The New Frontier: Advertising And The E-Book Reader

August 22nd, 2010 Posted by joshuasinason in Friends, Marketing

Just as sure as the stale popcorn and overpriced candy, you know every time you go to the movies there are going to be tons and tons of trailers and of course there will be someone who complains about them. Of course it wasn’t long before video on the web started sporting commercials attached. Even Youtube, a site the once promoted itself as being an easy access to online content, has started airing one and sometimes two commercials for certain videos. It seems like anywhere you want to look at something in a new way somebody comes along and finds a way to pack it with advertising. It’s not a bad idea really. If someone is interested enough to click on something to look at it that essentially gives you a captive audience regardless of whether they are at the theater, on their computer or looking at their I-Pad. So it’s no surprise that advertising has come to one of the newest forms of media, the E-Book reader.

One of the pitfalls of advertising on E-Book readers is that it’s still a very new medium. Putting advertising on them would be like putting trailers and Coco-Cola commercials on a movie in 1910 (The first commercial trailer shown during a movie was in 1914 and it was made by Charlie Chaplin himself. It would be another 20 years before they started showing commercials for products during movies. This means E-Book reader advertising should be common by the year 2035) It was an unproven medium back then and they only really got advertising when it became a little more stable. The internet never had that problem and they had advertisers from the word go, some say to their detriment. If E-Book Reader developers can’t come up with an industry standard for advertising quickly they may find themselves in the position the internet was in the late 90s with massive IPO busts.

Another reason advertising on E-Book Readers might be a bad idea right now is that whom exactly it’s geared toward isn’t exactly clear. It seems with each new iteration the core audience they shoot for is getting younger and younger. They even have displays in Barnes and Noble and Borders where you can get your pink E-Book Reader covers bedazzled. But I really don’t think kids are going to spend hundreds of dollars on a device just to help them read more books, on the other end sometimes the older audience is turned off by having to read off a computer screen. They’re going to have to go through some evolution before they develop a core audience.

Of course there are reasons why it might not be a bad idea. For one thing it’s definitely not a crowded medium so it’s cheap and you don’t have to worry about being forgotten in a pile of other ads. And, while you can’t be sure what age group you are dealing with, you can be reasonably sure you’re dealing with someone with a good amount of disposable income. This could make E-Book Readers a good place to advertise hotels or a vacation destination. Even an airline with a cross promotion saying you get a new book with your flight might be a good idea.

As I’ve said in a previous article on this site, Amazon’s success can be directly attributed to foreseeing the rise of Google and search engine optimization. They put money into Google and were already one of there top sites when it skyrocketed. If you get your advertising embedded in just the right way with this stuff and it does blow up even more you could be in a great position without having to pour tones of money and time in it.

The bottom line is if you don’t mind the fact that you’re sinking your advertising dollars into a medium that could very well change on a dime you can have a lot of success. If you want to reach high end customers and don’t mind being somewhat blind as far as demographics goes you might want to look into this. But there are still lots of unanswered questions and there is precedent against going into a new medium before it has a chance to mature.

bnet.com/blog/technology-business/look-out-amazon-and-apple-barnes-noble-has-7-steps-to-e-rule

online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704554104575435243350910792

helium.com/items/1902128-tips-for-promoting-your-website-for-free