Marketing blog: advertising in round about ways

I break up the tasks of marketing into three general categories. As the title suggests:

• Advertising: writing and showing attractive info, usually for new products.
• Informing: factual writing like technical and consumer information.
• Technologizing: using technologies in marketing

These are broad categories, but each needs it's own discussion. Let's talk about advertising then cover the other two later. Adversiting on the web is a little tricky, there is a sense that everything on the web is "free". Some people define "free" in terms of actual dollars: the information, content and services are simply free. Others define "free" in terms of "freedom of speach and expression. Either way, the sense of "free" tends to make advertisers confused.

This sense of confusion makes advetising on the web a little harder than in other media. But this does not mean it's THAT difficult. There is another issue which is quite different than other media forms: the target audiance is not just where you plan them to be. They are not in "one" place. There are lots of leading sites where certain buyers are found, but there are so many "other" places to find them. But again, it's somewhat possible to solve this problem.

Let's take the first issue of "free". If buyers expect free content, then they get it. Amazon.com is a great example. You get all the information about a book. You also get search capability on a huge amount of books, probably the easiest searchable database on the web (possibly the most popular). But, overall, Amazon is one big advertising site. Take a look at a Ogilvy on Advertising (Amazon) the top bar is access to Amazon related shopping. Besides the picture of the book cover, the first screen full is essentially advertising on how to buy the book (used, new, with a companion, "one button"). Go down another screen full: "customers who bought this book also bought", finally reviews and "product details". If this is not one big advertisment, I don't know what is. Granted, by the time a buyer gets this close to a book, there is a good probability that he is interested in the book. But Amazon has also the image of a book database. I expect Amazon to be a place to browse books, to read reviews and reader's comments and that is one aspect of Amazon. The advertising aspect is so subtle and integrated into the page, that after a short while, I simply forget it's "advertising".

Let's look at another type of advertising, the price comparison and "category specific blogs". Gizmo is a simple blog with no pretense. The trick is to get onto the blog if you are the product's marketing manager. It's a matter of finding the right site or blog, then crafting the right message. If you don't get in, why not build your own blog? This way you can showcase your own products, then add similar products. Two sites jump right out:
Lets Go Digital and Audio Cubes . Both are simple advertising with lots of info. Lets Go Digital is a price comparison, but somewhat disguised with detailed descriptions and specifications. If you really wanted to know what photographers think, go to Photo.net . A fewer number of models, but much more user contribution. On the audio side, a great site that seem to be helpful, but is really a sales driven HeadRoom , comes off as your shopping "advisor" and what about headphones that they don't carry?

Well, as you can see, advertising comes in many ways on the web. You can do your own with a simple blog. I wonder if there is anyone out there that would like to work on an advertising driven site. Any takers?