What is Interactive Advertising

The advertising world really amazes me. The speed at which these advertisers explore new avenues of communication is no less than the speed at which light reaches our Earth. The main objective of advertising as we all know is to promote the products and services through paid or unpaid forms.

Advertising in recent years has witnessed an unprecedented growth, which has expanded the horizons of advertisers. The channels through which the advertisers can reach the general public are so many that it may make the advertiser feel overwhelmed with decisions.

Therefore, an advertiser's task becomes difficult while choosing the best option to advertise their products.

According to Interactive Advertising Bureau online, the revenue this year was $26 billion, which is a 15% increase from 2008. This means that people are searching for products more on the Internet than on television. That is why you cannot escape from these ads on the Internet too.

• Interactive advertising is more of personal interaction between the consumer and the company. The main idea behind this type of advertising is that the ad should be able to stand out in the crowd of similar products and intrigue the customer to further know about the product.

• It offers immense benefits to the company as well as to the customers. First, advertising was only limited to financially strong companies who could afford splurging money in it. The small companies bore the brunt by not being able to market their products on a national level.

• With the onset of interactive media, the local companies were able to share platform with the multinationals. Advertisers were able to advertise with low budgets too and were able to attract same traffic as other companies. Even marketers were able to measure the effectiveness of an ad at a low cost.

This strategy helped the marketers determine which ad was more appealing and how to attract more consumers by using this tool to their advantage. Moreover, through this channel, one can receive an immediate response from the consumer by way of testimonials, blogs and even by playing games on their websites.

Another major benefit of interactive advertising is that people before buying a particular product like to read about the performance of that product, which is available through product reviews.

These online reviews helped many companies attract their consumers. Therefore, this interactive media has opened up unlimited choices for creativity and has put the company on a global platform where people from all over the world can access the company's' products or services.

There are so many examples of interactive advertising. Few of which were really creative and garnered a lot of attention through clicks, are listed below

• The first one defining fashion was the Burberry ad which had pictures of models wearing their products. A click on the model's image immediately made the model move herself and the prospect could view the shoes and other accessories like bags. 

The main purpose of this ad was to create a typical fashion show atmosphere which would interest the consumers to go further and look for other creations. This ad also used 3-D technology to help the customer view the products from different angles.

• Other than advertising on the Internet, traditional methods were molded to fit the new channel. Like a famous ad by Frito Lays which has a tag line - 'Our potatoes are grown closer than you think'. They actually plastered a potato patch on the roof of a subway station.

• Similarly, Coca-Cola came up with an ad which had 'Velcro' attached to their poster in order to feature their strong grip bottles. People passing by this poster were actually gripped by this ad and this resulted in a major increase in revenue.

• Even the government of a particular country made sure they are not left behind in this bandwagon. The government actually had shoes stuck to chewing gum on the streets to demonstrate how gum is better in the dustbin and not on the ground. This created a lot of interest among people and various networking sites.

• Even ads on TiVo were not excluded. An ad by Charmin company advertised about their coupons usage while purchasing Charmin products. The user pauses the show and can order the coupon by the options given to him/her and after completing the process, he/she can resume the show.

• Similarly Domino's Pizza ad used this tool in TiVo where the users could order their pizza by logging into the site by typing an account number flashed on the TV. The consumers could make their own pizza by choosing the crust, toppings and size. This type of advertisement was too popular on TiVo.

In the end, interactive advertising has helped the manufacturers form a relation with the consumer and in doing so, the company has moved more closer to the consumers. This tool has changed the world of advertising by making the boundaries of product market disappear. Time has come when advertisers need to understand that the consumer now controls the brand. The only way to reach to a consumer is to be digital and explore new forms of technology.

It is important to know that we can't compel people to buy a product or a service, but we can most certainly engage them to talk and share their memories and relate it to the brand. Only then it's possible to be innovative and be ahead of the competitors.