I can tell you from first hand experience that NO ONE in the spring of 1994 had any idea how to use the web to advertise.
I know that because at the time I was in regular communication with the inventor of the web browser (Marc Andreessen) and he had no idea and if he hadn’t heard a bright idea from someone, somewhere on the topic, the answer was not out there.
Dave Taylor had identified the opportunity in online catalogs and was publishing what was then the ONLY guide to online stores, but beyond that we were all drawing a blank.
Interestingly though, one of the ideas that Marc had way back then is finally coming into its own…
Advertiser owned entertainment.
Actually, the idea has been around in other media for a long time. The most prominent example is the soap opera which started in the Radio Age long before the Internet and even television.
They’re called SOAP operas because they advertise stuff (mostly soap) made by Proctor & Gamble. They advertise Proctor & Gamble products exclusively because Proctor & Gamble owns the shows. Not only that, they run their own school for soap opera scriptwriters to make sure they always have a fresh supply of drama.
If you look at the math, it makes a lot of sense.
P & G spends gazillions of dollars on advertising. They have to because after all, soap is soap so to survive they HAVE to control their own adverising channels. Not only that, if they were to buy the ads that run on their shows at retail from the networks, it’d cost them five to ten times what they are spending to produce and air their shows themselves.
With the Internet and VIDEO, big advertisers are realizing that for what they spend on one Super Bowl ad, they can have their own TV channel, 24/7 and 365 days a year.
Budweiser, one of the world’s mega-advertisers, has gotten the clue and started Bud.TV
Makes sense to me.
How about you?
You probably have your own newsletter.
How about your own Internet radio program – which can be nothing more than an ever-growing collection of MP3s.
Or your own TV channel – AKA an ever-growing collection of short online video clips.
P.S. Do you want to be notified when new articles like this one are posted to the blog?
Ken McCarthy was one of the pioneers of the movement to commercialize the Internet and was involved in early tests of what have become Internet promotion mainstays like e-mail marketing, banner ads, and pay-per-click advertising. If you go to Google Video and search the term “marketing,” a short film about his work is often in the top ten, if not the number #1.
It’s easy. Just go to this page and we’ll add your name to our bulletin list:
http://www.internetvideomarketingletter.com/
– Ken McCarthy
P.S. For over 25 years I’ve been sharing the simple but powerful things that matter in business with my clients.
If you’d like direction for your business that will work today, tomorrow and twenty years from now, visit us at the System Club.
Copyright: Ken McCarthy, 2006
Reprint rights: You may reprint this article in full as long as you print it in it’s entirely including the P.S.
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