Interactive Advertising

Talking Back to the Advertisers

• Web Advertising
• Banners
• Web Sites
• New Advertising Paradigm
• Interactivity
• The Audience
• Web Advertising Campaign
• References

The Web spawned from the Internet as the most utilized and powerful resource from this global network of computer networks. The most essential and defining characteristic of the Web is that it offers its users interactivity, which is a process of media communication that takes on some of the characteristics of interpersonal communication. In regards to the Web, interactivity basically means that Web users, or surfers as they are commonly referred to, can exercise a high degree of selectivity in choosing (a) a Web site and (b) content within the Web site (although, in essence, one is reacting or selecting from an array of choices generated by the site’s creator). Regardless of how one theoretically views the medium in regards to audience activity, the World Wide Web grants one greater control over their mediated experience. The Web is a hybrid medium which combines three communication strategies: mass communication, interpersonal communication, and machine interactivity communication (Thomsen, 1997).

The Web is the first real shift from a broadcast medium to an interactive medium. Although it is typically assumed that all mass media audiences are active to some extent, the Web differs from past media in that if its users are not actively selecting content or interacting with or via the medium, the medium is really not in use at all. While there may be some truth to Marshall McLuhan’s remark that “the medium is the message” (McLuhan, 1964) for traditional media, with the Web, it is also true that “the medium is the market” (Hoffman & Novak, 1996) (i.e., both creator and user engage themselves with the medium).

The Web market’s current explosion has caused its proponents to make brave predictions about its state of being at the beginning of the approaching millenium. ClickThrough Interactive Services (1997) estimates that 200 million people will be using the Web by the year 2000. Adding credibility to this claim is President Clinton’s vision that “by the year 2000, every classroom and every library in the entire U.S. will be hooked up to the information superhighway” (Rawlinson, 1997, p.14). Yoder’s (1997) presentation of PC Meter’s statistics lends support to these assertions by showing the significant growth of Web users over the last several quarters.

Source: PC Meter

With soaring user numbers like these, it was obvious that advertisers would want a piece of this pie and that the Web would become a part of the marketplace. After only this, its third commercial year, the advertising revenue accumulated by Web sites in 1996 amounted to $240 million, according to Jupiter Communications, a New York research company (Radosevich, 1996). Forrester and Jupiter project that online advertising will leap to a $5 billion market by the year 2000 (Williamson, 1996). Unfortunately, what many people do not realize is that it is not simply the banners that constitute Web advertisements, but the Web site itself acts as an advertisement in the most basic sense of the word advertisement: a public notice.

It is necessary that advertisers move beyond this notion of only “banner advertising” equaling Web advertising – it is merely one element in the Web advertising campaign. In order to properly understand the nature of advertising on the Web, a thorough examination of the different types or forms will be examined and an explanation of the functions of each type will be provided.

Web Advertising

Advertising on the Web essentially takes two forms, that of banners and the Web site itself. Web sites can be classified in essentially one of four types with content varying across types. The model that I have created demonstrates the way in which each of these types are related and differ from one another. A basic understanding of each of these types is necessary in order to create an effective Web advertising campaign.

Banners

When HotWired launched on the Web in October of 1994, it introduced the concept of banner ads to the Web (Williamson, 1996), which exploded into a multi-million dollar business in merely two years. Banner ads follow the traditional role of advertising; therefore, this is where the majority of the effort for Web advertising has been placed. Banners are rectangle, square, or button links that pay or partially pay for the content that a user is viewing on a Web site but are not directly affiliated with the Web site itself. In other words, banner ads are embedded in the content that one has selected to view and often, like many ads across various media types, are considered to be intrusive.

Banner ads simply act as billboards when one is traveling the information superhighway. They are not particularly successful because, similar to billboards, they are simply “signs” that one passes during their travels. Whether or not they have any significant impact in “branding” through their passive consumption is open to debate, but what advertisers would like Web surfers to do is click on these ads in order to visit the destination site for which action motivation they have not proved to be too prosperous due to fact that individuals must actually choose the ad.

