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Are “Experimental” Marketers Doomed?

Written on
October 15th 2008
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by Kathleen  |
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virtualworld1.jpgADOTAS – Interactive advertisers in the “experimental” category – Web video, mobile phones, gaming and virtual worlds – will be the hardest hit in the economic downturn, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

While marketers have allocated a slice of their budgets to these categories in recent years – and while many have been touted as the next big money maker – with hard times ahead those slices are shrinking, and in some cases, disappearing altogether.

Chrysler has slashed its experimental budget by about 50%, the company told the Journal.

Experimental marketing, still in its infancy, may be in for a rude awakening in 2009. Last year, out of the $21.1 billion spent on online advertising in general, about $878 million was allocated to mobile, while a much more diminutive $15 million was spent on widgets and apps. With budgets being slashed left and right, that’s a lot less capital to go around in an increasingly crowded field of players.

Virtual worlds may be the hardest hit, probably because they’re the newest and most untested ad vehicle in the experimental world.

“Virtual worlds are probably one of the things that haven’t been proven effective just yet. I can’t see us selling virtual worlds to anybody right now,” Lars Bastholm, an executive creative director at independent digital marketing shop AKQA, told the Journal.



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Reader Comments.

I think this is a bit of a narrow view. While I can certainly agree with the comments on Virtual Worlds, I think the best “experimental” interactive marketing is part of larger campaigns. For example, we’ve launched promotional sites for brands that include so called “experimental” components like widgets, web video and games. These components simply extend and augment the campaign as a whole and work best when they generally aren’t the primary focus. We’ve brought great success to these campaigns because we used these vehicles to enhance the user experience–not stand by themselves.

Posted by Dave Albert | 10:24 pm on October 15, 2008.

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