In the good old summertime, my dad loved to cram the family into our two-door Ford Fairlane for a three-week cross-country trip on which I'd mostly stare out the window, bored with counting windmills or spotting license plates from exotic states like New Jersey.
Suddenly, the monotony would be broken by a line of small, square, red-and-white signs along the roadside. It was Burma Shave, mercifully rescuing me from the tedium of highway travel. As each sign passed, I eagerly awaited the next, assembling a clever message as we rolled along.
While Burma Shave signs live on in legend and memory, no advertising campaign has come close to creating the same sense of fun or anticipation for me, except perhaps the Taster's Choice soap opera. Certainly newspaper ads haven't done it -- even the personals.
About a year ago, a couple of enterprising immigration lawyers from Arizona immersed themselves in hot water on the Internet by cross-posting -- "spamming" -- an ad for their services on thousands of Usenet bulletin boards or news groups.
Spamming is a decidedly uncool breach of cyber etiquette, as unwelcome and intrusive as those telemarketing calls that come during the last 15 minutes of a good TV thriller. It wasn't the first time ads had appeared on the 'Net, but theirs was the probably the first to be so intrusive, having the theoretical potential to reach as many as 20 million users.
While I didn't see their ad, I have collided with a few others in my on-line vehicle, caught in a digital traffic jam where angry users honk their virtual horns at the delay. Frankly, those ads and their messages are anything but compelling -- especially when I wake up every morning to as many as 300 new messages to digest before I ever get to the newspaper.
I still read the kind of morning paper that I can hold in my hands while I drink my coffee. But plenty of folks are starting to page through an electronic newspaper after they finish reading their a.m. e-mail. As these techno-pioneers -- thousands of them, by now -- head down the infobahn, digital publishers are beginning to realize they have a problem:
What electronic ad form will be as well-suited to this new delivery medium as the Burma Shave signs were to the asphalt highway -- as exciting, as fun, as engaging?
No one has discovered the best way to mount Internet advertising, contends David Scott, publisher of AccessAtlanta, the electronic information arm of the Atlanta Journal and Constitution. A successful digital ad campaign will be "intuitively more than the display ad in your face," Scott said, making it "useful, interactive and transactional."
Forerunners in this genre include two Atlanta efforts. Rich's department store put up a special holiday gift section and used it to sell more than 6000 Swatch watches. A local Realtor eagerly linked an on-line campaign to an annual print tabloid section. These campaigns are so successful that others want to come on-line, but Scott said responding to such requests takes a while.
"Every day is better and faster. But we have growing pains," he said. The Journal and Constitution World-Wide Web site offers on-line versions of all classified ads run in Cox's Atlanta newspapers, as well as some found on Prodigy-based AccessAtlanta -- at no charge to the advertisers, who already pay $3000 to $5000 per month for Prodigy exposure.
Up the interstate, inside the notorious D.C. Beltway, Don Brazeal believes four categories of ads eventually will cruise down the information superhighway. Brazeal is editor and publisher of Digital Ink, the soon-to-be-launched, now-in-beta electronic version of the Washington Post that will appear on AT&T Interchange. Brazeal's four categories:
"Commercial communications," ads that are "unlike anything in the print world," Brazeal said. Here, the advertiser has the ability to set up a unique communications area on-line, where clients, members or customers can ask questions and get answers. Electronic newspaper publishers can give advertisers a turnkey communications service -- full-blown integration not only with ad messages but with news and information from a wide range of sources.
This concept is not lost on another East Coast newspaper that has pioneered in on-line services.
"A lot of organizations don't understand that they can get information to their constituents and have both a restricted presence and a public presence," said Charles Powell, Web advertising coordinator/public schools liaison at the News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. "For example, a motor club page might have a public page about their services, but to make a reservation for a vacation, you'd have to punch in a membership number.
"Lots of organizations don't see the value yet, so sales organizations have to be more educational than previously. On the Web, advertisers can now look at national and international audiences rather than just regional.
"The whole world is competing."
