How Ads Affect Our Memory

Over the last 35 years, I've owned ad agencies and magazines (both print and online). The argument that an advertising campaign's effectiveness in an online magazine can mainly be measured by click-throughs has always struck me as specious logic. Bravo to you, Professor Chan Yun Yoo! You have put research and hard data behind what many of us knew to be true all along: the power of the medium cannot be measured only by the direct responses it generates for a client. As David Ogilvy once said: "Every communications from a client to a potential customer is an investment in the BRAND." At any one time, the readers of a magazine will be situated somewhere along the continuum of The Hierarchy of Effects. For certain some of them will be ready to click the online ad and buy the client's product or service. Many more, however, will be at another stage in the learning/buying cycle. For them to merely view the ad and take in whatever impression they are able to absorb in that moment—possibly to move closer towards a buying decision--is what the entire marketing business is all about. Those awareness-building impressions are ultimately as critical and valuable to the client as any others. Without an increasingly large base of awareness and predisposition towards a client’s brand—well, adios. Relying on the click-through model as the primary measure of a campaign's impact shows little understanding of how buying decisions are truly made and it diminishes the online magazine's editorial environment as a powerful enhancer to the advertiser's message and product/service offerings.

This merely reiterates the age old discussion between brand and direct marketing advertising. Such reiteration is timely. The internet was initially viewed as an e-commerce, sales channel...hence DM type metrics is of key importance.

Increasingly we are, especially with the growth of the socialized media beginning to recognise the brand impact that web marketing can create.

The traditional set of metrics for branding...awareness, recognition, recall becomes more relevant. Traditionally these measures are obtained through periodic marketing research in which an additional process and cost is involved.   The challenge for web marketers is to develop methods of measuring these on the flow. Like marketing research of any kind, this will require some form of response from the target audience though not necessarily in direct response to a particular comuunication.

A greater challenge lies in trying to integrate  the two sets of measures, Branding and Direct Marketing.  At Systems Strategists, we have been experimenting with dynamic simulation models for usch purposes and would like to share our thoughts on this with other interested parties. Do contact through our website at http://one1.com.sg      

I hate to sound pedantic, but, as a former marketing director for Webster's New World Dictionary, I feel obligated to point out that the previous commenter simply illustrated why the two disciplines are referred to as "online ADVERTISING" and "Direct MARKETING."

This is extremely interesting research, and one that frankly will change the way companies advertise their products on the web.  For very long I have also thought that just because an individual does not click on an advertisement that the information is still saved in the unconscious, and can be retrieved later down the road, for instance when you are at the grocery store.  The unconscious mind is a very tricky aspect of the brain, and one that I believe has much more impact on our everyday lives then most people give it credit for. It has longed been believed that childhood memories and other types of advertisements (such as subliminal messages) have been stored in the unconscious, and ultimately affected the way we live our lives, or even the decisions we make. Companies could benefit greatly from this information because they can now start to produce more passive advertisements, which would help consumers feel like they are not trying to shove their products down their throats.  Which could ultimately result in a more trusting consumer, because it could give them the sense that you are not just trying to get money.  It can also help the consumer to feel more "Free" when choosing a product to purchase, and as a consumer myself i have noticed that I tend to purchase products that I have not seen millions of ads for, because of the fact that I do not like advertisements being in control of my decisions.The research that Yoo has published is detrimental to the way companies will advertise their products now in the World Wide Web.