Banner ads effectiveness are typically judged by their click-through rates, which is the percentage generated by dividing the number of times that a banner has been viewed (impression or exposure) by the number of cyber-placements across the Web. Typical ads receive a 1% to 3% response rate according to DoubleClick, a New York Internet advertising network company (Marx, 1996). Also, banner ads are found to be almost completely ineffective after the third viewing or impression as shown in DoubleClicks’ graph of diminishing returns for Web site visits via banner ads (Yoder, 1997).

Source: DoubleClick

As if these problems were not enough, it is also difficult to obtain meaningful data from measuring click-through ratios. Are individuals merely hitting the site or are they visiting the site? In other words, do they click on the banner and then immediately exit the destination site, or do they spend a considerable amount of time at the site and interact with it? Are you, the advertiser, increasing your reach through your banner or just your impressions? In other words, is the banner being seen by more people or is it being seen numerous times by the same people? Until better measurement techniques are developed, these questions will remain unanswered.

This is not to say that banner ads are completely useless but rather that they need to be placed carefully. Certainly, there are aesthetic/design means by which the click through ratios of banners can be increased such as (a) refreshing the banner often, (b) featuring a call to action (i.e., “Click Here”), (c) using the word “FREE,” and (d) creating animated banners. Microscope even hosts a site (http://www.pscentral.com) that performs weekly reviews of the most creative and compelling banner ads on the Web. However, the better question is not how to advertise but where to advertise.

Since users must select ads, advertisers must ensure (a) that the banner communicates what to expect from the linked destination site and (b) that the banner is located where individuals who would be interested in the site might see it. Placing a banner ad in a search engine could work well (e.g., when an individual searches keyword “camping,” your banner link for camping equipment appears at the top of the site followed by all the other related links). Ad networks exist that place Web sites into categories so that you may have your banner appear on numerous sites that are all related in some manner (i.e., people who visit these sites are more likely to visit your site than if you had haphazardly placed your banner ad).

In this interactive world of the Web, deceptive or misleading ads that trick people to explore a banner’s destination site are not effective and only act in such a way as to create a hostile Web surfer (i.e., make sure that the banner text matches the content of the Web site). The most successful banner ads are the ones that communicate a clear message of the destination site’s contents and are related in some way to the sites in which they appear, and it is, of course, the Web site to which you really want to draw people, not the catchy or attractive banner ad.

Web Sites

There are four main types of Web sites as represented in the previous Web typology. Each of these different types serves different purposes and carries various types of content. Most Web sites fall into one of these four categories, but some certainly overlap in the types of content that they provide, but this breakdown will yield a useful framework for Web site functions. The Web sites are the second level of the Web advertising campaign, and in some cases, if banner ads are bypassed or not even used, the only level. Regardless of how one gets to the site, the Web site itself should be the primary focus of the Web advertising campaign – it’s the reason that banner ads exist in the first place. Web sites are a part of the Internet marketing mix and what follows are the ways in which a business can establish its Internet presence.

Fee-based Content

Fee-based sites are those that allow no access or limited access to the content within their site unless a user has paid for “interaction rights” for the site’s content, typically through registering as a member. This implies that some people will view the content as essential to meeting their personal goals in that they are willing to pay for the content, because in this cyber-world, content is usually offered for free. Examples of sites that operate in this manner are pornography sites that require payment/membership for pictures and movies and electronic magazine or newspapers that require payment/membership to have access to their information. In either case, it is the content that is actually a part of the site for which one is paying a fee.

“Virtual”/Online Store

Cyber-stores are those sites in which a Web user makes an actually purchase over the computer networks, and as a result, receives a product or service in exchange for their electronic funds. A customer may purchase a CD and then have it mailed to their postal address, he or she may order flowers and then have them sent to a respective spouse, or he or she may purchase a software program and then download it onto their computer from the site. Regardless of the time or manner in which the good or service is provided, these sites offer the possibility for direct sales through the electronic channel via an electronic catalog or some other similar format. Store Web sites differ from fee-based Web sites in that visitors are paying for something that exists beyond cyberspace (i.e., they are not paying for the content itself but rather what the content describes or details).

Sponsor-based Content

The majority of Web sites fall into the two categories that comprise sponsor-based content sites. The way in which the sponsor provides or provides for the content occurs in one of two ways that directly affects the kind of content that will be found on the site.

