Marketing &Social Media 18 Oct 2007 11:52 am
Unmeasured events grow rapidly as firms turn ad dollars to services for consumers
More examples of how companies are using the Internet to reach consumers directly came in a recent New York Times article, “The New Advertising Outlet: Your Life.”
Several large companies were cited as creating new web sites to appeal directly to their consumers, chief among them Nike with its Nike+ site.
The idea is to use events, contests, internet search ads—all long-considered unmeasured, to reach consumers directly.
In Nike’s case, it increased traditional advertising with media by three percent to $220.5 million while growing non-media ad spending 33 percent to $458 million in the period 2003-2006.
This is a fundamental change in the way Nike views advertising and non-media activities such as contests, in-store ads and product placement.
Ads are no longer aimed primarily at seeking to get people’s attention while they are doing something else. Rather, they are taking the form of reaching people while they are participating in workouts, participating in online communities or active in sports competitions.
And such events, like running clubs, races and online communities, provide a home to trade information for those people interested in a specific subject.
This movement bodes well for PR because it includes using all forms of media to reach consumers—or specific audiences targets—and engender their participation directly. That is what the Internet means for PR today: new ways to reach consumers directly using the new forms of delivery it makes available.
Posted by Larry
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