Analyses of Online/ Internet Advertising as a Marketing Communication Tool

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Table of Contents

Introduction
The features of internet advertising as a marketing communication tool
Internet marketing dimensions
Brand building messages
Direct response messages
Corporate communication
Electronic transactions
References

Introduction

More than any other form of communication tool internet advertising is one of the most precise and effective marketing tool in the modern world. Essentially, internet advertising are distinct from each other but used as a combination to bring out the meaning of internet advertising as a tool for marketing communication.

Internet is an amalgamation of networks operating on a laid down technical protocol that make users all over the world to have an access to as well as exchange information. The information exchange and access is usually achieved through the use of tools such as emails, World Wide Web and chart rooms.

In contrast, advertising is the paid reconciled form of communication whose source is known and intended to convince the recipient or the target to take the future or an immediate action (Richards & Curran 2002, p. 74).

Therefore, by combining internet and advertising, the definition of internet advertising would be any form of communication containing both the elements of advertising and internet. Like any other form of advertising, internet advertising as a form of communication is a multi-faceted phenomenon. It varies from all kinds while spans over time and space

The features of internet advertising as a marketing communication tool

Internet advertising is distinct from other mainstream traditional forms of advertising tools (McMillan & Hwang 2002, p.46). It combines both the traditional notions of marketing and advertising. Traditionally, advertising focused on the aspects of communication such as awareness and change of attitudes while marketing focused on the behavior change such as brand loyalty and purchasing.

Internet advertising incorporates those forms of massages whose elements were found in-between marketing and advertising. Hence, it blurs and compresses the different traditional notions of both marketing and advertising. The internet compression of the traditional forms of marketing and advertising communication tools can be seen in the current internet banner ads.

The banner ads are capable of building both the brand awareness as well as selling the presented services. The benefits of such kind of compression are that it reduces cost and at the same time delivers the messages as quickly as possible (Liu & Shrum 2002, p.55).

The other important distinctive characteristic of internet advertising is that it allows interactivity among the consumers. Internet adverts are the first known and widely available consumer interactive medium (McMillan & Hwang 2002, p.47).

The element of interactivity is a multi-faceted concept with benefits that includes a high-level user engagement, two-way communication, control over messages and timeless communication. Thus, internet advertising is the only form of advertising that has the capacity to develop the consumer’s two-way communication

Internet advertising messages also have the unique feature of being intrusive. In the first instances during its development, many users perceived internet advertising as lacking intrusiveness hence taken as being ineffective (Edwards et al. 2002, p.84).

Messages within the internet which are intended to persuade consumers are often placed a click away instead of openly intrude on users. The users have to put a request to have access to the adverts (McDonald 1997, p.23).

Internet advertising has the capacity to personalize communication. This has made internet to be a revolutionary potential form of marketing communication. The reason is that internet medium facilitates the personalized relationship that could be embraced by the advertising fraternity (Hoffman & Novak 1996, p.57).

The idea of personalized relationship with the product or the company brand has broadened through the use of internet adverts. Internet has enabled consumers to create a type of personalization constructed within the structure of internet use experience. This kind of personalization and customization is what make users visit the online store due to appropriate and appealing messages.

These appealing massages which are appropriate to the intended user not only draw the users towards intended information but also improve their attitude towards the Website (Chakraborty et al. 2003, p.57).

Internet marketing dimensions

Basically, internet or online advertising is a marketing communication tool given that it plays two critical roles namely the indirect communication objective and the direct transaction objective.

In fact, based on these two dimensions, the clients and consumers are able to access and equally purchase an organization’s products and services. To realize these objectives, internet advertising must help in developing the brand building messages, enhances corporate communication, offer direct response messages to the clients and facilitate electronic transactions.

Brand building messages

Organizations and business use brand building messages which constitute a significant part of their internet advertising or marketing strategy primarily to communicate to the consumers. This is eminent in cases where marketers and advertisers have proved various potential formats of such kinds of messages.

Brand building messages that are often used by businesses incorporate simple hyperlinks or small buttons which are available in different sites. In the customary media sense, brand building messages act as outdoor advertising since they offer very brief messages as regards to the product brand that is being marketed.

For instance, the permeating banners adverts have been the subject underlying various internet advertising used to market organizations or entities products and services. The internet banners in many ways look like the customary newspaper and magazine advertising given that they appear in the context of other messages. However, they can be ignored easily since they do not force publicity to the adverts at particular periods.

Mitchell and Valenzuela (2002, p.258) as a result claim that, both marketing practitioners and advertisers resorted to better and advanced ways through which they could develop afar the simple banners in order to make internet ads more memorable and visible.

According to McMillan et al. (2003, p.402), the first approach of making online advertisement visible and memorable involves building internet adverts to look more like the televisions as they tend to suppress other contents till they are dealt with. Unfortunately, it has been established that as a marketing communication tool, website adverts become less effective and extra intrusive (Edwards et al. 2002, p.84).

Besides, like directory advertising, brand marketers have identified listings as the key modules of marketing communication strategies particularly for the b2b (business to business) corporations. The purchased placements that are more similar to the customary promotions or sponsorship appear as the major internet advertising component.

These may adopt the sponsored links forms which range from shopping avenues to websites like the Amazon.com. Basically, the sponsored links bring about the payment of commissions to the funding sites for any sales that originate from the hyperlinks. These directly communicate the product brands details to the consumers or purchasers.

Marketing practitioners have also acknowledged various forms of the outwardly certified contents as elements of the brand building internet advertising potential. Such techniques always appear to have close relations to the offline practices which are categorized under the public relations domain.

In general, the potentiality of this internet advertising technique has been used by marketers to communicate the available brands to the consumers.

