Marketing and Advertising Have Gone to the Internet
I was in a ponderous mood, driving into the office this morning. “What’s it like being a marketer in today’s age?” I wondered. I recalled the old stereotypes of marketing and advertising guys. Smoking pipes. Sipping scotch all day long. Three-martini lunches. But wait, I don’t have a secretary and I’m definitely not spending the days cruising around in my convertible BMW in between the golf course and tennis courts. Nope. I stride into the office, and everyone’s plugged in. Face in front of the computer. Sometimes on the phone. Cell phone/PDA always within reach. This is our interface.
We have cell phones, PDA’s and tireless wireless connections. There’s satellite radio, television on-demand and more specialized-content websites than there are colors in twenty big Crayola boxes (incidentally, the biggest Crayola box holds 120 crayons and blue – in its various forms – is the most popular color). There’s search, email, banner, skyscraper and big-box. There are things called blogs. We think interactive, interstitial and automated response. If you want to be a VIP, you’ll need to consider CPM and lower your CPC to get the lowest COA and the highest ROI. This is the jargon of today’s marketing and advertising pursuits.
Why? Because along with those billboards, TV spots, radio and newspaper ads, there’s a whole other frontier swallowing it all up. Internet. Al Gore has made it possible for marketers and advertisers to expand their universe. This is a revolution. The Internet Superhighway (when was the last time you heard that analogy?) makes everything faster. Information is nearly immediate. So, when your client asks, “How many people saw our ad?” We can actually answer them with a real number.
Today is the internet age. The past 10 – 15 years have been all about it, and it’s not going anywhere, anytime soon. I know very few people who are not computer literate. Speaking of literacy, I’d like to know what kind of effect the internet is having on our literacy rates in this country. It seems they advertised for literacy on every channel when I was in grade school – ABC, CBS and even NBC. Do you remember the last advertisement you saw for literacy?
My five-part discussion will continue to explore the audience, extensive cost benefits, flexibility and other positives of internet-based advertising and marketing.
