Chrysler Corp., Stolichnaya vodka and Ragu sauces are among the advertisers taking advantage of the biggest bargain in the media world today-advertising on the Internet’s World Wide Web.
With the cost of a 30-second commercial on a top-rated network TV show reaching $600,000 (not to mention production costs upwards of $200,000) and a page in a hot magazine such as the New Yorker running over $53,000, the potential of having millions of young cybersurfers click onto a Web ad for a fraction of that cost is too tantalizing to pass up.
“I would say that 80 percent of the country’s top 1,000 advertisers are either already participating or looking at it,” said Doug Ahlers, a partner in Modem Media, an ad agency in Norwalk, Conn., that specializes in interactive media.
“Pretty much all advertisers need to be looking at this to figure out how it fits into their marketing mix. To ignore it as a medium in the marketing mix would be the equivalent of ignoring, for example, outdoor advertising.”
Traditional advertising agencies, which have built their businesses on the commissions from creating and placing radio and TV commercials and print ads, are finding they must incorporate interactive capabilities or risk losing assignments from big-time clients to small interactive specialists.
Universities, including Florida State, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and New York University, are graduating young people with degrees in interactive communications and marketing who are launching their own ventures or gravitating to the hipper, more experimental shops.
Even ad agencies that are advanced in the interactive world are finding it difficult to compete with these young entrepreneurs.
“Every single day there’s something new out there. And the best work is coming from the most creative boutiques, people who are thinking outside of the box and thinking of this as a new medium,” said Marian Salzman, corporate director of consumer insights and new media at TBWA/Chiat/Day in New York, one of the ad agency world’s interactive pioneers.
Some big-league ad agencies, including Leo Burnett Co. and Tatham Euro RSCG, have contracted with small companies of interactive specialists that will work as part of the ad agency in providing digital media services.
Others, such as DDB Needham, are simply hiring people skilled in the creation and production of interactive communications and building new departments.
The cost of both creative and production fees and media company rate cards for Web ads still are at rock bottom. At Tatham, an investment of $50,000 to $100,000 could put an advertiser on the Web for a year. To create a home page for an advertiser would cost between $5,000 and $20,000, said Tatham President Ian Miller, and another $1,000 to $5,000 a month would be needed to maintain it.
Zima, the clear malt drink from Coors Brewing Co., is one advertiser that takes advantage of the Web’s demographics to market itself directly to its target audience. Zima’s site, created not by its regular ad agency Foote, Cone & Belding (which does have an interactive department), but instead by Modem Media, is a perfect example of “relationship marketing,” a tactic to build brand loyalty among consumers.
According to last fall’s study on Web users published by researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology, the audience demographics of the World Wide Web are people ages 21-to-34 and about 90 percent male.
Interactive experts expect the newest study, due out this summer, will show a higher percentage of females, because a large part of Web users become acquainted with the Internet at college and, male or female, continue using it after graduation.
For Zima, Web ads are “a good place to be able to reach relatively upscale males, not only in their home, but also at work,” said Charles Marelli, copywriter for the site.
Web browsers who stroll into the site called zima.com will find they can join Tribe Z, a club for Zima-drinkers, communicate through e-mail to other club members or to the company and learn about new products.
The language of the site is key to its success. When netsurfers are asked to fill out a questionnaire in order to join Tribe Z (and get a package of coupons and other goodies) the text acknowledges that “Sure, you become a demographic.”
On one Zima page, consumers were invited to vote on a logo for the brand. “The triangular one that they selected wasn’t necessarily our first choice,” Marelli said. “But we’re committed to this participatory environment.”
Creating a Web site and getting it up and running is only part of the marketing task. Helping prospective customers find the Web site is a key component of the interactive advertising strategy.
Part of the job can be done through advertising in publications that reach the target audience, or by putting the Web address on the product’s packaging.
But the ad space sold on interactive media sites-such as Wired magazine’s Hotwired, Time Warner’s Pathfinder or the sports-oriented ESPNET-is key to generating traffic for an ad site.
From a billboard-type ad on the border of a media home page-which sells from $30,000 a quarter for Pathfinder to $100,000 a quarter for ESPNET-browsers can click directly into the advertiser’s site.
From Hotwired’s home page, for example, a click into the Stolichnaya site brings a variety of brand-related ways to pass the time. A click on the Spirits of the World icon lets you select a country and then learn what drinks-naturally, they are brands sold by Stoli’s distributor Carillon Imports-are consumed in Italy, Greece or wherever.
The digital media team of Rob Fassino, Sorel Husband and Michael Wolfson at Margeotes, Fertitta, Donaher & Weiss in New York created the Stoli Web site and uses other ads for the brand to publicize its Internet address.
And if you’re dialing into the Internet from Greece, the text describing the spirits of that country is in Greek. If you want to switch it from Greek to English, you can do that with a click as well.
If an advertiser doesn’t want to pay the rate for being part of a media site, it can publish its address and establish a “hot link”-where a click on the listing will shift the browsers into the site or home page-on one of the Web search pages or directories.
“There are over 30,000 home pages on the Internet, and in the course of this day another 50 or 75 will go online,” said Rishad Tobaccowala, director of interactive media at Leo Burnett Co., Chicago, which is working on Web sites for several clients.
“So linking with other popular or relevant sites is important.”
Because of the information-delivery capabilities on the Web, a dozen airlines have home pages with varying degrees of creativity. Southwest Airlines opens its site with a picture of a ticket counter, featuring a portrait of its high-profile chairman, Herb Kelleher.
A click on a stack of schedules on the counter produces flight information in an interactive format. The browser can choose departure and arrival cities and a day of the week, and an entire schedule meeting those requirements appears on the screen. At this time, a click on the reservations icon produces only the phone numbers to call to book a flight.
But not being able to close the sale isn’t seen as a weakness by interactive specialists. “What’s wrong with talking to people?” asks Jeff Rich, manager of interactive production at DDB Needham, Chicago, which is actively working in the medium for several of its clients.
“A representative of the company can fill you in on special deals and other things.”
Connecting with consumers one at a time through the Web certainly does not have the impact of a popular TV campaign with a slogan that becomes a part of the American vernacular. But the advantage, say its proponents, is the ability to give the prospective customer more than a brand image to take away.
The key to success in interactive advertising, Tobaccowala says, is making contact with “a person who is in the market, who has some interest in getting more information, and who comes in at the appropriate time in the shopping cycle.”
Ragu sauces, marketed by Unilever’s Van den Bergh Foods Co., went on the Web in March as the first food company to try relating to cybermaniacs. Under the title of Mama’s Cucina, the site offers recipes, Italian lessons and a sweepstakes for a trip to Italy.
But Mama’s Cucina comes with an attitude not found in traditional food advertising. The heading of the page includes the line “Brought to you by your fellow ‘net heads at Ragu.”
To qualify for the sweepstakes, consumers must complete a survey, which in turn gives the company lots of information about who clicked in. “The response exceeded our expectations, and the audience was much more broad than the traditional Internet audience,” said Alicia Rockmore, associate brand manager for Ragu.
“One discovery I’ve made is that the journey is far more important than the arrival,” Tobaccowala said. “The reason they call it `surfing the ‘net’ is that people say OK, I’m here, let’s go somewhere else. The trick is not going to be to generate traffic to your site, but how do you keep people involved and coming back?”
