Businesses think that all digital advertising belongs in the same bucket as TV or posters, so they pay for it out of their marketing budget, monitor its return on investment and increase it at the expense of other channels. This makes sense for some types of online ads, but others aren’t like traditional advertising. Their job is not to drum up demand. Instead, as a recent article in The Economist pointed out, they are “the new rent”. Now that e-commerce is so prevalent, fewer businesses need to maintain a physical presence with a high street shop, but they do need to maintain a virtual presence and that’s why they purchase these ads. Their purpose is to help people who are already on their way to a business to arrive safely. They replace the sign above the shop front, the lights that stay on inside, the shelf-space, and even the entry in the yellow pages.
