Striving to persuade others to impact on their behavior and the way of thinking is shown one of the essential needs of human being to his social living improvement .The ways of encouraging and convincing the audience, as it comes later, has had a great influence on human beings’ minds throughout the history.
The tablets found by the archeologists among the ruins of Babel, tell us about the primitive advertisements. This tablets which is belong to 3,000 B.C are about a kind of ointment and also a compliment about a person who has been skillful in sewing shoes.( MirHosseini 2004) But regulated persuasive refers to some centuries before Christian Era, when it was common among the people called sophisticated. The World War 2 ended to more comprehensive and scientific studies. Along with vast spreading of the mass media, such as newspapers, radio and television, advertising became more significant. We cannot deny advertisements` effects on our decisions and on our every day lives.
From the advertisements point of view, it is a new version to exhibit a good or service, with emphasis on specialized debate which is presented by beneficiary individuals or groups. The aim of writing this article is to answer this essential question; how advertising without its economical essence would be represented in cyber space. It is possible to put vivid distinction between the persuasive ways in internet with other media, and if the answer is yes which benefits is provided for cyber users in this distinction, owing to the fact that we live in an interactive world in which the relation between the advertisers and the customers has completely changed. I’m trying to analyze these changes with emphasis on active audience of this universal media and with stress on the role of advertisements in this space; I want to set these effective parts to find a clear view of future.
Essence of advertisement
In the terms of Tankard and Severin there is an obvious distinction between persuasion and advertisement. They refer to Roger Brown who gives a definition about nature of advertisement. Advertisements are those kinds of persuasive attempt which are made only for sender interests; and even may run to loss of the receiver. (Tankard and Severin ,1992, p299) Lasswell in 1937 defined advertisement as an affective technique in human acts, which works with manipulating audible, discoursing and drawing signs. (Tankard and Severin ,1992, p148).
Opposing to some theorists who believe advertisement contains any kind of commercial content and matter which companies utilize it for giving more information to consumer. What we focus on it is the scientific way of persuasion each commercial aim is one of its aspects. We can say, consequently, that advertising is a regular process to produce reasonable information about specific subject which is used to make an intensive effect on audiences minds’ and acts’.
Traditional methods of advertisements had been constructed on the basis of imagery. The effectiveness of advertising was limited by this very need to reach and influence the widest possible audience. The manipulation of images was necessary because advertisements should have attractiveness for the passive accumulated viewers. As much as the advertisements became more global, it was more needed (of new methods of audience attraction) to utilize modern of new methods. But the methods of satisfying and exciting viewers which had been forecasting single and lawful results in the mass audience up to this time, abolished by entrance of virtual space .For internet was an interaction and informative base media; so users traverse an active stage, to find their desired websites. Because they want to reach definite information about a company, a service or a product. Any irrelevant images or tampered information would dissuade them from continuing their way.
