Difference Between Web Advertising & Media Advertising
Many advertising professionals say that from a broad communication perspective, web and traditional media are tools in a fully stocked media toolbox. However, both strategically and tactically, there are distinct differences between web advertising and the media perennially used for advertising: television, radio and print. While the jury is still out on whether web advertising will be able to surpass traditional media advertising’s ability to create awareness that drives product movement, web advertising does have attractive features that make it viable for many marketers.
Other People Are Reading
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Audience Size
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One of the most obvious differences between traditional media and web advertising is the size of their respective audiences. There are both good and bad aspects to audience size. Traditional media such as broadcast and radio have the ability to have millions in their audience. They are truly the definition of mass advertising vehicles. Web media, on the other hand, is anchored by millions of individual websites, each with a comparatively small audience. Marketers must make a media buy across web networks in order to aggregate a larger audience for their message.
Race of Audience
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The demographics of web audiences in general skew white and Asian for broadband web media, while mobile web advertising skews more black and brown. According to statistics from Pew Internet and American Life, usage among these groups is about equal when both broadband and mobile access is considered. In traditional media, the general TV audience reflects the population's racial demography, but even mass TV media’s audience becomes fragmented by channels, programs, and especially by cable networks.
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Age of Audience
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Internet media attracts a younger age audience when compared with mass media’s audience age. Web media is “new technology media,” and more young people are comfortable with the adoption and use of new technologies. But here again, exceptions exist among web channels that attract audiences to their older-skewing content.
Message Flexibility
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One key difference between web and media advertising is the ability to quickly change the message on the Internet if it is not to be working for some reason. Changing a print message if the vehicle has been printed is impossible. Changing a broadcast message is a bit more easily done. However, changing the message itself can be very costly. Both the time and money are minor inconveniences in the world of web advertising when message changes are needed.
Effectiveness Measurement
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The Internet offers marketers unprecedented ability to measure not only their audience size but to record and analyze micro details about what pages were visited, how long those page stays lasted, and what messages got responses by analyzing visitor clicks. Unlike the web with traditional media, there is relatively little finite measurement of the audience’s interaction with the advertising itself without the aid of mechanisms such as 800 number call-ins or the extrapolation of advertising effectiveness through sales achieved.
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References
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- Photo Credit internet image by arabesque from Fotolia.com
