Online Advertising Needs to Be Interactive

I don't use the "interactive" term often anymore. It seems so 1997. Yet consumers strongly prefer their marketing message on demand online.

New research shows viewers don't like pop-up ads, ads that expand when moused over or not. From Adweek.com.

Advertisers are realizing this because the growth budget areas are in search engine marketing and social media. From emarketer.com. The consumer is interacting with the search engine or choosing to join a company's social network.

The concern now for print media is keeping revenues while their readers consume their product online. Consumers still want news and information, they just don't want banner ads covering the content. If only the sites could ask the reader what they were interested in and then send behavior/interest related ad content with it. The Google content network attempts this, but there needs to be a better way for the newspaper sites.

It will need to happen for the industry to survive and thrive.