Lab+5

=What is the difference between advertising methods used in the real world and the virtual world? =

One of the most important considerations when on the topic of advertising in the real world and the virtual world is the subject of space. Real world business tactics are completely dependent on physical, geographical space. Real world businesses conducting advertising and marketing methods according to specific consumer groups often defined by geographic location. Real world businesses would conduct advertising methods that cater to specific consumer groups. Advertising is often conducted through various tangible mediums such as newspapers, magazines, posters, billboards and even television advertisements. Advertisements are often placed in terms of where target consumer groups are located. Through the process of narrowcasting, businesses define specific consumer groups and market their products towards them. Such marketing processes are often costly and require a great amount of time and research. Ultimately, real world advertising methods require immense thought and planning in order to target desired types of consumers.

Virtual world advertising processes are often far easier to carry out. As the business online is no longer concerned with physical, geographical distances, methods to reach specific consumer groups would be entirely different. There is no need to think from a geographical perspective as anyone around the world can easily be accessed somehow. Online advertisers can still carry out narrowcasting methods to target very specific niche markets as it is common for those with similar interests to group together online. Such groups can easily be targeted. On the other hand, marketers can also do the polar opposite by advertising to the masses trying to spread the word to as many people as possible. Advertising to mass amounts of people would be a lot easier online as the costs associated with online marketing are significantly cheaper than real world advertising processes.

The internet has also introduced the controversial process of datamining. Datamining involves extracting various consumer patterns from online data just as browsing history and email content. Many businesses use dataming practices to transform information and data found online into highly useful business intelligence that can be used to a marketing advantage. Google is known to use datamining practices in order to customize their advertisements according to the user. Technological development has introduced new marketing tactics that are highly beneficial to businesses and it seems the smartest businesses are leaving real world advertising methods behind and tapping into the great potential on the internet.