Advertising is all around us in many shapes and forms, there is no escaping advertising we are all bombarded by thousands of adverts from a variety of different sources daily. On the way to work this morning I have already been hit by more than just a few ads - I've probably been exposed to hundreds. If I lived in London you could likely up that figure to thousands
What I have been noticing recently is that some search engines have been increasingly advertising off-line. Of course, that this has been happening for some time - it's just recently that I have noticed an increase, which leads me to a couple of questions.
- Is this trend going to increase?
- Are search engines looking to traditional off-line marketing to increase visibility of the brand?
- Is this an attempt to get a bite of Google's massive market share?
There are many different ways of advertising off-line using traditional media both above and below the line. From sponsorship of an event or a team to TV advertising, radio, and outdoors: however many media you list you'll just be scratching the surface in terms of options. If I chose (and my editor would let me) this article could go on and on exploring the different options that are available to advertisers outside of cyberspace.
Let's focus on a couple of examples that I have noticed recently.
Yahoo World Cup Sponsorship
Some of you football fans out there may have noticed that Yahoo! are official partners of the world cup 2006 Germany. The official site for the 2006 FIFA World Cup at:fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/. If you have been watching the games you may have seen the Yahoo! advertisements at the side of the pitch during games.
You don't ask you don't get
Following the re-branding of Ask Jeeves to Ask, a television advert has been launched to increase the visibility of the brand off-line.
The Ask advertisement was shot in New Zealand and features a guy walking around asking for a variety of things - some more ridiculous than others - and getting them. He sees a police car, stops it and the next thing that you know he is being pushed on a swing by a police man. The advert also sees our man drive off with an ice cream van.
At the end of the advert we are given the slogan if you don't ask you don't get.
AOl /discuss
With a more hard hitting campaign, AOL has been advertising on the television too. The discuss advertisements are not as much fun as the Ask campaign and are aimed at getting a response on the public opinion of the internet - is it a good or bad thing.
So is this going to be a trend that will continue, with more search engines advertising off-line to increase the visibility of the brand and win back some market share from Google? Ultimately, as always, time will tell what will happen. But we could get some idea if we keep an eye on what Google are doing.
