The R(E)volution of Online Advertising

Summary
as Web use becomes ever more convenient; consumers will continue to spend more time online brand and will look for proposals that deliver entertainment, service and convenience. Brands that understand the importance of a consistent two-way relationship and have the critical business processes in place will benefit from a trading environment that brings them as close to their customers as a medieval merchant once was.
Analysis
From evolution to revolution
it was once a universal truth that online advertising creative plays poor relative to the nobility of the Advertising & Marketing Agency world. In creative terms, perhaps less in line is considered poor cousin stepbrother and more dwarfish with one eye blind, hearing impaired and a speech impediment. For this reason, the Internet was once viewed solely as a place for direct response campaigns, and certainly not to be trusted with a building or driving brand awareness.

But the Ugly Duckling is slowly becoming the swan as it moves out of its infancy and start having cool haircuts and trying to find a girlfriend. With this, the online creative scene is finally Embracing the power, force and sexual allure that relative youth can bring, while Daddy reaches its vitamin pill for the looser and all sense of rhythm. But what's behind this blossoming of online? Now that it's come of age, what is the proper pursuit for a medium that for so long but could crawl, Dribble and manage a few simple words like "click here"?

It all comes down to people. The person is doing it, the people paying for it and the people consuming it. The people doing it are better.

There was a time when online ads were largely produced by designers who, despite being good designers, were not 'creative' Schooled in conceptual thinking. "Knocking out a few links as an afterthought, concept design based on whatever they'd used in the header of a client's website lead to an idea devoid of ads and unable to communicate to an audience in proposition. As creative designers replace in digital agencies, this problem fades.

The slow down in the advertising market as a whole have benefited digital agencies. Good planners, account and creative people have begun to consider online as a career option - with the industry growing at future looks more secure online than in traditional agency roles. The more good people, the better the level of work, which in turn attracts bright graduates to the industry. It's still the case that most creative looking for their first job for big ad agencies, but the reality of life in a traditional shop is often frustrating for creative free spirits. Bagged by senior accounts being top teams and internal competition gives rise to a viper pit atmosphere. Within the online space, there's room for bright young teams to work on Edgy Ideas for more brands from the off - and with the relatively fast turnaround on digital projects, they are not stuck servicing the same day in day out account. All this makes for a creative vitality producing better and better ideas on the Internet.

The people buying it understand and appreciate it
Agencies can not take all the credit. The increasingly savvy marketing manager is embracing online as never before and there is something of a "viral" effect taking place as web-literate decision-makers move jobs, helping grow online budgets in companies that once overlooked entirely digital. And with the legendary measurability of online including SEO and SEM, the talented marketer has the tools to persuade boards to release cash.

But it's always been measurable. What's changed is that strong brand building creative ideas capable of motivating brands are offering customers the ability to gain unprecedented consumer insights. Exaggeration it’s not to say this is transforming the way brands market themselves - FMCG companies now have tangible relationships with the customer unmediated by the big multiples. This is nothing short of revolutionary and is slowly beginning to release the kind of budgets that provide scope for bigger ideas.

The people buying it have the money for it
Marketplace factors that have threatened the traditional agencies are benefiting Upstart. Audience fragmentation on TV, longer working hours and the break down of traditional benefit all demographic groups in highly targeted medium like the Net. So while budgets have gone down in the last one year, the proportion of online spend has gone up 50% year on year since 2004. Meanwhile, increasingly brand literate consumers are demanding new things from their communications.

The people are responding positively consuming it
With many home broadband users accounting for Internet connections, an Assured good experience means that consumers are spending more time online in greater and greater numbers. The Internet now accounts for approximately 10% to 25% of all media and news consumption and within certain demographics; the Internet is almost the only place to guarantee a satisfactory ROI. As for recent research which we undertook for a client, the average 21-35 year old spend over 50 hours a month on the web. The more time consumers spend online, and the more money they have with them, the more online as a branding medium becomes relevant. As we know from the offline world, it's a great deal easier to inspire loyalty and sell premium priced products to consumers who engage with the brand.

From passive to interactive real-time communication
The stupendous success of Twitter and numerous Online Viral Ads is proof of the fact that online engagement at exalted - interrupting someone with a 60 second TV ad, does not compare to the possible "time with brand" achievable online. The best online campaigns can capture attention by interruption with a 10-20 second ad and keep that attention with entertaining and informative content on a brand site. The end point of this chain of engagement could be a data-capture opportunity to purchase gold, but the motivating factor for the customer is entertainment and information. If the creative standards are high enough en route, the customer may spend up to 15 minutes with your brand before going back to what they were doing.

Using time efficiently with BRAND
with an entertaining brand experience agency can keep a good digital consumer to engaged. But the key to understanding the potential for online brands lies in what a business can do with that opportunity. Until the Internet arrived, brand communication, driven by TV ads was characterized by the passive consumer receiving messages. It was a one-way process and the advertiser had little genuine insight into response. In order to combine brand strategy with consumer insight, DM was brought into the mix. The drawback with direct marketing is that high creative standards tend to be prohibitively costly for all but the highest-ticket purchases (cars, etc.). Now that the Internet can deliver on the creative audience reach and impact necessary for brand advertising, its unique strength comes into play. The site combines the reach of television with the targeting and consumer insight of traditional DM.

In order to benefit from this powerful combination, businesses must embrace a communications process that recognizes the importance of a seamless, entertaining journey from ad to transaction. It's not sufficient to rely on highly creative advertising that simply sells off the page. Effective strategies require a combination of digital creative ads websites with engaging, insightful information architecture and business processes geared up to receive information and understand the customers are prepared to give as they interact. Done correctly, joined up to Virtuous circle where branding becomes valuable consumer insights are gathered at each part of the customer journey and are fed back into the creative process to develop a more and more engaging brand experience.

The Future & Beyond
Those businesses that embrace power of the internet as a branding medium now will make substantial gains in the future. High speed broadband (2MB speed and upwards will be the norm) will enable companies to deliver richer content and in so doing they will be able to harness consumer interaction more easily. As Web use becomes ever more convenient and cheap, consumers will continue to spend more time online brand and will look for proposals that deliver entertainment, service and convenience. Brands that understand the importance of a consistent two-way relationship and have the critical business processes in place will benefit from a trading environment that brings them as close to their customers as a medieval merchant was eleven, closer, better. The time is now for online advertising.