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Portland Press Herald, Maine, Eric Blom column
(Portland Press Herald (Maine) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Mar. 9--These days, advertising needs to grab its audience fast if there's any chance of hooking someone. Nowhere is that more true than on the Internet.
"You have two or three seconds to get someone's attention," said Brian Bickford, president and chief executive officer of Strategic Productions, a marketing firm based in Portland. "What we look for is those kind of attention-getting devices."
Right now, Bickford is doing a lot of looking. He's serving as a judge for the 2006 Internet Advertising Competition of the Web Marketing Association.
These are the Oscar awards for Internet ads, and entries come in from around the world and across industries.
By the end of this week, Bickford will have reviewed and critiqued as many as 200 of the top Internet advertising efforts anywhere -- everything from simple banner ads to complex campaigns.
"My ads are coming from all over the world," Bickford said. "And while I don't speak Dutch and my German is pretty bad, the fundamentals are still there."
There are specific areas on which the ads are judged: design, innovation, content, technology, interactivity and copywriting.
Each of these fundamentals is judged in itself and also, more importantly, on how it works in service of the ultimate marketing goal.
"What is important with this, as well as any advertising, is that it has to be clear, clean and directed," Bickford said. "The fundamental issue is getting someone to click on your ad."
Sometimes, advertising can be technically superior andbut really boring because it has nothing to say. In other instances, the design is great but the site's copy is poorly written.
The whole idea behind the contest, Bickford said, is to create industry standards for what makes a good advertisement online.
The Internet hasn't had decades of experience in developing ads, like radio, print or television. And the consensus about what makes marketing effective online marketing continues to evolve.
The technology also continues to evolve, with the adoption of broadband networks and movement to devices such as wireless telephones.
Today, advertisers can measure with great precision online whether marketing works. They count site visits, the number of people who click into a shopping area and consumers who abandon the process before making a purchase.
From this and the experience of other marketers -- good and bad -- the industry is getting a pretty good idea of what a top-flight campaign involves. The contest helps identify them and publicize those efforts.
Some sites -- even ones that continue to make money -- are so 1995, Bickford complained.
In this field of 21st century advertising, where something five years old is ancient, Bickford and other judges are looking for exciting and unexpected efforts.
Bickford said he's looking for entries that have a "wow factor."
One of those in the current contest is a Disneyland site. After the page loads on a user's computer, a green Army guy breaks through a photograph on the screen and starts shouting.
"We're talking about creativity and understanding the technology and the message you are trying to get across," Bickford said. "The whole objective is to create a better site, a better message."
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