It had to happen. Just as ITV writhes around in its prolonged death spiral, still searching for a new CEO and chairman, and Channel 4 falls out with its boss, along comes the headline that ‘the internet has now overtaken TV to become the biggest advertising sector in the UK’. A sign of the times (except that it’s not strictly true: print, although in steep decline, remains the largest advertising medium).
Last year’s record online spend of £1.75bn means that the UK is the world’s first major economy where advertisers have put more dosh online than on TV. The web has achieved this in little more than a decade, which is remarkable. But there’s quite a lot that needs unpicking here, not least the fact that ‘online’ contains so many separate facets: email, classified ads, display ads and vast quantities of search marketing (large chunks of which winds up in Google’s pocket).
Within these Internet Advertising Bureau figures sits the fact that online display ads such as banners actually fell by 5.2% year-on-year, to £316.5m. Just today I’ve come across two unbelievably irritating and obtrusive online display ads - one on the FT’s site and one on The Times’s - shrieking to be noticed like an intensely irritating kid in a class. And one of them has the dire cheek to be hiding behind a click where you expect to get editorial. Very naughty behaviour indeed, and their effect is to make me actively hostile towards their perpetrators.
The web’s success is also due to dire state of the economy. Downturns understandably make advertisers very cautious; they want very precisely directed marketing material that brings easily measurable results and ROI. Online promises a lot to the nervous and the thrifty, but doesn’t always deliver it.
The BBC – surprise surprise – has gone big on this story, and its website includes a feature about the ad agency that has just launched the new VW Golf Gti entirely online. Gone are the lovely 30-second telly and cinema VW ads of old – apparently there are no press spreads. Just an online racing game (which isn’t actually a game because it’s not interactive, and isn’t strictly speaking an ad because it’s hosted on the VW website).
All one helluva lot of fun, I’m sure. But I hadn’t previously seen it and, as a consequence, the launch has completely passed me by. I know media is necessarily fragmented these days, and I know I may not be the target audience for a GTi (I hear they’re a lot fatter, heavier and less fun than the old icons of the 80s). But what online advertising does less well – and I’d include banners in this – is build broad brand awareness. The GTi got to become the icon it is because of those skilfully crafted DDB TV ads of years back. Everyone saw them, everyone got and shared the message. But we’ll never get back to that because it’s too expensive and wasteful in the world of 21st century marketing.
Online is brilliant for job ads and outstanding for small ticket items in classified. But it’s not effective for everything. I’m not sure how good online is, for example, at luxury goods – those sorts of wildly expensive treats that have to be made to appear intensely desirable (beautifully presented press ads and posters can do this). Neither is it great at making things loveable. I know I keep banging on about the success of Compare the Market’s meerkat, but that had to be done by television (of course there’s now a website and the whole thing is 'viral').
In short the web is here to stay, will advance further and has made marketing an even more arcane and problematic art in the last decade. But neither TV nor print is quite dead yet.
In today's bulletin:
BAE threatened with £1bn fine as SFO gets tough
Asda raises the stakes in the bid for customer loyalty
Why shouldn't Northern Rock boss get another chance?
Editor's blog: The limits of online advertising
Budding green entrepreneurs short of role models
