Thursday, August 30, 2012

Qiqi Wang 42671922 online essay

Advertising and new media

Comparatively, new media has wider effect than old media due to the Internet.

New media plays down the borders between nations and communities, between senders and receivers. With the development of digital media, new media becomes increasingly important in many aspects in daily life, including that it influences advertising largely by providing many new niche approaches. Internet advertising and mobile advertising are two main parts of new media advertising. Hardware giant Apple’s iAd and social media site Facebook could demonstrate both comprehensively.
 
There are many different forms of internet advertising, such as banner, e-mail, interstitial advertising to name a few. Apple has examples of most of them. Banner is the oldest form of internet advertising which is similar print media. Apple’s banner can be recognized due to the apple logo on many websites and social media including its own website. Interactive banners can be found on social media sites, alluringly tempting consumers to “play and win an iPod”. E-mail advertising is pretty common in daily life with the advantage of strong direction; straight to the consumer, although it sometimes connects with junk mail. Apple sends e-mail advertising to customers or potential customers regularly. Most of them are text with pictures of their products as well as hyperlinks ready to escort audiences to their online stores and official websites. Search engine advertising is another necessary part of the Internet advertising. Spurgeon (2008) states that information advertising is different from other forms; advertising with human needs and human want. He also claims that the Internet search engine is the most important development for information advertising.
 Apple put a new ad on Google recently that customers could find iPad ads when they search Dell streak. It is an obvious competition on the Internet search engine. Apple invests this in order to attract Dell’s potential customers and make them their own. IPad’s ad will not be shown when people search Samsung Galuxy S.


Another company taking advantage of search based advertising, Facebook is trying to challenge Google search by releasing the “Sponsored Result”. This kind of ad would be shown when users search certain locations, pages or applications. For example, many other online games could be shown when users search for a certain online game. “Sponsored Result” would benefit Facebook by attracting more sponsors. It is similar with to the keyword search but it will not work when users input common words such as “tree” or “house”. It only works with proper nouns like “iPad” or “SONY”. It seems advertising revenue is the main income for Facebook. However, there are some problems for Facebook ads. Firstly, invalid clicks make sponsors doubt whether it is effective to put ads on Facebook. For example, General Motors removed their ads on Facebook a couple of months ago because they thought that ads on Facebook had not benefited their company. Besides, secret protection is still a big challenge for social media.  

Mobile phone is another popular approach for advertising. “Mobile media, especially cellphones, are now seen and heard everywhere, forming an intrinsic part of the daily lives and habits of billions of people worldwide. Driving this wide diffusion has been a remarkable rate of adoption.” (Wilken and Sinclair, 2009) Sending valuable ads to right audiences at right time is the feature of mobile advertising. With the traceability and intractability, mobile advertising can lock its audiences and get timely feedback. However this ability to access to consumer directly brings with it the same problems as email advertisement. Firstly, people need useful information but hate junk SMS. Unfortunately, junk SMS has increased rapidly because of the high influx of mobile ads.
Besides, Facebook is testing a new mobile advertising which is based on geography. Many people see tracking users is an invasion of privacy. Apple and Google also track users, however, Apple claims they will send users targeted information in their privacy policy and Google never sends ads to users based on users’ data although they could. In fact, there are ways to protect users’ privacy in certain cased. For instance, Facebook could provide an option like a ban for users who do not want to receive any ads through their mobile phones. As for Apple, iAd is their advertising platform. Apple provides their mobile productions as an advertising platform but it did not perform well. Most of iAds are banner advertisements; which means ads can only be effective when users are pay attention to and spending time on them. It is difficult to achieve. Having said that, iAd is at its peak, with Mitt Romney, American Republican Party presidential candidate having publicized himself through iAd, drawing attention to iAd.

In conclusion, both the internet advertising and mobile advertising are interactive ads. Users get information easily and sponsors could get statistics in time. “In these interactive systems, a customer controls the content of the interaction, requesting or giving information, at the attributed level or in terms of benefits. A customer can control the presentation order of the information, and unwanted options may be deleted. The consumer may request that the information sought be presented in comparative table format, in video, audio, pictorial format, or in standard text. Increasingly, customers can also order products using the interactive system” (Alexa, 1998). New media provides a new possibility to advertising and it still has a long way to go.


References:
Alexa, Bezjian-Avery. 1998. ‘New media interactive advertising vs. traditional advertising.’ Journal of advertising research, Juy. August.  pp 23- 32


Sinclair, John and Wilken, Rowan. 2009. 'Waiting for the kiss of life : mobile media and advertising' Convergence: the journal of research into new media, vol 15 no 5 pp 427 - 445

Spurgeon, C. 2008. Advertising and New Media, Oxon, Routledge, pp 24-45.

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