How Conversational Is Online Advertising - Assignment Example

Conversational’ Is Online Advertising How ‘conversational’ (Spurgeon 2008) is online advertising? Discuss with reference to specific examples. Advertising is a marketing communication through which marketers persuade potential customers to purchase or continue using a particular product or services. Online or internet advertising is a form of marketing that involves the use of the internet to convey promotional marketing information to the audience (Christina, 2009). In a globalized economy and technological advancement businesses differentiate their brands from those of competitors through effective advertisement. Marketers must select the advertising media carefully in order to achieve greater impact by reaching more audience. The modern markets are shifting from traditional media of advertisement such as mass media that encompasses magazine, newspaper, television, radio, etc. and are adopting new media such as websites, text messages and blogs (Christina, 2009). The focus is to increase consumption of product and services as well as developing the company’s brand name. The type of medium used influences the quality of the advertisement and the extent to which the audience can relate to the product of the company. There are also non-commercial marketers such as politicians, religious organizations, government agencies and interest groups (Kurose & Ross, 2010). In the modern world, there is a trend in online marketing that provides a forum for conversation between marketers and audience around the clock. The traditional mass media advertisement involves top-bottom communication system where the media determines what content to release to the public and when to share the message. The audience has no choice apart from the option to select the information from the fixed menu of content. The audients pay for the cost of one-off purchase or make an on-going subscription. However, this form of communication is one way since it does not support peer-to-peer interaction while the audience are given indirect representation in the media (Kurose & Ross, 2010). On the other hand, conversational communication offers a mutual interaction that takes places through telecommunication and telephone linkage. All the participants of the Conversational connection exercises some degree of control of the communication and can commence or dismiss the conversation at their free will (Kurose & Ross, 2010). Since both advertisers and consumers have an equal chance to propel the conversation, the audience have a significant role to play in this form of communication and the media is largely based on the audience participation and direct representation. It is apparent that those producers of online ads must design the message for viewing by intentional and unintentional audience. Therefore, instead of targeting particular market segment online advertisers focus on a particular search engine. Online advertising is a form of marketing that conveys promotional marketing messages to the audience through email, mobile, sponsored search, social media marketing, display advertising, search engine, etc. (Beard & Yang, 2011). In the recent past online marketing has grown significantly due to technological advancement, increased use of mobile phones and the internet. Although traditional media is still common in advertisement online marketing is gaining importance as more companies and audience enhance their presence in the social media and other online media (Kurose & Ross, 2010). The growing importance of online marketing is contributed by low cost and preference of interactive features it offers to the users. The digital media is characterised by the interactivity of various typologies. This interactivity has created a shift in communication systems from specialist to generic systems. Conversational interactivity is one of the mediated interactivity forming the communication architecture (Beard & Yang, 2011). It involves two-way architecture that facilitates the exchange of information between the peers. Conversational interaction involves intercreativity that is characteristic of networked digital media. It offers a procedure for creating things or resolving issues together. It creates capacity for the end users to read and also write the media. Beard & Yang (2011) argues that the media technologies that promote conversation are intrinsically intercreative in the sense that they offer audiences the technical means to create and circulate texts and propagate audiences. Where the mass communication based on transmission provides the opportunity production and dissemination in linear value chains “the social relations of digital conversational communication technologies such as the mobile and the internet support profoundly dialogic spread ethos” (Christina, 2008, p. 23). They promote socio-cybernetic platforms for intercreative interrelations and social involvement. Due to ensuing consumer demand for digital conversational interrelation the users of conversational interrelation take part in main changes in pathways of social and economic standards. The effects of internet market have been felt by traditional mass media such as newspapers due to decline in revenue. On the other hand, internet marketing has gained momentum in terms of web audience and revenue they generate. For example, Google has become the biggest advertisement media making over $700 billion annually from advertisement only (Kurose & Ross, 2010). Furthermore, online marketing continues to grow significantly and as a result exerting significant impact in the market. The increased earning by online media and their significant effects on the traditional media has been attributed to the conversational nature that has attracted audience consistently. Marketers have relied on the conversational possibilities of the online media by linking them with mass media advertising to establish brand communities. An example is the case of “Life’s for Sharing” campaign by the T-Mobile industry (Christina, 2008, p. 34). The use of mobile data is the future hope for T-Mobile in bringing campaigns to life. The development of Android platform offers a better opportunity to the marketers to have access to mobile internet market and consequent development of social networking. The introduction of 3G technology in 2000s expanded the social network market-based consumer interrelations and social involvement. The traditional media has been in full control of the content of the advertisement, its audience as well as the channels of communication. They also determined when the information was to be released to the audience and controlled the anticipated impact on the brand image or audience. Companies achieved varied brand image from the advertisement depending on their budget allocation on the advertisement (Kurose & Ross, 2010). However, the new media has presented a unique approach in which organizations can gain greater impact at a lower cost and by reaching more clients. It has presented a challenge to the traditional media and a cause of worry (Tim, 2010). The traditional advertisers now perceive audience as principal participants in advertising, media and marketing process. According to Christina (2009) the involvement of the audience is increasingly yielding significant returns in terms of