1. REACH
Whether you need to reach a large chunk of the population with your message or target a small niche audience, online advertising has an environment and a product that’s right for you. Going online is now such an essential part of our daily lives and is the first port of call for so many activities – from news to catching up with friends – that it offers advertisers an unrivalled reach in terms of audience size.
40 million people in the UK (aged 2+) use the internet every month

2. BRAND BUILDING
Everyone knows that the internet is great for direct response advertising. The ability to measure the performance of online advertising through impressions, click-throughs and conversions means it’s easy for advertisers to optimise campaigns and maximise ROI. However, advertisers are also discovering that online is a hugely effective brand advertising tool. As a result, brand advertising online has grown by roughly 200% between 2008 and 2010.

The advent of online video advertising in the form of pre and post roll ads around video content has provided advertisers with the type of opportunities for brand-based advertising normally associated with TV. Coupled with this, the massively impactful new display advertising formats such as custom backgrounds, billboards and half page skyscrapers, mean that brands can create amazing adverts online that they haven’t previously been able to ex- ecute. The combination of these factors means that online display advertising is changing. It isn’t necessarily about generating an initial response but is more focused on building brand awareness and driving purchase intent.

3. RELEVANCE
The internet allows you to customise advertising more effectively than any other advertising medium, enabling brands to reach the audience that is most likely to be interested in their products or services. Examples include:
• ‘Contextual’ – related to what you are specifically looking at or for
• ‘Demographic’ – an age bracket or a particular region
• ‘Content’ – around a specific piece of content such as video
• ‘Behavioural’ – based upon previous interests / preferences
• ‘Location-based’ – where you are at that moment in time
Two thirds of advertisers using this type of customised advertising believe that it performs better than advertising that was not customised. 

4. CREATIVITY
Online offers advertisers a limitless creative canvas. Back in the day of the notorious “12k gif banner” this may not have seemed to be the case as there were lots of restrictions – from the physical space, to the amount of anima- tion, and even the number of colours you could use. Yet in just a few years, the very technology that makes the in- ternet a living, breathing, ever-evolving platform – together with some clever minds – has created a rich landscape of digital disciplines.
And perhaps the best bit about online, is that it fits into consumers’ lives like no other medium – on the commute, at work, at home, on the plane and even on the beach.

5.  ENGAGEMENT
If we were a brand, looking for true, lasting love, we’d use online.
Why? Because it’s got great chat up skills. It’s more than just sound and vision. It’s interactive and utterly dynamic. It’s contextual and real-time so it can really deliver its line. And once it’s got your attention, online works hard us- ing those skills to keep you engaged, offering you not only choice of format but choice of how deeply you want to participate.
For example, here’s our brand new product. You can read about it, watch the 60-second video demo, beta test it before anyone else or ask questions about the product direct to the people that invented it.

6. SOCIAL
When you consider that TV advertising has been around for more than 25 years and radio advertising 70 years you begin to realise that digital is still in its infancy. And yet since the internet began its spectacular rise to promi- nence in the early 90s, online has found its feet in no time with over 40m active UK users.
Part of online’s success is down to its inherent sociability which has universally changed the way we behave. You can have a water cooler conversation whenever and wherever you want you can look up a new restaurant and in seconds scan dozens of reviews. And when you’ve experienced something mind-blowing you can share it with friends, family and frankly, the world – all at the tap of a touchscreen. All this has led to us as a nation, spending a massive quarter of our online time on social networks.

7. ACCOUNTABILITY
On top of all the brand measures used in traditional media, online offers a vast array of consumer touch points which can tell you about consumer behaviour, your campaign’s effect and the return on investment (ROI) of almost every pound you spend.
An online advertising campaign for Cadbury Dairy Milk in 2010 was able to show a delivery of 30 million ad impressions, reaching 6 million unique users (10% of the entire UK population).

8. INTERACTIVITY
The internet is both a push and pull medium that lets people click, type, talk, film and drag their way around web- sites, emails and other online services. And even better, it allows advertisers to directly respond and interact with their customers.
Interactivity makes for an incredibly engaging, immersive experience for consumers. Online display adverts can deliver a brand message, but they can also offer much more – e.g. forms to collect customer details, video clips, games and even shopping functionality.
The only limit to online interactivity is your imagination and the imagination of your consumers.

9. REAL-TIME
Unlike any other medium, the internet lets you see results as they happen and adjust your activity in real time. This unique ability is unbelievably powerful, yet so simple to use. Whether you’re using online display advertising, search, email or social media, you can launch a campaign and see the reaction of consumers within minutes.
Online’s real time nature is a revolution in marketing that’s engrained into every aspect of the medium.

10. MOBILE
Year on year, mobile continues to flourish. Indeed the usage of the mobile internet in the UK grew at the fastest rate on record in 2010. As of May 2011, 21.3m people used the mobile internet each month and 19.8m used apps. Mobile media has become a part of daily life, with the average mobile media user reaching for their phone 18 times a day – and this doesn’t even include calls and text! 30% of overall Google restaurant searches were made via the mobile internet.
Importantly, not only are consumers surfing on their mobile, but they are also actually buying.

What a lot of sense… want to talk more about your brand awareness & engagement online, get in touch.

Hannah – Production Manager, And Productions
Sources – iab (Internet Advertising Bureau UK)