I read The problem with internet advertising is the ads on Brand Republic. The author Thomas Ordahl made some interesting and valid points about "the most sophisticated communications technology [the web] suffering from the most primitive forms of advertising".
However, I do not agree with the assertion that the vast majority of online users are simply gathering information and therefore that online advertising "must shift" its focus away from entertainment into relevance (such as contextual placement), in order to give users what they want and make advertising less interruptive.
People are not simply online to search for the cheapest flight or find out how to get to 524 Ackerland Street. Recent surveys have shown that the internet is cannibalising TV as an entertainment and advertising medium. The relevance-only mantra doesn't take into account well-established and growing usage habits on websites such as the ever-popular Lycos Viral Chart, or broadband entertainment network IFILM.com, which serves a staggering 7m streams a week. There is a huge amount of online users who want to be entertained, to interact with time-fillers and other leisure-related content.
In this context, highly entertainment-focused advertising, or "advertainment", is also relevant -- if not, people wouldn't forward the better examples "virally" in droves, nor would non-interruptive online techniques such as viral marketing build brand and result in sales.
The likes of contextual search engine advertising may well gain better user attention than less-targeted interruptive advertising. Depending on the CPC, it may also deliver worthwhile response and even brand exposure. But this relevance-focused approach doesn't equate to brand building. It narrow-targets web usage, rather than adapting online advertising techniques to use the web's broadest communications capabilities -- while still enabling users to be in control.
The internet grew out of people sharing information and files. You only have to note the rise in blogs, the use of file transfer networks and emerging social networks to see the peer-to-peer aspects of the web in action. There is huge value in offering online users entertainment-focussed advertising content that they feel compelled to seek out, pass on and talk about of their own free will. With this kind of advertainment content, non-interruptive online marketing techniques such as viral marketing are able to kickstart proactive, user-driven viewing and spread of branded material. This results in extremely valuable, voluntary peer-to-peer brand endorsement among a wide-as-possible online audience.
The rising use of such strategic, brand-building techniques shows that forward-thinking advertisers are clearly already looking beyond the most "primitive" traditional forms of online advertising -- and beyond simply tactical, response-based techniques. And they are starting, slowly but surely, to embrace non-interruptive advertising.
However, while I'm not a fan of interruptive online advertising, I wouldn't argue that it shouldn't be used at all. It obviously still delivers certain results -- even though I don't believe it is as effective as many once believed and some would still have us believe.
The point is that a mixed approach to online advertising makes the most sense, because marketing is not just about delivering short-term, tactical, targeted response; it's also about generating awareness and longer-term brand building.
If you can use non-interruptive online advertising to entertain users while involving them voluntarily in a brand-building, awareness-generating experience that they control, so much the better.
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