Taking things personally
Andrew Davies, marketing director at idio, looks at some key issues that will drive online growth in 2007.
In the future we’ll look back on 2006 as the year that the internet came of age. The last ghosts of the dotcom boom have finally been laid to rest and the web is now delivering on some of the empty promises of the past. Broadband adoption is increasing further, and consumers are waking up to the potential of their PCs. Even the mobile internet is finding its feet. Web 2.0 is proving to be very profitable for content aggregators and online collaboration and sharing amongst users is becoming the norm.
However, the user-generated-content explosion brings with it a fundamental problem – delivery. As content abounds, sifting through it to find one’s preferred choice morsels becomes ever more time-consuming. The majority of this article’s readers will check multiple online sources daily in order to keep abreast of current trends and events. But is this sustainable in an environment of increasing quality, diversity and volume of online content? It seems not, and there is a discernable trend in services that actually personalise the online experience – by learning and delivering exactly what the user wants – rather than just providing subject category choices.
As more people spend more time interacting online, the volume of information ready to be used for advertising purposes is becoming almost unimaginably large. Interactions through the social-web reflect each user’s personality, motivation and interests, giving information about which marketers could only dream in previous years. The challenge so far has been to identify how it can be used.
To date, it is mainly direct marketers who have taken advantage of the opportunities posed by Web 2.0. The very essence of Web 2.0 is its unpredictability, and if there is one thing marketers don’t like, it’s unpredictability. With content being increasingly user driven, through sites such as YouTube, MySpace and Blogger, there is no way to control online brand advertising and this is something of a potential minefield for media buyers seeking to tap into this huge source of potential. Based on concerns regarding content and the possible negative associations with brands it is more likely that branding activity will take place in the social networking arena where moderation of content is stressed.
Despite these concerns, web 2.0 has opened up huge possibilities for advertisers to target consumers on a more accurate and even personalised basis. This has wide-ranging repercussions for advertising budgets, as it can mean that advertisers can move to more user-focused advertising, rather than relying on blanket (and often blind) media buying. This has the result of reducing wastage, with advertising only being shown to those for whom it is intended. As well as being better able to control their advertising spend, more accurate targeting means that advertisers are also able to change campaign characteristics for each niche group to generate improved returns.
Even the shift in the online publishing revenue model favours advertisers, or at least those advertisers who are willing to make the most of the new opportunities. Whereas advertising-funded services were the death of the first internet boom, they appear to be the life of this resurgence due to the increased online audience, the personalisation possibilities and the broadband-ubiquity that is allowing interactive video formats. And as online publishers rely on advertising for their income, they are learning to provide advertising capabilities that are worth paying for. This trend was legitimised by the $1.65bn price tag put on YouTube in its recent acquisition by Google.
Web 2.0 offers a huge number of possibilities for marketers, and it seems very likely that the same services that will deliver personalised experiences to users – therefore creating value out of chaos – will be the systems that can best deliver the same value to advertisers. Web 2.0 could herald a boom time for advertisers, provided they make use of the tools available.
| Bookmark with: |
