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The End of Advertising as We Know It
June 2, 2008
Late last year, IBM released a study ominously called “The End of Advertising as We Know It.” According to the study, growth areas will primarily involve advertising distributed through mobile communications devices and the Internet, followed by ads embedded in video games. Growth in these areas is anticipated to be up to four times faster than that of traditional media used for direct marketing.
But the key finding is that these ads will be largely interactive. Two-thirds of the executives polled for the study expect 20% of ad expenditures in the next three years to shift way from impression-based pricing formats to interactive advertising distributed through online advertising networks and social networking Web sites. The goal, along with greater data tracking capabilities, is to improve the ability to target individual consumers with personalized advertising based more on lifestyle data than on contemporary methods for targeting by ZIP codes and at the household level.
IBM's findings are based on surveys of more than 80 advertising executives.
What does this bode for print? Advertising executives go where the results are. Basic consumer psychographics are driving this move to greater interactivity and lifestyle-based targeting. If it works online, it works in print. Results from case studies in interactive print (via PURL-based applications) and 1:1 targeting based on lifestyle or other relevance-based factors do, in fact, prove that the results far exceed those from traditional targeting methods—just as they do online.
Small or mid-sized businesses don’t always have the resources to do their own customer psychographic research, so when results like this are publicized, they should pay attention. They allow you to take advantage of and learn from the same lessons that the larger marketers do. Have questions? Comments? I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at htollvr@aol.com. For more information on primers for marketers and small businesses on digital, 1:1, and Web-to-print technologies, visit www.digitalprintingreports.com.
Posted by Heidi Tolliver Nigro on June 2, 2008 | Comments (0)
