iMedia Connection: Publicis & Hal Riney’s Jerry Back

Jerry Back The VP, Associate Director of Research & New Media at Publicis shares his thoughts on what is holding this medium back.

iMedia Connection: You don’t believe the Internet has yet panned out as a viable advertising medium for traditional marketers. Why?

Back: All other media have two types of ad revenue streams because these media can fulfill both Direct Response and Brand-positioning Objectives. All other media can do both: TV runs infomercials and branding campaigns; radio can provide call-to-action 800 numbers or humorous dialogue reinforcing the brand, and so on. But the Internet, up to this point, has been utilized primarily for Direct Response because that has been its intrinsic strength. All mediums have at least one intrinsic strength: For TV its sound and sight, for Radio it’s theatre of the mind, etc. For Online, the advertising units that have been available are best suited to delivering the Direct Response call to action.

So, as a medium, online can’t thrive until it fully develops an additional, brand-positioning revenue stream.