advertising

There are many advantages and disadvantages associated with advertising online. The first aspect of advantages is the World Wide Web opens up new communication possibilities for personalized messages to be delivered to targeted individuals (Davis 2000, 113). By positioning an [advertisement] on a website which relates to the target markets specific interests, interest and further speculation should occur. Advertising online enables target marketing, message tailoring, information access, sales potential, creativity, exposure and speed.

Secondly, online advertising has the capability to reach a global audience at a fast rate. This enables extensive exposure and is an important characteristic of online advertising, and a major component of why online advertising is so successful.

Thirdly, marketers undertaking new possibilities to perform traditional marketing strategies in electronic environments push higher chances to create synergy. Janal (1995, 47) mentioned that the Internet offers the best multimedia tools for presenting information, through the World Wide Web, a hypermedia environment. It is as further explained that it is a place where marketers can present their information with pictures, animation, sound and text. Indeed the power of Internet has impact on the multitude of advertising formats. This can be seen from the numerous web tools such as banners, rich media, intertials, and interactive broadband commercials as seen on the websites nowadays. These are the multiple forms of online advertising tools used by advertisers over the time aiming towards developing exciting, interactive, eye catching advertisements that can draw consumers’ attention, at the same time increasing their brand or sales online. Strauss and Frost (1999, 202) states that the Net’s big strength is direct response advertising where direct response leverages the Internet’s unique opportunity for two way communication with consumers. Placing advertising in this environment will grants advertises unique opportunity for in the element of interactivity. The interactive capabilities of ‘cyberads’ offer key advantages for vendors to establish and maintain dialogues with customers (Janal 1995, 269).

The opportunities for creativity in online advertising are limitless. IAB (2005) on the other hand had drafted out a very comprehensive set of 28 good reasons to use interactive advertising that places the overview of interactive advertising advantages. In the list, it provides 28 points on a marketer’s potential uses of the internet and corresponds with 28 ways of measure performance.

Disadvantages

Even though there are many advantages for companies who advertise online, there are also some disadvantages involved. Disadvantages of advertising online include: measurement problems, audience characteristics, websnarl, clutter, potential for deception, costs, limited production quality, poor reach and lack of Intrusiveness.

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One definition of advertising is: \"Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified

sponsors through the various media.\"So much for academic doubletalk. Now let's take this statement apart and see what it means.

NONPERSONAL

First, what is \"nonpersonal\"? There are two basic ways to sell anything: personally and nonpersonally. Personal selling requires the seller and the buyer to get together. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. The first advantage is time: the seller has time to discuss in detail everything about the product. The buyer has time to ask questions, get answers, examine evidence for or against purchase.

A second advantage of personal selling is that the seller can see you. the person rhe's selling to. Rhe can see your face, see how the sales message is getting across. If you yawn or your eyes shift away, you're obviously bored, and the seller can change approach. Rhe can also see if you're hooked, see what features or benefits have your attention, and emphasize them to close the sale.

Finally, the seller can easily locate potential buyers. If you enter a store, you probably have an interest in something that store sells. Street vendors and door-to-door sellers can simply shout at possibilities, like the Hyde Park (London) vendors who call out, \"I say there, Guv'nor, can you use a set of these dishes?here on they fit their message to the individual customer, taking all the time a customer is willing to give them.

Disadvantages do exist. Personal selling is, naturally enough, expensive, since it is labor-intensive and deals with only one buyer at a time. Just imagine trying to sell chewing gum or guitar picks one-on-one; it would cost a dollar a stick or pick.

In addition, its advantage of time is also a disadvantage. Personal selling is time-consuming. Selling a stereo or a car can take days, and major computer and airplane sales can take years.

Nonetheless, although personal selling results in more rejections than sales, and can be nerve-racking, frustrating and ego destroying for the salesperson, when the salesperson is good it is more directed and successful than advertising.

From the above, it appears that personal selling is much better than advertising, which is nonpersonal. This is true. Advertising has none of the advantages of personal selling: there is very little time in which to present the sales message, there is no way to know just who the customer is or how rhe is responding to the message, the message cannot be changed in mid-course to suit the customer's reactions.

Then why bother with advertising? Because its advantages exactly replace the disadvantages of personal selling, and can emulate some of the advantages. First let's look at the latter.

First, advertising has, comparatively speaking, all the time in the world. Unlike personal selling,

the sales message and its presentation does not have to be created on the spot with the customer watching. It can be created in as many ways as the writer can conceive, be rewritten, tested, modified, injected with every trick and appeal known to affect consumers. (Some of the latter is the content of this book.)

Second, although advertisers may not see the individual customer, nor be able to modify the sales message according to that individual's reactions at the time, it does have research about customers. The research can identify potential customers, find what message elements might influence them, and figure out how best to get that message to them. Although the research is meaningless when applied to any particular individual, it is effective when applied to large groups of customers.

Third, and perhaps of most importance, advertising can be far cheaper per potential customer than personal selling. Personal selling is extremely labor-intensive, dealing with one customer at a time. Advertising deals with hundreds, thousands, or millions of customers at a time, reducing the cost per customer to mere pennies. In fact, advertising costs are determined in part using a formula to determine, not cost per potential customer, but cost per thousand potential customers.

Thus, it appears that advertising is a good idea as a sales tool. For small ticket items, such as chewing gum and guitar picks, advertising is cost effective to do the entire selling job. For large ticket items, such as cars and computers, advertising can do a large part of the selling job, and personal selling is used to complete and close the sale.

Advertising is nonpersonal, but effective.