1. Sponsor Site   Sponsor sites are paid for and created by the sponsor and all content that is a part of the site (with the exception of possible banner ads) is related to the sponsor’s business. Content within sponsor sites can be classified as (a) information, (b) convenience transactions, or (c) promotion/image enhancement.

Information   Information content provides detailed, rational information about the firm and/or its offering such as college programs or automobiles. This content allows Web users to become more informed consumers, and consequently, make better purchase decisions through information acquisition and/or online comparative shopping. From an advertiser’s stance, it can generate sales leads by supplying interested consumers with desired information (i.e., the hope that people will act on the information that they acquired from the Web site).

Convenience Transactions   Convenience transactions offer Web users the ability to accomplish some task that transcends the typical time and location restraints. Examples of sites that offer this type of content would include full-service online banking or the handling of customer complaints or problems through e-mail. Federal Express offers its site visitors the opportunity to electronically track their shipment, while the Ticketmaster site allows Web users to bypass long lines or distant ticket distributors by granting them the ability to purchase tickets online.

Promotion/Image Enhancement   The final kind of content that may be contained in sponsor sites is essentially fluff. Promotion or image enhancement content offers no real information about the sponsor or its product/service but rather seems to be attempting to stimulate the process of “branding” – a typical advertising characteristic of high profile corporate products. These sites try to lure Web surfers in by offering some of the most innovative and creative electronic wizardry that exists on the Web – whether it be through online games or state of the art graphics and animation or by offering giveaways such as screen savers. Sites that offer this type of content are typically those that are major advertisers across other media such as Pepsi, Miller Genuine Draft, Reebok, and Levi-Strauss.

Of course, it is possible for a sponsor site to offer any combination of these types of content, but the essential characteristic is that the sponsor hosts the site, or at least rents space on a server, and creates the content itself in order to advertise its business and products/services in some way. It is these sponsor sites that place banner ads on the other type of sponsor-based content Web site.

2. Sponsored Site   These sites are those that most closely parallel traditional media models of advertising. These sites offer Web users a service and sell advertising space on their sites in order to eliminate the necessity of charging fees to visitors. In this case, Web users are provided some “free” service while the creator of the content is receiving revenue from selling advertising space on the site. The most obvious examples are search engines that allow you to search the entire Web, but offer suggestive banner ads for each search performed. Yahoo! and many other search engines live entirely on the revenue earned from advertising (Gleick, 1996). Other services that site creators receive sponsorship for include employment services, non-fee based online magazines such as Addicted to Noise and Mother Jones, and people finders.

Viewing Web advertising according to these dimensions seems to really add credence to connotation of the World Wide Web. It is easy to see how advertisers feed off one another, and the Web surfer can get tangled up in this woven pattern of advertising where one may visit one site that advertises another site whose advertisement site advertises another site and so forth. This type of interrelated advertising and its levels along with the interactive nature of the medium itself suggest that advertisers must not simply transfer their marketing experiences from older media but rather start adapting content to the new medium.

New Advertising Paradigm

The World Wide Web requires that advertisers revise their marketing plan in order to have a productive Internet presence. No longer can advertisers create one static piece of paper or one 30-second video segment, because on the Web, it is necessary to think beyond the leading advertisement (banner) and toward the advertisement (Web site) to which it leads you. Examining the new medium and its audience’s characteristics on a theoretical level will bring to light some practical implications that can be incorporated into the Web advertising campaign.

Interactivity

As noted earlier, the Web has moved the concept of message dissemination from the mere broadcast of a message in which the audience relatively consumes the marketing message passively to a point where the audience can interact with the message and, in essence, create their own private marketing media message. The Web combines the ability of the mass media to disperse a message to a wider audience (international in this case) with some of the communication possibilities of providing individualized information using feedback (e.g., e-mail correspondence, chat room) and interaction (i.e., choosing information via hyperlinks) (Barker & Groenne, 1997). The traditional one-to-many marketing communication model as presented in Figure 1 demonstrates the relative passivity of broadcast/print advertising messages in which firms (denoted by F), provide content through a medium to a mass market of consumers (denoted by C) (Hoffman, Novak, & Chatterjee, 1997). The notion of interactivity or a high degree of selectivity (i.e., making an active choice) changes this traditional framework.

