Aaron Wall discussed on his blog yesterday the future of contextual advertising. It was an interesting read and his predictions for the future included:
- fewer ads
- ads with more information
- ads that look more like information
- ads tighter integrated into the content
- having a semi-porous brand which allows your free content to do your marketing for your paid content
- in many case selling ads that include personal endorsement, and ads for white label products or house products (often via subscription)
If this describes the advertiser of the future then I think the ads will be a lot more creative than they are now. Pay per click advertising is almost over saturated, but I don’t think it will go away. People still use banner ads, don’t they?
But advertisers on the cutting may figure out that Aaron’s assertion that pay per click ads are clicked on by poorer, uneducated clickers and decide to get more creative with their advertising. What then?
I still think pay per models will be popular. Pay per play videos will become more popular, and I also like the idea that ads will appear more as content. I believe that is likely true. Ads could appear as content and run side by side with the content in the form of advertising. But online marketers have tried that before and as soon as the public finds out there’s a big brouhaha about authenticity and advertisers almost have to revert back to making overt statements that their ads are indeed ads. I do believe that Aaron is on the right track and pay per click advertising, though it will still be used, will birth a new form of advertising soon that is related, but different and more creative.
