Seventy-seven percent of advertisers with 500 or more employees said their primary purposed in using pay-per-click ads was to increase or enhance brand awareness.Print's supposed strength over online is branding. Ya know, the high-fidelity of the print experience, the glossy spreads, the ability to make a powerful impression. Online is a low-fidelity medium. Oh, there are those who say banners are good for branding, but there are many more who are skeptical of that claim. I think all would agree most users today don't even see banner ads. Our brains have long since tuned them out. And Google search ads are even lower fidelity. 15 words of copy and a link. That's branding?
I can understand using online for lead generation, which was cited as a secondary objective in the survey above. No one disputes that online is much better than print at that. And I also agree that a thoughtful white paper can position a brand as a leader, which is a crucial form of branding.
But at a time when marketing dollars are leaving print for online (and a huge chunk earmarked for search marketing), you can't tell me those dollars are also doing the heavy lifting of branding. I can't buy that. But apparently advertisers (at least the ones cited in the survey) do.
