PressEthic

Hey WIllem.... The flashy ads are annoying, but, from my experience in the advertising industry, they do actually work (in terms of more people interacting with them, etc). At least compared to a lot of other forms of Internet ads...

The puzzling thing for me is how has the newspaper industry's advertising model sustained itself over the years and why hasn't the Internet been able to replicate its success? What did newspaper ads do to convince brand managers to invest millions of dollars with them, and why can't the Internet do the same thing? Is there any way that Internet websites could do that would manage to sell their products and not annoy people like you and me?

Laura- While an effective, creative use of coupons/flyers would certainly help with certain companies, it's not enough to put the web on the same footing as the more established media like TV, radio, magazines, and the newspaper. The best brands - the Cokes, McDonalds, Lexuses, and Disneys - spend their billions of dollars each year on advertising so that people unconsciously associate them with values such as family, fun, safety, etc, usually attributes that have little or nothing to do with the actual product. If it all became just a matter of advertising through coupons, the "sell" would become focused exclusively upon which brand offers the best price and not upon which is the better brand, thus driving profits way down (because, after all, what's stopping you from buying the Generic Brand if all you care about is price?). Coke, of course, has a lot invested in you and I continuing to view them as a whole lot more than a 99 cent high fructose, carbonated beverage; the only way to maintain the facade is if they continue to spend their money on brand advertising (and sparse, if any, direct marketing, like coupons).

But this is probably a dreadfully boring conversation for anyone but me and you (who, if I'm not mistaken, also spent some time in the ad biz?)

-Ryan

This may seem like a simplified answer, but I think internet advertising is just too young. We're not that far from when websites first started to sell the idea of online advertising, and skeptical companies had the upper hand. They still do. I'm willing to bet that, given time, site owners will get a much better rate on their CPMs, click-thru's, and what have you. I may be optimistic, but hey, the future of newspapers may rely on it.