: anniversary / technology special

Advertising’s new virtual highway

Luis M. García A. | Special to The Journal
 

From the beginnings of the primal language until the latter development of more direct and complex channels for mankind's expression such as the written press, radio and television, advertising has always been present as a faithful companion, and it has even gone along with the many changes that communications have undergone in history.
It had to be part of the latest technological advances of the decade.
A fine example of this is the birth of Internet and its digital spiderweb that has turned it into one of the most complete vehicles for communication and information in the latest years.
It affects not only the way people communicate, but also marketing's methods and sales; thus creating, at the same time, new strategies of communications for the advertising business that were totally unthinkable two decades ago. One of the most used alternatives, within the so-called "new advertising", is the viral marketing.
It takes advantage of the communicational power of Internet's social networks to launch a message like an epidemic via e-mail. That is why it is called viral. In order to achieve its goal, the viral announcements use a specific user as a communications vector of a given message.
It will then re-launch itself to other known users and, as a result, it would achieve the brand's recognition in a relatively short time.
Another advantage of this kind of advertising has to do with costs that, when compared to traditional advertising outlets, are substantially more economic for the client, who wants his/her product, brand or service positioned within the targeted market. But, what are the mechanisms used to undertake a successful viral campaign? In order to reach its goal, this type of marketing uses a series of options such as the bothersome chain messages or cockamamie stories which usually take the form of funny video clips, interactive flash, imagery, and even text, that rouse people to propagate the message among other users and send it to people on his or her contact list.

One of the most used alternatives, within theso-called “new advertising”, is the viral marketing.

Likewise, the Instant Messaging and the use of mobile phones with Bluetooth technology have turned out to be great resources used by the viral advertising, and this is due to the great acceptance it has among the young public; and it consists on sending hyperlinks through Instant Messaging programs like Jabber, AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo or Google Talk.
Another Internet option frequently used by new marketers is the so called newsletter, which, contrary to viral advertising, it does not need infected users to be disseminated; on the contrary, it makes use of a determined subscribers' pool and of a database to express a series of contents and related news to a group that shares a common interest by frequenting the same Web page.
The end purpose of the newsletter is to keep the subscribers' interests towards a determined page through the information that carries a common and specific interest, thus establishing an exchange of information and a contact as far as promotions, novelties and interesting gadgets among other things that indirectly obligates the reader to visit that page regularly.
And the best part is that it is fast and it does not cost much. |||

The Ghersy Group:

Advertising in the digital era

Luis M. García A. | Special to The Journal

For Alfredo Ghersy, Executive President of the Grupo Ghersy Comunicaciones Integradas, one of the most respected advertising agencies in Venezuela, the main advantages of the digital media in relation to other media like radio, printed media, movies and television; is how the message is received.
It is due to the reciprocity and the interactivity that these media generate in the user; thus being the Internet one of its best proponents.
In this matter Ghersy comments: "in an interactive media like the Internet, you have the possibility to choose what, when and how you want to see it.
That gives more power to choose to that user that reads that particular promotional message, which it did not occur in the well-known traditional mass media where the information is unidirectional, and where the audience takes on a passive role; quite different to the active character that assumes people when they peruse a digital media like this one."
As far as the expansion of the digital media as an advertising tool in Venezuela, the Internet is, without doubt, one of the promotional vehicles with the highest growth among the existing ones in the market, according to many specialists in the matter of comparative media rating.
However, Alfredo Ghersy is of the opinion that, albeit its great popularity and advantages that the digital media offers within the advertising world in our country, it has been underutilized, and its true potential has not yet been maximized.
For this advertising world expert, one of the causes why the power of the Internet in the advertising world has been underestimated many times, it has more to do with a deficient management of the media as such, than to a problem of media efficiency.
One of the great problems that the Internet has had is that it has not been fully utilized.
Many use it to post pop-ups, among other elements, using the traditional criteria of uninterrupted advertising; thus believing that with that type of strategies they will wake up the web browser interest, and that is a mistake.
"The best way to maximize the efficiency of advertising within the so-called digital web can be achieved through the creation of communities, by investing in social networks or by placing contents to generate controversy within a virtual environment; thus generating an atmosphere of dialog and participation. These are some of the strategies that, at a marketing level, have shown to be successful within an interactive space such as the Internet," he concludes.
Even though the power and influence of digital media cannot be denied in the advertising environment in this country as in the rest of the world, it is also true that it still has a long way to go as far as maximizing the advantages it offers inside the virtual media.
Although in time we may see new strategies and methods aimed at extracting the maximum potential, what will always mark digital advertising will be its permanence for many years as an alternative media of infinite possibilities.|||