Incidental and specific advertising of the online presence
Incidental offline advertising
Driving traffic to the web site is not a primary objective of the advert.
Specific offline advertising
Driving traffic to the web site or explaining the online proposition is a primary objective of the advert.
Two types of offline advertising can be identified: incidental and specific. Reference to the web site is incidental if the main aim of the advert is to advertise a particular product or promotion and the web site is available as an ancillary source of information if required by the viewer. Traditionally, much promotion of the web site in the offline media by traditional companies has been incidental - simply consisting of highlighting the existence of the web site by including the URL at the bottom of an advertisement. Reference to the web site is specific if it is an objective of the advert to explain the proposition of the web site in order to drive traffic to the site to achieve direct response. Here the advert will highlight the offers or services available at the web site, such as sales promotions or online customer service. Amazon commonly advertises in newspapers to achieve this. Naturally, this approach is most likely to be used by companies that only have an online presence, but existing companies can develop straplines to use which explain the web site value proposition (as Mini Case Study 4.3 'BA asks "have you clicked yet?"' in Chapter 4 illustrates well). Many state 'Visit our web site!!', but clearly, a more specific strapline can be developed which describes the overall proposition of the site ('detailed information and product guides to help you select the best product for you') or is specific to the campaign ('we will give you an instant quote online, showing how much you save with us').
Offline response mechanisms
The different response mechanics such as web response and URL strategy which we discussed earlier in the chapter have to be used to maximise response since this helps to direct potential customers to the most appropriate content on the web site. Different URLs are also useful for measuring the response of offline media campaigns since we can measure the number of visitors arriving directly at the URL by entering the domain name.
Continue reading here: Making FMCG brands sizzle online
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