Watching YouTube
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(Image from: buzzsonic.com)


With the announcement of the buyout of Internet video website YouTube by search engine/corporate conglomerate Google on October 9th for a staggering $1.65 billion came many questions from its loyal visitors. Along with legality issues over certain videos that are posted on the website which circumvent copyright laws, visitors are curious to see if there will be an increase in advertisements to curb the high purchase price. Also, the article theorizes that YouTube decided to sell finally due to its high operating costs and its consistent red bottom line figures. Finally, there is mention of the plethora of young corporations that are beginning to consider selling (like Flickr and Facebook) to larger companies that can add to their already-rich portfolios.

Regardless of what the public or the loyal visitors opinion is of this merger, it is great for YouTube on several fronts. First, the merger provided the higher-ups a life raft to escape from their financially sinking ship - had they held out for a more lucrative deal, they may have been too close to bankruptcy for any company to invest. While it is obvious the creators were looking out for themselves first, they also preserved the future of their service. Also, the article's comment on the next young corporation to sell is intriguing, since Google was in talks for a period of time with Facebook, and now Yahoo! seems to be the front-runner for the service. Ultimately, the purchase of simple, high user volume companies are going to lead to an online arms race for the Google's and News Corp's of the world, which will drive up the selling price and give everyone involved an opportunity to make a lot of money from a seemingly simple website.

Marketing Shifts in a Changing E-Tail Landscape
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(Image from: ecommercetimes.com)

Holiday shopping is just around the corner, and consumers are beginning to take control when it comes to advertising exposure and online marketing. With the advent of products like TiVo and satellite radio (like XM or Sirius), consumer exposure to advertising is decreasing greatly. According to the article, internet giant Google is poised to give consumers on-demand advertising using its search, contextual, and video advertisements that are currently being used on many websites on the Internet. By working in tandem with other firms, Google will be able to reach consumers earlier with holiday shopping advertising. This advertising strategy is not only being used to increase online shopping sales, but also offline sales for bricks-and-clicks companies.

While consumers seriously dislike an overflow of advertising (hence the popularity of TiVO and satellite radio), I believe that this venture with Google as discussed in the article will work well. For example, if a consumer visited a website like Engadget searching for reviews of the newest plasma TVs, Google advertising could be present on the website with links and offers for different brands of plasma TVs. These links will make comparison shopping easier and provide a more streamlined approach to online shopping. This method should successfully boost online sales, and while it may not necessarily increase offline sales as much, it will at least increase awareness for those products.

Google and Intuit: Cracking the Local Search Marketing Code?
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(Image from: clickz.com)


While it is common knowledge that the majority of consumer-based corporation have their own website that is used to promote their e-business, small businesses have yet to fully realize this potential. According to an article posted on clickz.com, only 35 to 42 percent of small businesses have a website, while the rest are eager to penetrate the market. With a recent partnership between internet giant Google and business software manufacturer Intuit, these dreams may soon come to fruition. With this partnership comes several advantages - Google now can package some of their internet tools with Intuit's QuickBooks software, which is currently used by 3.7 million small businesses. These integrated functions will serve to provide Google a list of small businesses which can be loaded into its AdWords program, allowing these businesses the opportunity to spread its image around the internet.

This partnership is a perfect opportunity for small businesses to expand its market base from its current local position to nationwide. Having the Google software integrated into their existing software will potentially make the transition extremely easy, and will also be done at a low cost for the businesses. Utilizing Google's advertising concepts, While this venture will only help to increase awareness of a small business within its geographical area, it is still a great way to attract new customers who may not have heard of the company before. The best way for this to be used is if they were promoted on local websites, like area newspapers (ex. - using the News Journal's website for a local Newark business). However this venture is used, though, should result in positive returns to local businesses.

The Ethics of Online Marketing to Kids
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(image from: http://caru.org)


As the percentages of households with children who have Internet access increases (according to the article "Internet Users Show Their Age," discussed in class), online marketers have to increase their efforts to understand their ethical boundaries. In the article from emarketer.com, the author discusses the guidelines that were implemented by the American Marketing Association (AMA) and the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) to implicitly protect children from questionable advertising content, and to also prevent online marketers from attempting to promote mature products to children. The author concludes by outlining seven rules created by CARU that is meant to be used by online marketers to reference before deciding on specific promotions, as well as the code of ethics for marketers (as per the AMA).