It has been realized that the customary definitions of the public relations functions and advertising are clouding online, and this creates a close interface between the marketed brands producers and the brand consumers. Moreover, web marketing have the potential of changing the links amid public relation and advertising agencies and their esteemed customers (Rodgers & Chen 2002, p.97).

Direct response messages

Internet advertising constitutes of direct response messages which are intended for the brand consumers. The direct response internet advertising messages tend to exemplify the somewhat challenging nature of trying to classify ads in mediums which are personalized, intrusive and interactive while the effects of the customary hierarchy are compressed.

In reality, any kind of brand building messages might develop into the direct response messages only when they incorporate the call to actions.

The hoary difference amid the direct response advertising and brand advertising almost become futile on the internet particularly where call to actions can emerge from simple web addresses. But still, these types of internet advertising messages facilitate communication between brand producers and consumers or purchasers.

The ability of the online media placed messages have shown very little or no discrepancy given that they often aid in building brands while others spawn clients engagements like the click-through (Yoon 2001, p.349).

Brand marketers furthermore do not question the clients’ intents to take some actions or to purchase. Instead, they measure and observe the relationships between online direct response actions and brand building messages (Gong & Maddox 2003, p.41).

Corporate communication

More often, online brand building does not appear as a mere internet advertising form. In fact, the product advertising messages are not only placed in the peripheral content in order to become constituents of the online advertising mix, but also to communicate the brand details to the consumers.

Sometimes, to spearhead online brand marketing, corporate communication messages are pushed to consumers via channels like opt-in email messages, electronic greeting cards and e-newsletters. Great care is always assumed to preserve the relevance of these advertising strategies to the consumers and shun their treatment as spam.

To facilitate online marketing, brand marketers and advertisers have tried to push procedures to maintain the two way communications with the clients (Paul 1996, p.29). The consumer pulled internet corporate communication strategy is not website limited.

Other forms include webcasts, brand-related games, fantasy communities, bulletin boards, consumer reviews, blogs and chat rooms. All these internet advertising forms have the capacity to build strong associations between brands and consumers through facilitating interactions and communication.

Electronic transactions

Marketers perceive electronic transaction as a definitive objective of internet advertising. Internet advertising has the ability to conduct direct transactions with clients in settings that have very minute physical overhead. This is what gave rise to the success of a company like the dot.com corporation (Shen 2002, p.62).

Furthermore, internet advertising facilitates brand marketing communications between the consumers and producers given that no website links are required since brand transactions might take place within the online banner ads.

The unique internet advertising communication features namely the hierarchical compression of personalization, intrusiveness, interactivity and effects have aided in the client movement to electronic transaction from internet or online advertising (Kim et al. 2001, p.47).

In conclusion therefore, it emanates that various kinds of marketing transactions communications can be done thru internet and are ads related. These include job boards which allow employers and job seekers to transact the initial interview and credential review online whereas sweepstakes and coupons are online deliverable for utilization in mortar and bricks retail settings.

References

Chakraborty, G Lala, V & Warren, D 2003”What do customers consider important in B2B Websites?” Journal of Advertising Research, vol.43no.1, pp. 50-61

Edwards, SM, Li, H & Lee, JH 2002, “Forced exposure and psychological reactance: Antecedents and consequences of the perceived intrusiveness of pop-up ads”, Journal of Advertising, vol.31 no.3, pp.83-96.

Gong, W & Maddox, LM 2003, “Measuring Web advertising effectiveness in China”, Journal of Advertising Research, vol.43 no.1, pp.34-49.

Hoffman, D & Novak, T 1996, “Marketing in hypermedia computer-mediated environments: Conceptual foundations”, Journal of Marketing, vol.60 no. 3, pp. 50-68.

Kim, JW, Lee, BS, Shaw, MJ, Chang, HL & Nelson, M2001, “Application of decision-tree induction techniques to personalized advertisements on Internet storefronts”, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, vol.5 no.3, pp.45-62.

Liu, Y & Shrum, LJ 2002, “What is interactivity and is it always such a good thing: Implications of definition, person, and situation for the influence of interactivity on advertising effectiveness”, Journal of Advertising, vol.31no.4, pp. 53-64.

McDonald, SC 1997,”The once and future Web: Scenarios for advertisers”, Journal of Advertising Research, vol.37no.2, pp. 21-28.

McMillan, SJ & Hwang, JS 2002, “Measures of perceived interactivity: An exploration of communication, user control, and time in shaping perceptions of interactivity”, Journal of Advertising, vol.31 no.3, pp. 41-54.

McMillan, SJ, Hwang, JS & Lee, G 2003, “Effects of structural and perceptual factors on attitudes toward the Website”, Journal of Advertising Research, vol.43 no.4, pp.400-409.

Mitchell, AA & Valenzuela, A 2002, “The effect of banner advertisements on judgment and choice”, Advances in Consumer Research, vol.29 no.1, pp.257-259.

Paul, P 1996, “Marketing on the Internet”, Journal of Consumer Marketing, vol.13 no.4, pp.27-39.

Richards, J & Curran, C 2002, “Oracles on “advertising”: Searching for a definition”, Journal of Advertising, vol.31 no.2, pp. 63-77.

Rodgers, S & Chen, Q 2002, “Post-adoption attitudes to advertising on the Internet”, Journal of Advertising Research, vol.42 no.5, pp.95-104.

Shen, F 2002, “Banner advertisement pricing, measurement, and pretesting practices: Perspectives from interactive agencies”, Journal of Advertising, vol.31 no.3, pp.59-67.

Yoon, SJ 2001, “The effects of perceived consumer characteristics on the choice and use of Internet ads”, Journal of Brand Management, vol.8 no.4/5, pp.346-364.

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