It had to happen. With all the talk about the Clinton Administration's
National Information Infrastructure (NII) initiative and information
highways in general, the folks on Madison Avenue had to begin to wonder
what all this might mean for advertising. The first thing those folks
have noticed is that a global information infrastructure/highway already
exists: the Internet. The second thing they've noticed is that the
Internet is a dream come true, because it provides ready (and relatively
inexpensive) access to tens of millions of literate, monied, and
intelligent individuals who are inclined (perhaps "compelled" is more
like it) to reveal their interests and desires by joining and
participating in "newsgroups," "lists," and other Internet discussion
forums of all sorts. Madison Avenue is now poised to add its messages to
the rich soup of existing Internet conversations, resources, and
services.
Yet the Internet culture, very like the people-to-people efforts that
make barn raisings and volunteer fire departments possible, has
traditionally been inhospitable to commercial interests and actors. Even
answers to questions posed in such forums as "fatfree" and
"alt.weddings" are often preceded or followed by statements that
proclaim the answerers' independence from their employer and its
products and services. These "standard disclaimers" allow such answerers
to advocate specific actions, products, and services while protecting
themselves from being accused of crudely pushing their vested interests.
However, forces are now at work on the Internet that do not come out of
a volunteer tradition. The traditional Internet tribe has begun to face
the fact that the commercial population of the Internet is increasing
rapidly and that with the increase will come an increase in the amount
of commercial Internet communications. The question is no longer whether
advertising will be a feature of the Internet information environment;
it is how advertising will be such a feature.
There are two very good reasons for embracing the inevitability of a
growing amount of commercial advertising on the Internet.
* Advertising conveys important information. We need to devise
appropriate ways and means for conveying such information on the
Internet as we already have for conveying through print and other media.
* Advertising contributes significant revenue to defray the costs of
some existing research and education publications. We need to devise
appropriate ways and means for such revenues to be generated on the
Internet.
In addition, a host of key questions (some of which follow) arise that
must be answered to the satisfaction of the Internet community before
the Internet will be at peace with commercial advertising:
*What kind of advertising is most useful to both advertisers and
potential buyers?
*How can such advertising be offered on the Internet in a way that meets
the needs of both advertisers and potential buyers without becoming the
digital analog of junk mail?
*What additional services (inquiries, orders, buyer support, etc.) can
meet the information needs of advertisers?
*How can the needs of advertisers be met without either interfering with
other uses of the Internet or invading the privacy of Internet users?
*How can viable, sustainable, and mutually beneficial relationships be
created between Internet publishers, advertisers, and users?
Finally, it seems certain there will be six basic categories of Internet
advertising:
*Endorsements: recommendations from users offered in other types of
communications.
*Billboards: specific postings made to subject-oriented Internet
discussion forums.
*Directories (Yellow Pages): searchable databases of nothing but
advertising.
*Listings (penny savers): product-oriented or service-oriented Internet
discussion forums.
*Periodicals: advertising that appears along with editorial content that
it helps to underwrite.
*Nuisance (junk E-mail): direct and unsolicited advertising.
Madison Avenue clearly regards the Internet as too good a market to
overlook. The Internet simply contains too many of the right sorts of
people organized into too many of just the right sorts of interest
groups for advertisers to stay away. And this is a phenomenon that will
be even more true come the NII. (Indeed, in some quarters it seems that
the whole point of the NII is advertising and order processing!) Two
simple guidelines will well serve both network advertisers and users as
these developments run their course: advertisements should convey
information rather than engage in hyperbole, and advertisers should not
impose their messages upon users. This is good advice for advertising in
general, but it is absolutely essential for advertising by good
commercial citizens of the Internet.
Paul Evan Peters is director of the Educom/CAUSE/ARL Coalition for
Networked Information (CNI). [email protected]