Apart from professional design of a website, its agents should be interacting with their costumers. They should know the costumers’ needs and should answer them in a good manner and the most important thing is assembling the information which the costumers are in search of them. In view of the fact that they would lose their audience easily with decreasing or increasing the information .A propaganda would be effective when it could use all the facilities of cyber space to be able to assemble attractiveness, giving awareness, interaction experience. Levinson considers a website as an island which the advertisement is a bridge to reach it. He believes the aim of convincing people to buy or use the products cannot persist no longer; in case that in internet we are leading the viewer to watch the advertisement an our website.(Levinson 2004)
Osgoodby believes that advertisement in cyber space is like a party , until you didn’t invite others into it, nobody would come to see you. More over information you are demanded by your guests, would mean that they are more fond of your party .He also believes that advertisement methods in internet are the most attractive methods from the audience point of view.(Osgoodby, 2005) We should consider how and in which language the message is being packaged .In the other words , “we should be careful in using words because using incalculable of language can reveal advertisement in a treachery way”. (Mehdizade, 2001, pp 65-66)
Traditional advertisements have been inclined their affair to the creation of reading sense in the vast spectrum of the audience like the television extensive advertisement. But in virtual space you can base your activities on analysis of individual needs and definite needs of its viewers for reaching the product. As it was said before, in virtual space, the user is not a mass audience in front of a charming media that some global reliable websites would prohibit from more professional advertisement methods and have vast spectrum of global audience ,but if we believe in an audience as an analyst and critic individuals we should accept that he would use other opportunities which have then not always but sometimes he won’t be captured easily by direct advertisements. Of course, we should bear in mind that audience would enter to this space sometimes for fun. This audience would face to the advertisement messages with less critic view and his searching in virtual space is more for fun and satisfying his inquisitiveness. He would guide easily from one page to another page and he has no aim for this circulation. As a result he would be objected of these messages and he would be impressed by them. In a research which I have done to study the advertisements and the utilized technique in these advertisements, I have reached to an obvious image of such advertisements. The advertisement websites, which I have named them popular, had been used the least methods of scientific documentary evidence or intellectual well reasoned to code their convincing messages. In my opinion if we factorize from special form of such websites which would recognize from these contents, we would see that summarizing and more benefiting from images are inseparable from advertisements. The reason of this subject is in the hyperlink feature of virtual space. Whatever the message sender needs is to attract the attention of receiver. The audience should push the bottom of mouse on this message among other different subjects and then the message communicator would have enough time to give information to the audience and identify the existence of viewer who are considered as a message receiver.
Other points are hidden in accessibility of information. The audience can catch more information in less time about advertisement. This information could obtain from even conflicting resources. The most important distinction of advertisement in traditional media and cyber space could be defined as follows: in virtual space, the audience would always change his role from audience to producer and from producer to consumer. The possibility of using cyber space would be possible for all people. In such space, the user can show off her/his idea or product with using of convincing skills and depend on the way of presenting it could reach to success .In other word cyber space is on the contrary of the traditional media. There is no selling of idea or product; but they would sell viewing the site or advertisement. Now if we are capable to convince our superiority to the users, we would reach to success. The forms of traditional advertisement have many limitations in case of commercials form .Size and vast distributing; in a case that virtual space would assemble the possibility of showing any advertisement in various cyber pages and in a cheap expense. In other words, there is no real limit in volume and kind of advertisement presentation.( Jim Calloway and Don Murdock 1998)
How we can get more benefit from this space?
Today the world can not be imagined without advertisement .The audience and people would learn from advertisement what they should eat, how they can dress, which book they should read and how they can think about a special subject. In the age that is full of advertisement messages, there should be more attention to this science. Today the virtual space and the media channel would be discussed in our real lives as the main media in 21 century. By emphasizing vast and complex communications which are possible in this space we would understand that we have unique chance to effect on the unlimited spectrum of viewers, the chance which was not possible in dry previous media. from this point the importance of using advertisement messages would be declared .Our current era has been named the communication and advertisement age .Pratkanis believes that the messages construct our world .We are in thought of other satisfying in our social lives . There are many bulletin boards, subway and bus advertisements in streets.( Pratkenis , 1999).But whatever we are facing to as an advertisement in global media of the internet, has differences with such messages.
Effective and Successful cyber marketing means taking full advantages of the medium to offer all kind of customers an interesting, informative, interactive experience, a give and take of needs, wants, and information. Virtual space is not transient and temporary phenomenon. It is at the beginning way of its evolution. Today, the goal of much advertising is not to make the sale but to direct people to websites. It means we have to be really cautious about what we are presenting. Internet advertisement would not neither be a passing affair a phenomenon forked of the internet influences .Although today the internet advertisement is facing to problems and obstacles and we have no attention to using such an opportunity; but we should believe that in cultures, civilizations, belief, ancestors and all nations pillars which are forming identity are in confrontation with each other, prosperity is with a group which could use better form of convicting skills and methods.