I’ve been seeing more and more Eddie Bauer ads on random websites as well as the increasing frequency of holiday oriented TV ads. That got me thinking… “I wonder what the impact online advertisements have for retailers, both brick and mortar as well as catalog and online only retailers?”
For online retailers, online advertising will obviously have a huge impact on their holiday sales. For brick and mortars, I’m not sure the connection between online advertising and retail sales is so clear. My guess is that people surfing the web are more likely to buy presents online than be inspired to head out to a store. Likewise, my guess is that TV will plant some ideas in people’s minds who will be going out to the stores anyway. But I don’t know, online ads might be able to do the same. What I do know is that when you see and ad on TV, you can’t click on it and make a purchase right away like you can online. That’s a significant difference. It might happen in the future with the convergence of IPTV, but not this season.
For more thoughts about TV, check out our sister site Toobinator, and for IPTV, Telecom Rebirth.
