Lab+5

Lab 5:

What is the difference between advertising methods used in the real world and the virtual world. Please explain.

The advertising industry has expanded greatly over the past decade. Almost every company spends thousands if not million of dollars on advertising their products and services to their target customers every year. Since competition is increasing tremendously, advertising is crucial to a successful business. The advertising methods used in the real world and the virtual world are very different because they have different target audiences, different costs, and different tactics.

Advertising in the real world includes newspapers, magazine, television commercials, and billboards. This type of advertising has been common for a very long time before virtual advertising became popular. These methods are still very effective because people still look at flyers and newspapers that come in the mail, watch television, and notice billboards. Also, this method of advertising can limit who it is targeted towards. Flyers can be distributed to only certain areas, and billboards can be placed in certain areas. However, real world advertising incurs a very high cost. If a company decides to make a commercial, they need to hire actors, hire someone to come up with an idea, and pay the television channel to show their commercial. Similarly, if a company decides to put up a billboard, there are extensive costs related to that as well. Companies spend millions of dollars advertising every year; however, virtual advertising does not cost that much. Moreover, real world advertising is still more trusted then virtual advertising for some companies because people generally do not think it is a scam or fraud, so it is more effective in that way.

Virtual World advertising includes online ads, emails, websites, etc. This type of advertising is becoming increasingly popular as well as people are switching to a very mobile and on-the-go lifestyle and often do now have time to watch television or view flyers and newspapers. However, many times virtual advertising becomes a problem because mass emails are sent to people that do not need them, and it leads to spamming. However, virtual advertising allows companies to track how many people saw the ad, clicked on it, and purchased things from it. Also, there are websites, such as Facebook, that advertises to a specific targeted group of people (with a certain age group, race, gender). This allows companies to target the right audience and have more effective results. However, other advertising companies online advertise to everyone and anyone and it often frustrates people which leads them to not trust websites or not pay attention to them. However, the advantage in virtual advertising is that it has very low costs and usually only have a one-time cost whereas in real world advertising companies must constantly keep paying to have their ads shown.

Real World Advertising and Virtual advertising are both effective in their own ways depending on the type of company it is and the target audience.