Well…it’s official – the Internet is seriously scrubbing out my old pal, the newspaper. In a recent TechCrunch article I read that the top 100 advertisers in the biz shifted a combined $1 billion smackeroos away from traditional advertising, like newspapers and magazines, and put it towards web advertising. Although I am not at all surprised, it does cause me to pout a bit when I think of a newspaper-less world – especially when I think of how much harder it will be to craft newspaper hats out of computers.
But when you think about it, how could this not have happened? It is rare these days that people get their information from sources other than the Internet – what people see on the 6 o’ clock nightly news they have already read about on Digg.com or msn.com. And why shouldn’t they? The internet is easy; it’s accessible, it’s fast and it doesn’t leave ink smudges on your fingers.
In the same light, even advertisements and publicity methods have turned to the internet with the developments of newer trends. These trends have seen the likes of brands, organizations, government bodies, and many other entities trying to use online marketing methods and channels. These methods used would have marked a transition not only to television but even to social media platforms and browsers. While many may have established stores online in the form of e-commerce bodies, their methods of advertising have changed similarly. These newer advertising methods would include the use of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) services, pop-up advertisements, Facebook ads, and more, to name a few. The services provided by an Amazon ppc agency uk could be taken as another example of advertising where a store set up on Amazon utilizes internet-based methods for advertising rather than a newspaper. With the help of PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising, every click made on an advertisement banner of the client would redirect the user to the corresponding Amazon store.
However, this growth in internet advertising isn’t without its own kinks in the chain:
The big question is whether the recession that has already hit some categories of advertising will hit the Web this year. Already, the growth of spending in display advertising slowed overall in the first quarter of 2008. And the Interactive Advertising Bureau showed a slight decline for all Web advertising
(including search) to $5.8 billion in the first quarter, from $5.9 billion in the fourth quarter of last year.
This article features two very interesting charts which outline where exactly ad dollars are going and show that, although web display ads experienced a 33% increase last year, it is still television which runs the show (pun totally intended). But for how much longer? Who knows. What I do know is that all of a sudden…I’m thinking Arby’s.