On TV, brand-building ads can move viewers to tears. In glossy magazines, good ads can also strike an emotional chord. But on the Web, advertising comes off as merely annoying. "It screams 'ugly blinking thing here,'" admits Tom Worcester, VP of sales at Quokka Sports (QKKA). This leaves many important advertisers on the sidelines. "You need to see, feel, touch and experience our product, and the Internet doesn't [let you] do that," says Tim Mahoney, GM of marketing for Porsche Cars North America. "I'm limited by bandwidth. For a lot of people, I'm not even going to be able to get across the sound a Porsche makes. And a lot of our owners tell us they drive with their radios off just to hear the sound of the engine."
Such experiences - and the passionate feelings they can arouse - aren't exactly the kinds of things banner ads deliver. In fact, banners are a dirty word in Internet advertising, and the industry has come up with a host of alternatives, from "skyscrapers" to "rectangles" - all variations on a theme. Indeed, the Internet Advertising Bureau last month announced with great fanfare new standards for larger "antibanners."
The skepticism about online advertising comes as corporate ad budgets dwindle because of the faltering economy. That double whammy has pushed many marketers to rely on their own sites rather than pay others for eyeballs. "We know now that we have to have a Web presence for marketing," says Steve Goldstein, VP of event marketing at UDV, which markets brands like Jose Cuervo and Smirnoff. "But it's going to be via our own site, not someone else's."
The evidence of companies depending on their own sites is easy to find. Parmalat, one of the world's biggest dairy marketers, has a small deal with AOL, but for the recent marketing push behind its UHT milk - so shelf-stable it doesn't have to be refrigerated - it depended solely on buys in TV, radio and print. "Its just too complex a sale to be done with a banner ad," says marketing VP Matt Petronio. "Our own site will do most of the heavy lifting."
Automobile companies, the biggest ad spenders out there, ought to love Web advertising. After all, customers might not use the Internet to decide to buy soap or potato chips, but making a big, discretionary purchase like a car is perfect for the Web. You can research every option, compare every feature. And, in fact, a high percentage of car buyers start by looking on the Web. But while the auto industry spent $10.5 billion on advertising last year, it spent less than $100 million, or 1 percent, on the Web, according to research firm CMR. Most car manufacturers are content to let their Web sites do their Internet marketing.
Where do companies get this idea? Often from their own ad agencies. When one senior marketer at a giant fast-food company recently wanted to determine if Internet advertising made sense for his wares, he asked his agency to put him in touch with a handful of interactive shops. Not one of them proposed that he buy any Internet advertising. Instead, they all pitched him a customized Web site that would cost in excess of $1 million to build. "I'm selling a $1.99 product and they're telling me that $1 million is the cost of entry to this medium?" asks the exec.
The truth is that, like their clients, agencies themselves often are uncomfortable with the Web. According to Scott Schiller, senior VP of strategic partnership marketing at Walt Disney Internet Group (DIG) and a founder of the Internet Advertising Bureau, the top creative minds in advertising find the Internet confining. "They'd rather be shooting a TV commercial in Monte Carlo," he says. Innovation is difficult when the prevailing mindset is still inexorably wrapped around selling soap on a sitcom. "Our biggest problem is that ad agencies are still in love with 30-second TV ads, because they know how to make money that way," says Brian Quinn, VP of ad sales at Real Media (dossier), N.Y., which sells and serves Internet ads.
