Digital: The Future Of Advertising?

Google executive, Nikesh Arora, made a bold statement about the future of advertising.

“People are shifting their spending dollars more and more to the online world – whether it be direct marketing, or advertising, or branding. And that follows industrial marketing logic which is that you have to go where the eyeballs are, where the customers are…I personally expect in the next five to eight years 30% to 50% of advertising will be digital”.

The argument is simple. As technology advances, more people are connected through the Internet, not only at home but also through smartphones. History has also proven that advertisers naturally know where to hunt for eyeballs. On top of that, digital ad platforms usually provide easy performance tracking, which until now, marketers are still struggling to measure offline performance. Even if performance could be measured, it usually isn’t as accurate as precise clicks and impressions counts. That is one huge plus point for digital advertising.

So, we can definitely see why businesses are actively taking on digital advertising but it doesn’t necessarily mean that traditional media marketers are running out of business.

Often, we are quick to point out what traditional media lacks of (and so blinded) that we forgot the benefits it could bring. Traditional media like print and TV commercial are master channels to stir emotions. Digital ads, on the other hand, aren’t that effective in this aspect.

Bottom line: As long as we still live in a real world, traditional advertising is definitely here to stay. (Regardless if digital is going to be 50% or 90% of advertising in the future.)