Figure 1: Traditional Mass Media Model of One-to-Many Marketing Communication

Source: Hoffman, Novak, and Chatterjee (1997)

The Web’s altering of this traditional model is based on the fact that the Web allows both message senders and message consumers to contribute to the computer-mediated environment. The new model as depicted in Figure 2 is a many-to-many mediated communication model in which firms (F) can provide content to the medium, consumers (C) can interact with the medium (and the firm’s message), and consumers can also provide content (i.e., feedback) to the medium (Hoffman & Novak, 1996).

Figure 2: New Model of Marketing Communication for the Web

Source: Hoffman, Novak, and Chatterjee (1997)

The Web allows its users to control their own programming. The emphasis is no longer on the delivery of the message but on the search for information and entertainment – a search which Web users control themselves (Tapscott, 1996). Whereas traditional mass media are characterized by an information “push” (i.e., intrusion), the communication process is reversed on the Web as it is driven by an information “pull” (i.e., the control of the communication has shifted in favor of the user) (Barker & Groenne, 1997). What this conceptualization translates into in advertising terms is the difference between TV viewers who must do something active in order to avoid the advertisements, and Web users who must do something active in order to access ads whether they are banners or advertising Web sites. With the Web user acting as ad “chooser,” no longer can advertisers solely satisfy the awareness stage in persuasion models because user choice must be based on some degree of interest already, and only when a person acts on that interest, can he or she be made aware of the specific content within the chosen advertisement.

A popular Microsoft ad poses the question “Where do you want to go today?” This question hints at the very important interplay that exists between the Web’s interactivity allowance and the manner in which this medium’s audience should be perceived. First, this question implies that it is your choice to determine what message you want to receive on the Web. Web surfers are media users not viewers or listeners, nor are they members of a mass or aggregate audience. “Where do you want to go today?” Media users are individuals, or at the very least self-segmented audiences that merely exist due to the fact that they have similar selection patterns or choices (i.e., share similar interests).

The Audience

With each advent of new media that allows greater selectivity, the “mass media” audience breaks down more and more. In other words, the audience members segment themselves into smaller, but more homogeneous and definable, groups of the medium’s larger collection of users or “audience.” The Web audience members essentially fall into one of three classifications in their use of the Web (bear in mind that all Web users are active so these are relative degrees of activity): (a) precise seekers who intentionally seek to visit a certain Web site (i.e., they have a designated URL), (b) active seekers who are seeking to find information about a specific topic (i.e., they are searching for certain information but they have no specified destination Web site), and (c) passive seekers who are browsing the Web (i.e., they have neither a designated Web site or information topic search, but due to the fact that the Web inherently requires selectivity on the part of its users, “Web browsers” will only visit sites that interest them – they may hit undesirable sites, but they will not interact with them). Regardless of the type of Web use an individual engages in, they must still make choices – it’s in the nature of the medium.

A contemporary view of uses and gratifications demonstrates how it is that once an individual has chosen to use the Web, it is due to the nature of the medium that they must have some reason for using the medium, which at the very least will be guided by their interests (although one could speculate that people may also actively seek to build new interests, in which case selectivity may be more randomly actualized). Uses and gratifications is grounded in these two basic assumptions: (a) communication behavior, including media selection and use, is goal-directed, purposive, and motivated and (b) individuals take the initiative in selecting and using communication vehicles to satisfy felt needs and desires (Rubin & Windahl, 1986). Uses and gratifications represents the case of Web users well because of the fact that they are, in fact, users who must be seeking some sort of gratification or else they would not be using the Web, and consequently, the medium would not be in use. In other words, for the medium to be in use, Web surfers must be active. It is this concept of audience activity that is at the very core of uses and gratifications, and Web users actualize its meaning to the highest degree (in comparison to other media) along all its dimensions: utility, intentionality, selectivity, and involvement with the medium.

