Perreault−McCarthy: Basic
Marketing: A
Global−Managerial
Approach, 14/e
- Advertising and Sales
Promotion
Text © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2002Advertising and Sales Promotion 465information about cars, an ad for Amazon.com might appear and note that it car-
ries books on buying a car. If the consumer clicks on the Amazon ad, a list of
relevant books appears on screen and more detailed information on each title is a
click away.
Another variation on the context theme allows noncompeting firms that have a
similar target market to post ads on each other’s website. When Maytag introduced
its Neptune high-efficiency washing machine, the Neptune website had a link to
P&G’s website for Tide HE, a new detergent designed for use in washers like the
Neptune.Another approach that offers more precise targeting is pointcasting. Pointcasting
means displaying an ad onlyto an individual who meets certain qualifications. For
instance, it might be a person who has previously expressed direct interest in the
topic of the advertising. A pointcasting ad is usually included with other informa-
tion that the customer wants and that a pointcasting service provides for free. An
example shows how this works. A woman who is interested in financial planning
might sign up with Time-Warner’s Road Runner service and request that it routinely
send her newly published articles on independent retirement accounts. When the
service sends her that information over the Internet, it might include an ad from a
mutual fund company. The pointcasting service matches ads to customer interests.
Many advertisers like this concept but worry that pointcasting may overwhelm the
recipient with too much clutter.
Sending ads directly to the target customer via e-mail is a simpler approach. A
limitation of e-mail is that a person’s e-mail software may reformat messages in dif-
ferent ways. That is changing with increased use of e-mail in HTML format.
However, a different problem will continue: Most people resent being “spammed”
with a lot of unsolicited e-mail.Pointcasting
determines which
customers see an adSome websites offer people a benefit—like free e-mail or a chance to enter a
contest—if they provide information about themselves and agree to view ads
selected to match their interests. A look at Juno, a firm that offers a free e-mail
service, shows how this works. When people sign up for e-mail accounts, they also
provide detailed information for a database. The information might include demo-
graphics as well as interests, what products they use, where they shop, and where
they live. Then when a person checks for e-mail messages, ads are displayed. Each
ad is selected specifically for that person based on characteristics in the database.
For example, a cosmetics firm might specify that its ads be shown only to females
who are 16 or older and who routinely wear nail polish.While the number of firms interested in putting ads on websites has grown, the
number of websites that are chasing their ad dollars has grown at an even faster
pace. Many websites charge advertisers a fee based on how frequently or how long
an ad is shown. But there are still basic problems in getting good measures of how
many people are exposed to an ad or pay any attention if they are exposed. One
symptom of this is that many firms have sprung up to rate website traffic, but their
ratings often don’t agree.
This problem and competition for advertisers have pressed many websites to take
a more novel approach. They display an ad for free and charge a fee only if the adInternet
Internet Exercise ValueClick is a firm that provides services for firms that
want to advertise on the Internet and also for website publishers that host
Internet advertising. Go to its website (www.valueclick.com) and read about
its service. Briefly describe the main benefits it provides for advertisers and
the main benefits it provides for publishers.Some viewers get
benefits if they agree to
look at adsAt some websites, ads
are free if they don’t
get results