the shows themselves. It's quite the ironic situation when people watch the Superbowl to see the ads,
or visit sites like Adcritic). However go to a site and the ad is barely noticable for most users (it isn't even visible for those who have
ad blocking software or techniques), especially given the scrolling nature of many pages where it's scrolled out of sight and out of mind quite quickly (ex. Slashdot).
Personally I think the advertiser driven model of web finance cannot work currently. Advertisers are trying some new more intrusive methods of advertising (pop-ups, giganto ads such as at http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-4931077.html?tag=tp_pr, etc.) and this is just going to fan the fires of ad resentment that is already prevelant. Advertisers are
going to find that the only impression they leave is negative (and while pissing people off might work for a little guy just getting his name out, it doesn't work well for the big boys who have an established good name) and not worth the money they're paying.
This all brings us to micropayments : Where each of us pays our own way.
Next: What is this micropayment thing?