Members of the Advertising Club of the Virgin Islands were treated to a presentation Tuesday on the newest dimension of the advertising industry, the Internet.
The Boston-based company, Digitas, has emerged as a leader in what has become known as interactive advertising on the World Wide Web and has a client list that includes Fortune 500 clients, to prove it.
Steve Lynch, vice president and creative director of Digitas, explained to V.I. ad executives the objectives of interactive, contextual advertising, and provided an example of how it boosted sales for the SAAB automobile. "Banner advertising and contextual advertising go hand in hand…it's all about delivering the right message to the right person at the right time using the right channel." And at times, Lynch believes the Web is the right channel just as other times, television, radio and print ads are the preferred medium.
"In our advertising campaign for General Motors which owns SAAB, what SAAB wanted to do was drive persons to test drive their vehicle because 75 percent of everyone who test drives, buys one."
The Digitas creative team, he said, developed an advertising strategy that superimposed the SAAB test drive ad in the midst of the main site of car.com, a site viewed by car lovers.
"It was a site within a site so the person on-line would not have to leave the main site to view our targeted ad." The goal of the campaign was to bring the client to the mini Saab site. And the strategy paid off. The response from the Web community far surpassed anticipated numbers. In fact, Lynch said, the success of the contextual advertising led SAAB, a division of General Motors to reducing its TV advertising budget.
He said the new form of advertising is being welcomed in the industry because it can be worked and measured. "But SAAB will not be giving up television advertising anytime soon, they'd be crazy to," he noted. Lynch said the key to advertising success is to recognize all channels to get the message out and then most importantly, "orchestrating them all together."
Digitas is among the most successful of the many companies now specializing in placing advertising messages and opportunities for interaction between sellers and potential buyers. Its executives, including Lynch, believe that inventive communications now made possible by the Internet are only the beginning of the Web growth which will someday reach into all aspects of daily business. "The web is everywhere. Gone are the days where the Web is only on a desktop. It's now on your personal digital assistant, computer, ATM, kiosk, its everywhere."
Interactive advertising becomes the latest addition to the advertising lexicon which includes: billboards, newspapers, magazine, radio, television, and word-of-mouth.
Lynch will speak on St. Croix Wednesday at the Caravelle Hotel on St. Croix.
Registration is at 11:30 a.m. with lunch at noon. For reservations call Diane Butler at 778-5118.