profitability and wide spread of the message. An example is the Coke-Mentos soda fountains and Coke-Mentos rockets home videos which appeared on the internet early 2006. The brand companies had no capacity to control the use of these products or spread of the use of their images. The video capture and experiment on the Web-based use of Coke-Mentos was replicated and distributed through Web from where they were watched by millions of viewers (Christina, 2009). Various commentators and artists contributed to the viral dissemination of the images and recommended them to most viewed sites such as YouTube and Revver. Mentos was impressed, by the way, their brand gained popularity and particularly in the way the associated it with their social values. The brand owners estimated this popularity to be worth about $10 million an amount that was more than half of their cost of advertising in the US market (Beard & Yang, 2011). In order to enjoy more benefits, the company partnered with the YouTube to hold a joint competition for the best Coke-Mentos video. In an effort to understand the audience-generated media undertakings Coke held “Poetry Motion Competition” in which they provoked the Coke consumers to demonstrate to the world the unusual activities they could do with ordinary objects (Christina, 2008, p. 45). These competitions by the Coke shows that companies have a keen interest on what the new media can achieve in terms of building the brand image of the enterprise. It shows what creative media audience can contribute in advertising, media and marketing procedure. The Coke-Mentos demonstrations provide evidence that the audience have an active role in the controlling of media values and advocates new targets and processes for customer involvement and contribution (Christina, 2009). Therefore, online media gives marketers a new approach to thinking about advertising as an industry and a process of disseminating marketing information, as well as the critical stimulus of the audience and the community values. According to Christina (2008, p. 25) the mass media has always concerned itself with a particular market segment that focusses its communication services to “mass society, mass production, and mass consumption.” However, internet advertisement focuses on global linkage economy and information civilization. It lays the ground for mass media intending to go digital and blends to cover the market niche. Online media offer a variety of ways through which media can reorganize social interactions of media construction, commercial message and audience market (Christina, 2009). In the world of technology, people are no longer reliant on mass media for information and entertainment. The emergence and spread of mobile phones, personal computers, ipads, the Internet and other modern means of communication offering global connectivity the networked conversations have intensified. Also, the online media is supported by social software and consumer electronics that provides a platform for peer-to-peer interactions (Beard & Yang, 2011). They are being applied to achieve a variety of interrelations and social exchange. Online media provides bottom up which is a characteristic of conversational communication. Internet advertising is transformed the costing system initially applied by mass media. Most of the companies pay the cost of advertisement according to the size of the audience. For example, most of the advertisers use a pay-per-click method whereby the cost of advertisement accumulates according to the number of clicks or views by the customer (Christina, 2009). When clients visit the media where the advert has been placed they click the banner, pop-up message, etc. to view the content and can provide the feedback about the product or the company. These media gives the website owners and bloggers an opportunity to share the revenue of the companies offering advertisements because of providing allowing the companies to place an advertisement in their media (Tim, 2010). This form of advertisement is conversational because it brings various viewers together while the company of person placing the advert can track the number of viewers and their perception about the ad. Some media such as Rivver, YouTube and Current TV and other social sites allowing the sharing of videos allows customer generated recommendation to circulate the network (Christina, 2009). They give the viewers an opportunity to rate the content and even create an automatic code which viewers can effortlessly copy and attach to their websites, blogs, emails and so on thus offering viewers of other sites to have access to the ads (Beard & Yang, 2011). In addition, various sites such social media like Facebook, YouTube, etc. enable marketers to upload images or messages and request the viewers to send their comments. Most of the messages are viral since viewers send to their friends thus increasing ads coverage at no extra cost to the marketers. Internet ads involve an aspect of interactivity as a planned communication system. Another form of online marketing is the use of affiliate marketing, contests, online coupons, etc. (Kurose & Ross, 2010). These features are used to encourage direct marketing or other social behaviour. Affiliate marketing involves the use of in-text hyperlinks that connects the audience to the company’s website. Online coupons are electronic versions of the ordinary tickets and are sent via emails or third party vendors (Tim, 2010). These programs trigger responses from the clients and link them with the marketers. Therefore, affiliate marketing forms conversational advertisement and is carried out online to targeted audience or the general audience. In conclusion, online marketing involves the use of various online tools targeting specific clients or the general audience. The system triggers direct or indirect response from the clients thus initiating a mutual communication between the marketers and the audience. Mobile phones, social media, search engine, etc. provide interconnection between marketers and the customers anywhere and anytime. Either the marketer or the customer can initiate or terminate the conversation hence giving both parties some control over the online exchanges. Marketers use affiliate marketing programs and other forms of marketing to encourage online participation of the audience. Most of the online media of communication offers the audience an opportunity to give feedback or review products and services hence creating a mutual interrelation between the parties. Therefore, online advertisement is conversational communication to the extent that both marketers and audience are directly or indirectly engaged in the advertisement process. Bibliography Beard, F. K. & Yang, A 2011, U Choosing and Evaluating Digital and Online Media: A Conceptual/Instructional Model; Journal of Advertising Education. Retrieved on 14th May 2015 from Christina, S 2009, From mass communication to the mass conversation: Why 1984 wasnt like 1984. Australian Journal of Communication, Vol. 36(2). Retrieved on 14th May 2015 from Christina, S 2008, Advertising and New Media Routledge. Pp. 131. Retrieved on 14th May 2015 from Tim, D. 2010, Media Convergence, McGraw-Hill Education (UK). Pp. 218. Kurose, J. F. & Ross K. W. 2010, Computer Networking: A Top-down Approach, Addison- Wesley. Pp. 862. Read More