Is online advertising on par with television commercials?
(By Tom on 19 August 2009 | Posted in Advertising)
It’s been a pretty rough year for advertising. TV ad revenues are down substantially. Print and magazine media are hemorrhaging.
Online advertising’s count-on-it growth even came to a halt.
So we were a bit surprised (even relieved) to see this week’s comScore release extoling the effectiveness of online advertising vis a vis TV commercials.
In short, the study’s early results show that online advertising grew sales +9% in supermarket CPGsversus TV ads’ +8%.
The fact that this study focuses on CPG sales is a huge boon for online advertising. Consumer Packaged Goods have long been textbook examples of the power of branding and advertising. After all, what differentiates Froot Loops from the off-brand Fruit Rings, or Tide from the myriad other deturgents in the aisle?
Branding and advertising, of course!
Not to mention, these products cannot be purchased via a click. Like all of you, we’re sick of CTR-as-measure-of-success. And this report seems to show the power of brand-building-advertising in the online space.
Now, a bit of the other side of the coin. I personally don’t take comScore as the word and think often times they cherry-pick data to tell the best story–who doesn’t, but comScore even moreso. Is this just another example of cherry-picking? Undoubtedly they have vested interests in the health of online advertising, so a little wariness is warranted.
What do you think? How does this news affect your role in the world of banner ads and online advertising? Will it help you sell through more campaigns or great ideas for your online ads? We hope so.