How do consumers across the globe perceive online advertising, especially for branding?
The consumer worldwide sees the Internet as a very involving medium, ranking next to only TV and cinema. We recently conducted a study on consumer perceptions about online advertising in 12 countries in Europe and Latin America. It showed that while the consumers found spam/junk/unsolicited mail very annoying and cleaned it out without even reading it, they considered it a very good source to go to for information and reference. However, research show that the Net is not a very good branding vehicle – it can be used for brand switching and brand maintenance exercises where information and customer relationship is very important, but not for launching a new brand, for which reach is critical. However, that will change with the broadband availability and increase in the penetration of digital TV. Why is online advertising worldwide yet to succeed in getting the consumer’s mindshare? How can that be changed? Low Internet penetration is one of the reasons, as is not enough bandwidth. If ba