Newspapers flitting down the infobahn on-ramp will find that what and how they serve advertisers will affect how quickly they move into the fast lane. Even now, there are several business models on the Internet from which newspapers can choose when they elect to go electronic.
Among their choices are launching World-Wide Web sites/home pages (see The Cole Papers, December 1994); maintaining their own bulletin board service that also provides callers with access to the Internet, or offering content either as stand-alone or as part of a package offered by a commercial access provider, such Prodigy, America Online, Delphi or AT&T Interchange.
Some services allow audio content, some video, some graphics, some text only, thus limiting the kind of ads that can be carried -- or throwing open new doors entirely.
A year into running its NandOland BBS, which offers users free access to the Internet, the News & Observer opted to create its own Web site rather than go with a service. The company was on the verge of annexing all of North Carolina into NandOland by putting telephone lines all over the Tarheel State when someone suggested going onto the 'Net; its Web-footed baby is now six months old.
The Web site has a "shopping center" which is gradually filling up with "stores" as advertisers provide information about shopping and business.
Some of the content is just for fun, such as the Little Caesar's ad which, when you click on the icon, gives you the familiar "Pizza, Pizza" sound logo. Some of it is not for fun, such as the sound sampler that dispatches words of wisdom from North Carolina's high-profile Republican senator, Jesse Helms.
Services such as Prodigy, Interchange and America Online offer a newspaper a different model for distributing both news and ads, as well as for handling the myriad complexities surrounding subscriptions and billing. Those are "big pieces of work" that the newspaper doesn't have to recreate, noted Jude Angius of the Los Angeles Times' TimesLink.
TimesLink, which provides the daily content of the Times and a cornucopia of other information, went live Oct. 26 on Prodigy. TimesLink subscribers can get to it through Prodigy, or, because Prodigy allows newspapers to have a stand-alone service, users can subscribe directly and never have to encounter Prodigy after their first on-line visit.
The stand-alone option lowers costs for on-line subscribers who aren't interested in Prodigy's other options. Either way, they have direct Internet access.
For now, TimesLink is running only liner ads in eight out of its 10 categories, all of which are fully searchable. The Times is looking at different possibilities for presenting real estate and business/financial ads that will advantageously combine both the characteristics of those ad categories and the nature of the medium.
"You can add value, especially with classified, and create more of a service out of these content areas," said Angius, director of multimedia publishing. "That seems to be an area we'd like to research and prototype a bit more, to focus on complete value-added functionality."
Although Prodigy was helpful with administrative issues and in having already explored many issues around creating a good user interface and interactive advertising, there were some technical difficulties. Most center on the time necessary to match the Times' technology to Prodigy's aging proprietary setup -- time spent learning to use tool sets that had evolved for Prodigy.
"I think people are really surprised by the technology and how much has to be understood," Angius said. "At the time we started working together, we weren't talking the same language. We thought we were."
The Times is also trying to work out ways of gathering demographic data. "Reporting is a big issue," she said. "We've had to spend a lot of time evolving what we can collect and receive from Prodigy regarding use of the service."
Prodigy, though still proprietary, recently introduced a Web browser that will extend the potential reach of the Times and allow it to produce a home page complementary to its other products. Deirdre Eagles, acting manager and sales and marketing manager for the service, said she and her crew are looking closely at ways they can offer ads not only on Prodigy, but directly on the 'Net and in places such as a home page. She expects that the new Web browser will make that a lot easier.
TimesLink has a display advertising rate structure based on three criteria: the number of screens in the package, the level of interactivity, and the length of time that the ads are displayed on the service. Eagles said advertisers are surprised at the low cost of on-line advertising, but need some help adjusting to the difference in objectives between interactive and print marketing campaigns, between a broad-reach medium and on-line.
On-line, advertisers will be able to "put out information to subscribers and solicit feedback on new products, level of service. They'll be able to get e-mail responses directly from the consumers," she said. "That's something that you can't achieve with any other medium -- some accountability as to how things are working."
Among the most creative and effective ad campaigns she's seen so far is Paramount Pictures' package promoting the opening of Star Trek: Generations.
