The Internet: A Maze of Measures

THE INTERNET: A MAZE OF MEASURES
Developing Internet Strategies

The Internet battles for a share of our advertising strategies with five companions - youth, promise, momentum, fashion and novelty. It will age, it can't fulfill every promise (see NASDAQ), its growth rate is slowing, we all know about the capriciousness of fashion and it is rapidly becoming more familiar. Soon, the accomplices will disappear and only the medium will remain to be judged on its merits. For now though, if you refer to media in any way, you may as well just say internet.

The problem with the future of the internet, as we see it today, is simple. The internet needs "content," while broadcasters need "programming." The first is mostly information, the second mostly entertainment. Which sells more- fiction or non-fiction, drama or documentaries? The people who have both TV and the internet (that's about half the public) watch over four hours of TV a day and use the internet for fifteen minutes. But, one is watched, the other is used. This suggests their levels and quality of engagement differ.

Conventional data shows that roughly 20% of viewers recall a TV commercial, 1% of internet users recall a banner. Between 5-10% of recallers to each medium claim to be motivated to buy the advertised product. All this suggests that the internet is still on a honeymoon and is not being held to the same standards of accountability as TV. Internet proponents would quickly argue that their medium is held to a higher standard, directly tied to sales. The difference is one is measured regularly by widely accepted syndicated research, while the other is subjected to something less.

With all this ambiguity framing the battle for ad dollars and even ad purpose, we are about to embark on the age of Tivo and Replay. Whatever solution we decide upon to solve our present dilemma will quickly become obsolete, so I think we are living in a kind of decision measurement purgatory. Arbitrary answers (like the 1980s: 5% solution that place 5% of media money towards cable) have little foundation for the internet. Perhaps we should approach the internet like other media. First, recognize how it is consumed by the public and for what purpose, then match that with the marketing needs of the brand. So the consumer's thirst for information, linked to some sense of urgency or recency for the brand, should drive the marketer to place enough money into the internet to "make it work." That is essentially the way we approach every other medium and it is strategically sound.