AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Think Different: Maybe the Web’s Not a Place to Stick Your Ads - Advertising Age

Matthew Creamer Asks Whether We’re All Missing the Point When It Comes to the Internet

“Steve Jobs hates the internet.” So jokes a contact of mine whenever he laments what he regards as Apple’s relatively paltry investment in web advertising. The point that person — who once had a stake in that investment — is trying to make is not that Mr. Jobs is actually a closet Luddite but that Apple, one of the world’s strongest brands, isn’t as experimental as it should be and, as such, isn’t contributing enough to the gold rush that is the digital-advertising business.

That’s one way to look at it. Another is that regardless of what it lays out on ads, Apple has a greater online presence than most brands that spend many times what it does. Consider that in December, Apple sites had the 10th-best traffic figures on the web. Those sites, which grabbed more unique visitors than many of the most popular sites where Apple would place its own ads — including The New York Times, NBC Universal and ESPN — are destinations. Plus, there’s the endless gusher of Apple-obsessed jabbering on any number of blogs and social networks. Oh, and Apple did manage to lay out $32 million in measured media online in 2007, more than double the amount it spent the year before and four times its 2005 outlay.

Look closely at the disappointment that an advanced marketer in 2008 wouldn’t be willing to spend more than that to spray its brand all over an Internet already saturated by it and you’ll see very clearly some misperceptions plaguing the marketing business today. First, there’s the basic mistake that marketing is synonymous with advertising. Then, there’s the underexamined assumption so popular in marketing circles of all kinds that when it comes to helping companies create brands or move product the Internet’s greatest use is as an ad medium.

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