With such a high degree of selectivity, and consequently, individuality reflected in Web use, one may consider what the use is in having a Web advertising campaign at all. There are three reasons why the Web should not be overlooked as an advertising medium:

1. Although Web users are defined by their selectivity and control over both the medium and the message, individuals do share selection choices, and therefore, audience members segment themselves into precise target markets, which proves invaluable to advertisers that would be interested in such a target market.
2. The Web is still in its infancy as a mass medium but is growing rapidly as indicated by the previously presented statistics, so consequently, advertisers can only expect their precisely defined target markets to increase in size as you attain a global target market that transcends physical location.
3. The most obvious reason for concentration on Web ads is that the Web transcends both place and time, and as a result, Web advertisers have a 24-hours a day, 7-days a week ad that is accessible to anyone who has access to the medium, not the ability to reach the advertiser’s headquarters.

These three reasons require that advertisers consider certain practical issues in relation to the conceptualization of the medium itself and its audience if they are to employ a successful Web advertising campaign as a part of their marketing mix.

Operation W.A.C.: Web Advertising Campaign

There is no “field of dreams” on the Web. It is not a statement of “If you build it, they will come!” but rather a question of “If you build it, will they come?” and then “If they come, will they stay?” Any commercial Web site inherently wishes to have Web surfers (a) find the site, (b) visit the site (i.e., spend some quality time on the site), and (c) return to the site (i.e., bookmark the site – bypassing any existing banner links to the site – and make repeat visits to the site on a regular basis). In order to make these wishes come true, companies contemplating advertising on the Web need to consider three basic issues: (a) audience fit, (b) product fit, and (c) general benefits to the company (Barker & Groenne, 1997). In other words, there needs to be a reason for the Web site’s existence, or from an advertising stance, goals need to be set that can be met by the Web site that will benefit both the users and the company. Addressing the three aforementioned issues should ensure that one does, in fact, have a pointed function that the company’s Web site will serve.

Audience Fit

Advertisers need to acknowledge the fact that the Web’s selectivity allows Web users to create their own audience segments through the choices that they make while interacting with the medium. Potential Web site owners need to ensure that (a) there is a group of people (i.e., target audience) for their product, service, or content, (b) that target audience has access to the Web (although this is not an absolute requirement if you foresee your audience gaining Web access in the future, in which case, you may be getting a jump on potential competitors by establishing an early Internet presence), and (c) members of this target audience will be motivated to visit the Web site. Naturally, the only way that an individual will be motivated to visit a Web site is if the site is providing something of value to him or her, or at least something that the individual values. The only way in which an advertiser will be able to provide this value to Web users is by focusing on specific audience segments and acquiring greater knowledge about the needs and wants of these segment members.

Product Fit

When addressing the product issue, it is important to bear in mind that in the Web world, the product can be an actual physical product, but it can also be the actual information and/or content that is contained in the Web site (information that may be about a company’s product or service) or a service that is provide via the Web site.

Barker and Groenne (1997) describe this issue in the following manner:

“Product fit refers to how the product or service is suited to the medium, in terms of buyer involvement, information intensity, and possibilities of providing increased purchase facilitation. Since the customer has high control [over] the extent to which he wants to be exposed to advertising on the Web, the perceived relevance of the advertisement becomes a very important factor” (paragraph 25).

The above notion implies three things about Web sites as advertisements:

1. If it is a physical product that you are advertising on your site, it will need to be what is referred to as a “high involvement product” (i.e., a product for which an individual is actively involved in the decision-making process in order to gain enough information to make the best purchase possible) (e.g., swimming pool, car, computer). The alternative is to offer a product that people exercise a great amount of selectivity in choosing one product or product title from another (i.e., personal tastes guide the decision-making process) (e.g., CDs, books, clothing). In either case, providing information about the product can significantly aid the potential customer in his or her purchase decision. The obvious conclusion is that there is no need for Web site advertisements of “low-involvement products.” Will a Web surfer really choose to visit a site that is devoted to Alpo dog food, Colgate toothpaste, or Charmin toilet paper? One can speculate that if a Web user did hit one of these sites, the person will not be back, regardless of whether the site offered useful information about the product or not. In other words, Web sites are not for all product types.
2. If it is the service of the site that you are offering to Web users, it needs to be a service that truly offers convenience or surpasses the typical modes (e.g., downloading tax forms, tracking Federal Express shipments, responding to club membership offers).
3. If it is the content of the site itself that constitutes the product, then it had better be content that offers either convenience for which some Web users feel is so worthwhile that they are willing to pay for it (e.g., pornography, online literature resources – magazines, newspapers, journals) or provides a utility for the consumer (e.g., search engines, road map construction).

