Letter: Advertising in the user-generated world

As advertising spend on traditional media declines, online spend continues to accelerate. But it is only playing catch-up with the time consumers now spend online. This time increasingly involves activities such as content creation, sharing, and community-based interaction which were never intended for infiltration by commercial interests. We know that advertising in the user-generated world is perceived by users, unsurprisingly, as encroachment and carries great risks for brands.

So the prevailing orthodoxy is that brands must therefore generate their own communities of users who will voluntarily shape and even champion the brand. The advertiser, it seems, has now become a publisher. This sits alongside that other new media orthodoxy that online ads must only ever invite users to engage with their message. The medium, it would appear, is too posh to push.

But brand campaigns that imitate “Web 2.0” often presume a high level of interest and engagement from “time poor” users that is unrealistic. They are often over-elaborate, expensive to produce and achieve limited reach. Also this approach is just unsuitable for many brands. At the same time, much “pull” advertising, such as rich media and expandables, whilst highly creative, are increasingly intrusive on the page and suffer the same problem of high cost for limited reach. Our industry must abandon such entrenched orthodoxies to attract and retain major brand advertisers.

But hope is at hand. Video advertising brings a new perspective to this question of push v pull. Video adverts require push to reach the coverage that brands, migrating from TV, require. Will users tolerate this? I think they will in return for access to quality video content. But online does require engaging advertising for the “lean-forward” audience. As TV and PC converge I believe effective online advertising will begin to combine the strengths of both media. As major brands increasingly follow their consumers online, new media will offer advertising which combines the reach and visual impact of TV with the targeting and interaction of online. It is video advertising that has this potential. With increasingly sophisticated targeting and creative executions, and the need to monetise compelling but costly content, the question of push v pull will become increasingly moribund.

David Michael
Strategy Director
Utarget Networks