After a decade of dealing with online marketing, I keep noticing clear differences between online and offline advertisements. In most cases, offline advertisements feature a variety of creative ideas, subliminal messages and twisted concepts, while online advertisements are generally more aggressive and straightforward.

One of the unfortunate but most common attributes of online marketing is spam. No matter how hard we try to avoid it, we keep getting it. The nature of the Internet allows spam to penetrate virtually anything: e-mail, blogs, forums, guest-books and social networks. Any spam campaign is pretty much an automated process that doesn’t require many resources – this is why it is still so popular. However unless you want to sell porn or promote short-term projects (in which case you wouldn’t care that much about your reputation), spam makes very little sense. The point is that it isn’t just spam that lacks marketing efficiency and is a nuisance to the recipient; direct and aggressive advertisements share these traits as well.

The mind of an average contemporary consumer automatically blocks terms such as “The Best”, “The Most Popular”, “Top Pick”, “Highest Rated”, “Life-Time Opportunity”, “One Click Away”, etc. The last one is actually the one I personally hate the most. If you are thinking strategically, you have to find the way to overcome this powerful shield and hit consumer with the idea that your product is the best within its market niche, without directly saying this. This is where creative thinking comes in handy and I would like to discuss with you several of my preferred techniques that can achieve this.

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Let’s say you see a banner ad for a Pay-Per-Click system that claims to have the highest bids and the best revenue share. In the banner you see a guy working with his notebook and you notice it’s an Apple. You will get the following subliminal message, completely unprocessed by the conscious mind:

“This is not an ad for an Apple computer. This is an ad for a PPC program. They are trying to make their company look good, and they are using the Apple brand to do that. If other professionals use this brand as an icon in their ad, it means that Apple computers are indeed very good.”

Sounds complicated, but it’s not. This is the way our mind works. As experienced consumers, we tend to question every piece of information we get and we are especially skeptical about messages made with a commercial purpose.

Here is another technique specifically based upon this habit of ours.

Independent Opinion

Let’s say you are searching for a hosting provider. You check out different services and every single provider tells you the same: they are the best. At this point we start looking for the independent opinion. One of the most common actions is reading consumer reviews and product comparison charts. Let’s say you found one and you’ve read that company A is rated #1, company B is rated #2 and company C is rated #3. But can you be sure this chart is not sponsored by company A? You never know. Perhaps they are just using one of my favorite techniques. It may not sound very honest, but it is a commonly used practice. This review may not even be sponsored by company A. It might by created by it.

Abstract Advertisement

Let’s say you see an ad in the form of a short story or image or animation that evokes an engaging, if atypical reaction from you. You’re intrigued, and notice a company’s logo or a brand name at the end of the ad. At first sight, you reflect on the lack of connection between the cryptic message and the company’s brand. You ask yourself: “What does this ad have to do with this company? Are they just wasting money, or there is a certain message we do not understand?”.

Anyway this apparent logical discrepancy will leave a clear “mental splinter” in a consumer’s subconsciousness. This means the company’s goal has been achieved. We are intrigued and we will keep thinking about this brand, while our mental shield remains unaffected.

Respect and Flattery

Admit it: human nature is such that we all are sensitive to compliments. Be it looks, intellect, success, or any other achievement, we appreciate when other people notice it and remark on it. At the same time, we all want to be richer, smarter and more attractive. Contemporary lifestyle has made most of us very ambitious. We want to be part of elite. When you hear a phrase: “This is a good product”, the first thing your mental shield will tell you is: “They are trying to sell me something. I will check it out, but I should be careful and skeptical”. When you hear a phrase: “This is a product for people of your level” your mental shield is almost unaffected. At the same time, you are flattered – you believe the advertisers are aware of your status and have treated you with the proper respect. On the other hand, you may feel irritated because of a perceived barrier – you believe that the advertised product cannot be purchased by just anybody but only by a limited, elite group of people. Because we are ambitious and because there is always a gap between our achievements and our ambitions, we use any opportunity to overcome this gap. Buying a product that was advertised the way I described, is the best tool to help us do this. We get to overcome our gaps and advertisers get to sell their products.

Offline Advertisement of Online Resources

Although online and offline worlds interact in many instances, it is common for consumers to build a mental barrier between these two realms. I find it really exciting to see actual billboards and paper magazine ads featuring online resources. We are used to the fact that “objects from real life” sometimes appear on our computer monitors, but it is exciting to see the reverse process: things that belong to the cyber world come outside of the screen. It creates an interesting “3D effect” and captures the attention of a consumer who is not used to such transition. No matter what online services you promote, once the consumer’s attention is captured, you have got what you needed.

Back to Basics

Did you ever notice how black and white ad banners stand out against the colorful layout of most contemporary web sites? At the same time animated banners are so popular that our eyes tend to ignore them. It might not sound logical, but because movement irritates us we primarily perceive information conveyed by bold and static images. It works just like retro style. New is well forgotten old.

So as you see, there are a variety of techniques which can help you overcome the psychological-barrier-build-up in the mind of contemporary consumer due to overuse of aggressive and straightforward advertisements. I mentioned just a few of them. Next time you see an appealing online banner, try to look at from the perspective of a professional rather than a consumer. Analyze it. Try to figure out what is so attractive about it. Perhaps you will discover another efficient technique that will help you in your future online marketing campaigns.