Regardless of the product type, the underlying concept that affects all of them in the appropriateness and usefulness of the site is that it needs to be held as valuable by some segment of the Web user audience.

General Benefits to the Company

In addition to ensuring that benefits are experienced by Web users through a company’s Internet presence, the company should be benefiting from the site as well. In other words, the Web site needs to prove functional for both the Web user as a customer and the Web site creator as an advertiser. Of course, the ways in which the Web site creator benefits from the site depends on the type of site. Judging the effectiveness and benefits of Web sites that offer fee-based content or operate as online stores is as simple as counting cash in a register at the end of the workday. The situation becomes a bit more intangible when examining sponsor-based content sites. On one hand, you need to ensure that you are generating profits whether it be directly from advertising revenue from banner ads (sponsored sites) or indirectly from facilitating real-world purchases through information providence (sponsor sites); and on the other hand, it would be pleasing if the site were to ease business transactions from the company’s side (e.g., handling of customer complaints, “virtual” customer service personnel – online airline ticket purchases or banking services). Many of the benefits for the company follow from making sure that the Web site benefits its customers.

Gaining the tools necessary to capture an audience or prospective consumers on the Web demonstrates that advertisers must rethink the traditional approach to advertising in order to succeed in this medium. The emergence of the Web and its ensuing popularity lead to a new advertising paradigm – a value-based concept of advertising which focuses on providing value to the receiver; otherwise he or she will choose not to be a receiver. More specifically, the Web has led to this basic advertising principle: value-based content. The basic idea underlying this approach is that if the advertiser does not provide value for the customer, then it will be highly difficult to attract and retain an audience because Web site visitors must be rewarded for their attention (Barker & Groenne, 1997).

Although the Web does introduce this new value-based concept (which hints at earlier marketing models), of course, there are organizational and aesthetic/design issues that should not be overlooked in the Web advertising campaign as well. The first concern is that Web users must be attracted to your site (i.e., they need to be able to find it if they want to visit it). Advertisers need to maximize the “locatability” of their sites and this can be done through (a) giving the site a URL that can be easily guessed (e.g., www.ibm.com), (b) banner ads, (c) campaigns in traditional media, (d) search engine registration, and (e) word-of-mouth effects, which, of course, implies that you have fulfilled the value-based content site need. Once a Web surfer hits your site, the home page design is extremely crucial. The value and functionality of your site needs to be demonstrated on the first page, because it is all too easy for a potential visit to turn into a hit, or mis-hit in this case, if the design or information provided on the home page about the site is weak.

The key for well-designed sites, just as in any computer-related program use, is user-friendliness. If the site is not user-friendly by providing easy navigation, current and frequently updated information, the ability for feedback (phone numbers, e-mail addresses), and of course, value-based content, what is the motivation to visit? Also, advertiser Webmasters need to be sensitive to their customers’ hardware specifications and their knowledge of their computer hardware – this goes for banner ads as well as site ads. There is no sense in having loads of graphics if most of your customers have access to the Web via a 14.4 Kb modem because all it will produce is frustration due to lengthy downloads. In addition to connection speed, Webmasters should not feel the need to incorporate every new technology on their Web site because many customers may not even have the applications necessary to receive the content. There may come a time when banner ads mimic TV commercial ads by integrating animation, video, and audio (in essence, CD-ROM capabilities), but that time is not now so they should only act as a useful description or “tease” for the linked Web site’s content which they represent (i.e., a banner ad should always be secondary in marketing priority to the Web site itself). When considering what technical capabilities or “neat” electronic gadgetry to include in the Web ad campaign, “advertisers need to follow not the rate of innovation in this new media marketplace, but the rate of the diffusion of innovation” (Schrage, 1996, p. 42).