It is of the utmost importance to protect children from harmful and mature content, advertising or otherwise, and the establishment of guidelines for online marketers is a good first step. However, there does not seem to be a completely coherent set of checks and balances in place to fully protect children from mature advertising. While it should be implied that online marketers have a responsibility to perform within their ethical limitations, there are cases where marketers push the rules aside to force their products or services into any avenue possible. An improved system of validating advertisements for public consumption would be ideal, but in the world of constant updates and improved capabilities leaves enough holes for anyone to promote something by any means necessary.

This issue is also a question of how can online advertisers protect children when a particular website has a large and varied consumption market. For example, it is known that a website like Disney.com would not harbor any mature advertising, but Myspace.com or even your inbox is a different story. Without proper spam filters or content restrictions, children can view anything mature adults can, and online marketers can use the excuse that more mature people compose the higher market for the website. So while online marketers should follow a strict code of ethics when considering promotion for children, there are still other problems to fix before the problem is solved.

Back-to-School Promotions Reap Benefits for Online Retailers
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(Image from ecommercetimes.com)


Back-to-school shopping has begun its move to the online forum, according to a report released Tuesday (9/12) by Internet marketing research firm Nielsen/NetRatings. According to the study, office supply stores like Staples and large-scale department stores like Target experienced significant traffic increases to their websites in the month of August, due in large part to an emphasis on concentrated online marketing efforts. Along with the increase in web traffic, the advertisements themselves experienced an overall increase in views across the web. One outstanding example was department store JCPenney, whose online advertising impressions (how many times an advertisement is viewed) increased 1266%, from 33.4 million views to 443.2 million views in the span of three months.

This article is an ideal model that many companies, especially ones whose revenue is predicated on seasonal sales, should consider following. By focusing a portion of their advertising on the online market, companies can attract all of their target markets by placing their ads on specific websites that their customers visit on a regular basis. One such site that was mentioned in the article was MySpace, which is an area that should not be ignored by any company, based solely on the volume of traffic it attracts on a daily basis. If, for example, a company like Dell placed advertisements on MySpace in the summer months leading up to school starting, there is a strong likelihood that their sales or web hits will increase exponentially. Conversely, if the same advertisement was placed on a website like CNN.com, parents will be exposed to the advertisements more. Also, by placing advertisements on predominantly teen-targeted websites, teenagers will be more adept at learning how to shop and become more educated with comparison shopping. Although this may not necessarily translate to increased sales today, it will teach teens an important lesson for the future when their young demographic will become an older and more financially-improved demographic.

The concept of target-specific online advertising is extremely important in business today, which can lead to increased revenue for companies in the future. By having their image viewed by millions of people on a daily, or even hourly, basis, they will be able to spread the word on their products and see a positive return on their efforts.

As a course requirement for BUAD 477 - Info. Tech Applications in Marketing, I am required to design and maintain a blog about a topic of my choice that is related to online marketing. My blog will be linked to a variety of articles that pertain to my topic, online promotions, as well as other classmates and their blogs. Online promotions are everywhere when you log onto the internet, and my blog will look to delve deeper into the topic and give a unique insight on current events in this field.



Local Online Advertising to Grow in 2007

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As the internet begins to expand into newer and uncharted territories, the opportunities for online advertising increases. According to an article posted September 7th on Mediaweek, an online media magazine, companies are set to spend nearly $8 billion on local online advertising in 2007 based on a study by media research firm Borrell Associates. However, the research continues to state that these sales should begin to decrease by 2010, due in part to "the growth of spending on online promotions, a phenomenon being seen across all advertising channels."

What is surprising about the article is how Borrell Associates claimed that sales should decrease in the coming years. The internet is growing exponentially every year, and the number of users is increasing with it; so with that in mind, wouldn't it be in a company's best interest to spend more money online as the years progress? While more conventional forms of advertising, like television, magazines, and newspapers, will continue to stay at the top, focusing more advertising dollars on a growing media form seems more logical than most other ideas.

The internet is not a passing fad, and continues to forge ahead every day; if companies do not jump aboard they'll be missing out on a great way to promote themselves and their products.