The message is being spread : on line advertising

Online advertising is growing fast: research from ZenithOptimedia predicts that global spending on internet ads will overtake radio in 2008. It says the rate of spending on internet ads will grow six times faster than traditional media between 2006 and 2009, a trend already taking shape in the Middle East and Europe. Read original article

“You’re seeing more companies, such as Unilever, creating better user experiences for people online,” says Theresa Wise, an internet marketing specialist for Accenture. “These companies don’t do e-commerce but want to improve their brand presence.”

A few years ago, an online advertising campaign consisted of just banner and pop-up ads. No longer.

“The future of online ads is not just online – digital is digital,” says Will Lebens, managing director of Airlock, a London-based online ad agency. “It has become seamless. For us, the remit has broadened to blogs and microsites. All these things constitute an ad now.”

Airlock ran a big campaign for clothing company Diesel in which four angels were cast down from heaven and stripped of their wings. Mr Lebens’ team left clues to the location of the angels around the internet on blogs, forums and YouTube clips to build interest in the campaign until they finally released the brand name and all became clear. “In total, the views reached 3.5m,” he says. “It was all quite elaborate.”

Many other big companies have started to use Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogging and video clips, to increase brand awareness. Last year in China, Pepsi invited people to write screenplays for company spokesmen and a famous pop singer. And when it launched its Qashqai car in the UK last month, Nissan offered a game website where people could try to shoot the car; it broadcast video clips of the car, which could be linked to blogs and social networking sites; and it ran banners over some Yahoo sites.

“We were coming into a market with something very different, so we wanted to drive brand recognition as well as name recognition,” says Justin Elias, marketing director of Nissan. “We had several thousand unique visitors to the website and the films were seen more than 1m times on other websites.”

But were they the right viewers? And what do clicks really mean?

There are several online advertising models. Pay-per click means a company pays every time their ad is clicked on. Google, Yahoo and other companies offer these platforms, but they are susceptible to abuse – companies can click on a rival’s ad to drive up its costs, possibly getting them removed from the search results page if they reach their maximum ad budget.

While the likes of Google and Yahoo keep figures of click fraud confidential, they refund companies that can prove abuse. Few legal cases have arisen.

Other models include paying per visitor to a website; paying per thousand people exposed to a message; and paying per action, where a company only hands over commission if an actual transaction takes place. So, what are the advantages of the bigger campaigns that run over different media? And how much do they cost?

“A company can launch a broad- reaching online campaign for anything from £20,000 to well over £2m, depending on the mix and the media plan,” explains Mr Lebens. “In terms of tangible benefits, the most obvious is the ability to create a dialogue with consumers rather than a one-way broadcast.” Other benefits include accountability, precision targeting, and real-time feedback on campaign performance.

Google argues that online advertising is “transparent” – even though it holds on to click-fraud figures – and that it is “targeted and measurable”. But not everyone in the industry agrees.

“Although the number of clicks can be counted, advertisers tend not to be able to handle the analytics that can improve their performance,” says Ms Wise. “Clients are probably not buying as effectively as they could.”

One way companies can ensure a campaign is effective is to monitor who is reached and not just the numbers of people reading the material.

“It’s about collaborating and sharing,” says Blake Chandlee, director of media sales for Yahoo. “That’s created an environment that’s very different from the one we’ve been used to over the past 50 years. It’s not about banner campaigns but starting a conversation. Any company that tries to introduce a commercial angle will get it wrong.”

Mr Lebens agrees: “It’s about engagement. Whether that’s through user-generated content, it’s about giving the user a chance to engage with your brand. But the brand has to sit in the background. If you’re interested in branding, you don’t want to double up and do online the same way as offline.”

The Internet Advertising Bureau has recommendations for anyone planning to market online, such as avoiding pop-up ads. It recommends paid search advertising and to include keywords in websites for natural listings in search engines – not forgetting words relating to offline campaigns.

“Integrate your online campaign with your traditional media activity, rather than treating internet marketing as an afterthought,” the organisation recommends. “Similarly, it is not enough to stream a TV ad online, or replicate outdoor advertising within the traditional banner format. It is essential to make the most of the medium.”

Ms Wise warns companies not to get caught up in flashy technology. “Viral advertising is important if you’re a lifestyle brand,” she says. “A lot of business owners are forgetting about practicality – they’re a bit like startled bunnies in front of the headlights. I’d say: look at the next trend and distinguish whether these thing are R&D or really adverts and stick to the demographic that reflects your trade.”

Television currently owns the largest share of global advertising but what happens when TV goes on to the internet and the internet moves on to TV? Some organisations are ending contracts with traditional TV channels to broadcast their own programmes over the web. College teams involved in the US March Madness basketball tournament are broadcasting their own games and taking the advertising revenues away from the TV channels.

This summer, two companies, Joost and BabelGum, will start to broadcast entire TV programmes free over the internet. The content owners in effect have their own channels and advertising will pay the way.

Mr Bishop comments: “People will watch Friends on a website. We will see the death of the TV station and the birth of the network station.”