In any Web advertising campaign, the emphasis should not be on the code used to generate content, but rather on the marketing and communication skills used to create the content. Berthon, Pitt, and Watson (1996, p.47) note that “it is not unlikely that many advertisers are on the Web simply because it is relatively quick and easy, and because they fear that the consequences of not having a presence will outweigh whatever might be the outcomes of a hastily ill-conceived presence.” This lack of clear and quantified objectives certainly does not adhere with a value-based approach. Creating Web sites should not be endeavored in order to follow a “trend.” For example, is there a real necessity or value in having a Coca-Cola site? or a Reese’s pieces site? or a BiC pens site? If your site is not part of a comprehensive publishing and marketing strategy, and is regarded just as an add-on marketing novelty, it is likely to prove worthless (Sharp, 1996). If the advertiser has not taken the time to set goals with expected results, then it is this type of worthless Web site that one can anticipate will be the end-product.

While it was the uses and gratifications approach that demonstrated how Web users put their selectivity into action, a reworking of the approach proves beneficial at the advertiser’s end as well. From a Web advertising campaign creator’s perspective, a usefulness and gratifications approach should be employed in which a positive relationship exists between the two concepts. In other words, the more useful the site (based on reasons and goals for the site’s existence, that consequently, lead to functional, informative, and valuable content), the larger degree of gratification will be experienced by the company, in layman’s terms, profits. Naturally, advertisers must realize that they can only provide this usefulness to those Web users who comprise their target audience (i.e., those individuals who desire or want the content).

Any Web advertising campaign is going to be geared toward turning Web users classified as active or passive seekers into precise seekers (that is, Web users who will seek out your site and return to it periodically). This is the method by which Web users segment themselves into target audiences. In other words, you, as an advertiser, put your Web advertising campaign into action adhering to the Web advertising principle of value-based content, and then the customers that you want (i.e., those that make up your target audience) will choose you, or more appropriately stated, your Web site. The ability to turn Web site visitors into precise seekers who make repeat visits is a function of the Web site design and, to a larger extent, depends on the customer need – a need that will be met if your site provides value-based content, and that content is something that the Web user actively chooses (i.e., it satisfies their need for that type of content in general, and your site satisfies that need by the best method – on a relatively objective basis and when compared to competitors).

A study conducted by HERMES in conjunction with GVU Center’s 3^rd WWW User Survey (1995) lends even more credence to the notion of a new advertising paradigm based on value. The organizations conducted a commercial usage, preferences and attitudes survey of Web users. Some of the results prove particularly relevant to this dissertation:

• Quality information (i.e., value-based content) regarding the purchase options/category is most important to users in choosing a World Wide Web vendor.
• Using the Web to collect information about commercial products and services is quite common.
• Web users seek more purchase information online for the more expensive products (high-involvement products).
• Online buying is more common for the less expensive products of which the most popular categories are software, hardware, books, music, and vacation/travel.
• Word-of-mouth through contacts with friends and other Web pages (which may include banner ad links) are the most important way in which users found out about Web sites.

These survey findings show that users’ goals in using the Web coincide with the presented Web advertising campaign framework. Businesses that wish to conduct commercial activities on the Web need to rely heavily on the “value principle.”

Even the advertising help found on the Web does not truly understand the principle of value-based content as indicated by the above banner ad. The cost of getting a visitor to your site is irrelevant if he or she does not want to stay there. The question should be “How much does it cost to get a visitor to interact with your Web site?” A: The cost of producing functional, informative, useful, valuable content for those Web users who want, desire, feel a need for, or have an interest in that content type.

In the early days of the World Wide Web’s evolution, the novelty of having a site may have been enough, but nowadays, if you want to have a commercial site, you better make sure that it has value for its users because they will not use it if it is useless. The Web has vast potential to truly become a valuable information mass media marketplace as long as Web site creators and advertisers focus on providing quality information or valuable content, which moves closer to “perfect information,” and consequently, leads to a higher degree of market exchange efficiency. In the World Wide Web advertising game, it’s necessary to heed to the wisdom of the age-old saying, “Don’t advertise unless you have something worth advertising” (Boortsin, 1975, p.29).