6423: A comparison of web- and newspaper-advertising

Abstract: The comparison of web- and newspaper-advertising is the subject of this essay. I used internet websites to quote recent statistics and researches. Few paragraphs are based on my previous work experience as well. I explained main differences between both, paper and internet, media, and underlined main advantages and disadvantages in either web or newspaper type of advertisement. In hope I proved that web advertisement is much more effective in most cases, and this is the way we will most likely advertise in future.

From many years internet supersedes traditional form of newspapers. According to world reports advertisers spend more and more money on web advertising every year. It is very probable that in future newspapers will become only a supplement of internet portals. This is the trend which cannot be stopped. That is probably why, for instance, Reuters has its residence in Second Life game, and TV and radio stations are available via web sites. According to Jupiter Research from 2006 24% of people in the age of 35-44 read news online, while news in newspapers are being seeked only by 19% of them. From among people 1824 years old 13% use online services to familiarize themselves with recent news and only 2% uses newspapers. Only people over 55 prefer paper versions of news 41% of them read traditional newspapers. Starlink report from January 2007 says that in comparison between years 2005 2006 the highest dynamic in advertising market showed web-advertising 59.3% growth. It looks amazing, when we see in the same report that income of daily newspapers-advertising increased by only about 3%. In these days one in five Americans regularly browse news websites, while in 1996 this proportion was 1:50, what shows research of Pew Research Centre for People and the Press. 40% of Americans admitted, that they read any daily newspaper a day before. In 1997 this percentage was over 50%, and in 1965 over 70% of people. This shows, that this is not only increase of

internet but decrease of traditional media what we observe every day. According to IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers report for American market in 2006 income from web-advertising grew up about 30% and reached 12.4 billion dollars. The other IAB statistic says that in United Kingdom 11% of all money spent for advertising goes to web-advertising. The biggest advantage of internet is availability of all contents for free. People, especially young ones, think that access to information shouldnt be limited in any way. The only cost connected with using internet is the cost of broadband or similar technology, which in future will probably disappear. Thanks to the specific form of web-advertising, there is unlimited number of ways you can advertise on internet. It depends only on your imagination and programming skills of the particular site owner. In comparison traditional newspapers may vary only in usage of colour, what depends on particular page layout whether it is possible to make two-, three-, four- or multicoloured scheme, or level of graphic project. What is more, some technologies of web advertisements, such as pop-ups, are created in a way which doesnt allow you not to notice their presence. It is very difficult to reach the same effect in newspaper, not even mention about costs of really effective advertisement. The other thing is very high flexibility of internet advertising. You can quickly change form, size and content of your advertisement, while in newspaper after deadline it is impossible at all. In the same way it is no problem if you decide to quit your advertisement appearance. There is actually no deadlines in internet, because the services work and change all the time. Possibility of inserting quick link to company homepage is the next great advantage of web-advertisement I want to write about. The main role of advertisement is to draw potential customers attention. This is why most of advertisements are rather poor in details the idea is to encourage people to find out more. In traditional newspaper, after you noticed advertisement which you found interesting, the only way to find out more is to call or go personally to the company residence. In web-advertising the thing is extremely easy what you have to do is to click the link and all details appear just in front of your eyes, usually at advertiser homepage. Diversity of thematical websites allow to state in detail the recipient of advertising. From the other hand it requires very good knowledge about the particular market, in many cases narrow market analysis is necessary. To compare, newspapers market offers much less specific titles,

what makes advertiser choice much simpler. However in my opinion, the aim of every advertisement is benefit rather than simplicity of advertising. One of the very few advantages of newspaper-advertising is its permanence, which means that you can return to it every time you need and it still stands invariably in the same place. What is more, the traditional advertisement looks always the same, it doesnt matter whether you read it on the kitchen table or holding newspaper in underground. It is not so obvious in internet, where one site may look quite differently in case of using different types of internet browsers. In early years of new Millennium I worked as a sales representative in big newspaper. It was 2001 when my company improved its website and added a web-advertising to its offer. There was hardly anyone who was interested in this opportunity. Three years later I couldnt sell any advertising space without web-advertising option in addition. As far as I am concerned, there is no serious newspaper these days, which hasnt got its own internet website. According to the Hitwise report from March 2007, usage rating of newspaper websites increased by 29,7% in average during last year. This is the direction life is changing. And so does advertising.

List of references

http://www.jupiterresearch.com/bin/item.pl/home - Jupiter Research homepage http://www.hitwise.com/ - Hitwise homepage http://www.starlink.pl/noframes.htm - Starlink Media Agency homepage http://people-press.org/ - The PEW Research Centre homepage http://www.iab.net/ - IAB Interactive Advertising Bureau homepage http://www.internetworldstats.com/ - Internet World Stats homepage http://www.money.pl/ - Internet Financial Service Money.pl homepage