Internet Advertising Driving Paradigm Shift in Conventional Advertising

This article was published in "Thinking Aloud!" March 2010 Issue (Vol-1, Issue-4), an information technology magazine promoted by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).

Advertising conjures up the image of regular mass media like newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, etc. These media are still in the limelight, despite losing a bit of their past glossy sheen.

The Internet has introduced the pains associated with paradigm shift in the advertising world. The Internet, an ever evolving medium, has made its presence felt in the advertising world. The advertising communities as well as the advertisers are now committing more resources, money and people, to unravel the mysteries and optimize the benefits offered by the Internet.

On the one hand, Internet has thrown new challenges for the advertising professionals by allowing customers and advertisers to directly connect even without intervention by the advertising community, a remote possibility in the pre-Internet era. More important, Internet has brought in new elements in advertising and even more accurate ways to decipher the advertising ROI (return on investment). 

Advertising professionals have to learn innovative ways to take full advantage of the Internet medium for their clients. Unlike the traditional media, Internet offers most accurate information on viewer-ship interest and the ready data allows for quick analysis and reporting. 

Advertising professionals have to now weigh the options available in the traditional media and make comparative analysis with the benefits offered by advertising on the Internet. This requires the advertising professional to keep updates on the fast changing technologies and evolutions in Internet media itself. For the advertising professionals, there is no choice but to include Internet as an important element in their choice of media for any advertising blitz that they propose to their clients.

On the other hand, Internet has also brought in new challenges to the advertisers, by bringing in competitors much smaller and that too from around the world. Internet has allowed the competitors with the smallest budget to compete with the big advertising spenders on the Internet. As a result, the companies, who were Goliaths in the conventional media, are now challenged by Davids like startups and non-commercial innovators. The size of the companies and their financial prowess do not necessarily ensure success in the Internet world, which equally shares information on competitive products and services.

Internet is a "shared media" and not a "bought media" in typical advertising parlance. The traditional media be it newspaper, magazines or TV and Radio essentially distributes information of the advertisers. However, Internet will share information of the competitors also who may not be running any advertising campaign.

There is a conscious effort by practically all the traditional media players to go online on the Internet or adopt a business model that uses Internet in some way. Traditional stalwarts of the media like newspapers and magazines are finding difficult to sustain their operations with advent of the Internet. Internet has given for free the most important of the elements of their business model viz, information and reach. The advertisers are now inundated with offers from their favorite traditional media that includes options on the Internet also.

The advertisers have to play in much bigger field now and much larger number of opponents. The Internet has allowed competitors big and small in size and introduced the international competitors along with the regional competitors. The past strategies of the advertisers will bear little fruits in the world of media increasingly being dominated by Internet. The advertisers will have to go back to the drawing board and develop new strategies from scratch to address the fresh challenges.

Hate it or love it, Internet has forced a paradigm shift in the Advertising Community.

Article by Mr. Sudheen M L, President, Crystal Hues Limited (Advertising, Marketing and Localization Company)