"They were involved in all different aspects of interactivity -- from a trivia quiz and contest to on-line shopping to pictures of the cast and their bios, and production notes on the movie," Eagles said. "They took all these different elements and pulled them together to focus on a specific category: sci-fi addicts."
Eagles was not alone in liking it. "Subscribers also give it a lot of positive feedback," she said.
As we cross the virtual state line, we move from Prodigy into America Online territory and San Jose's Mercury Center, where Ad Director Jean Edwards has her own commendation for creative advertising.
A San Jose jeweler created a virtual store, dubbed House of Charms, replete with stories and reminiscences about his grandmother's charm bracelet (a way of keeping memories and creating a history of oneself to share with others).
The jeweler linked a mystery game to his ad campaigns which will change every two weeks, as his merchandise changes. Edwards suggests that this is not only a "more personal way of doing retailing," but "a reason for people to come back and visit the location."
Mercury Center, the electronic realm of the San Jose Mercury News, is an early pioneer in these efforts.
"We're very pleased with our presence on America Online," Edwards said, "and we've learned a lot from that. We've been able to build on our infrastructure and integrate other products.
"Many publications have start up companies and are not leveraging on what they already have. That's a mistake."
Recently, Mercury Center has gone beyond the boundaries of America Online to establish a direct Internet presence on the World-Wide Web. Mercury Center signed a contract with Netscape Communications Corp. of Mountain View, Calif., to provide the Web server software that makes the Web site possible. The Web site emulates everything from America Online, including its "chat rooms," onto the 'Net.
Edwards figures that the Internet will appeal to daytime users who access the service from work, while the AOL service will be used mostly at night from home.
Most of the on-line advertising at Mercury Center is generated by agencies. A free-lancer designed the House of Charm location after Mercury Center showed him what the Web was about, and went through a few brainstorming sessions to give him the basics on how to use the medium.
"It's the most fun I've had in a long time in retailing," said Edwards. "It's unlimited territory. Imagination is the only limit."
Web advertising changes the way you think about even on-line advertising because the information can reside anywhere, "from the advertiser's computer to somewhere in Finland," said Edwards. "We're just creating traffic to those Web sites."
Anyone, she pointed out, can put up a home page or a Web page. "It's a whole different premise," she continued. "You don't need us in order to publish on the Web. But what you do need us for is to build an audience. People have to know where to go, how to get to your domain. So you have to have links.
"We're in a high traffic location because we update our stories all day long and because we intend to be one of the highest traffic locations on the Web," she said. Consequently, the pointers to the advertisers' Web pages are going to come up more often, and give readers more occasion to access the ads.
Similar to the TimesLink rate structure, advertisers here are charged daily pointer rates. A pointer, at least at Mercury Center, is an image of an ad logo appearing at the bottom of a page that is hyperlinked to the advertiser's site and material.
Most on-line ad-venturers encourage newspapers to be careful to choose clients who want to learn how to use the medium.
"Create a group of experienced users who know what people like, what is accessed, how it is used," Edwards said. "Work with that knowledge to develop interesting applications from both an entertainment and a content view, something that's both useful and fun. You have to build a rapport with the consumer even if you don't know their identities."
"We're still in R&D -- 1995 is the year to learn what works and what doesn't, how to build the application, how to get the audience to come back to it."
In short, now is the time to determine how to condition digital motorists to keep their eyes peeled for the successors to Burma Shave along the infobahn.
-- L. Carol Christopher
Jude Angius,
Los Angeles Times,
(800) 528-4637, ext. 74453;
Don Brazeal,
Digital Ink Co.,
(202) 334-7330;
Deirdre Eagles,
Los Angeles Times,
e-mail: pwev04a@prodigy.com;
Jean Edwards,
Mercury Center,
(408) 234-1986,
Charles Powell
Raleigh News & Observer,
(404) 526-5897;
David Scott
Access Atlanta,
(404) 526-5897.
Left: At the top, TimesLink provides advertising as well as maps to stores; below, AccessAtlanta provides classifieds and display.
Left: Mercury Center's Web page lists all its advertisers.
Left: Nando Times has advertising mixed in with editorial content.