Today, the shift from applications to advertising venues is underway, and with large organizations like Absolut Vodka, GM and Ford expected to be moving 20% of their marketing budget to online investments later this year, the momentum will likely only get bigger. After all, that's where the money is.

AdAge, amongst others, reported a few weeks ago that Apple was planning on incorporating billboard ads into their iTunes service interface. The majority of the buzz was surrounding the idea that ESPN would be the first client and a development partner. The game plan - ads would be shown in the bottom-left corner of the iTunes interface when a user listened to a podcast, a place that, if you are familiar with the interface, also displays Album covers from your music library. It was also discussed that maybe these ads could be displayed on an iPod screen; of course, only static ads would work unless iPods integrated some form of WiFi (not a stretch, but not yet available either).

This type of innovation raises a couple of conflicting thoughts for me.

One - this is, in part, already being performed by podcast creators. Setting the preferences of advanced podcast generating software (Podomatic for instance) allows broadcasters to already create and link an ad to their Podcast (sort of a what's playing now sign in the valued bottom-left corner). If the broadcaster doesn't add an image, nothing appears. It isn't really an ad so much as a visual reminder of who the broadcaster is, but in a world gone mad with the idea of branding, I can't understand why anybody wouldn't ad an image. It's free, it's easy, and that can't be said for too many things in life.

This isn't the only way that podcasters/broadcasters are advertising, they're also building ads right into the audio (try to remember that most of these guys are old radio jockeys transitioning to a newer medium), but this doesn't give you the visual impact of the company brand.

My second thought is more of a worry, maybe a rant; I wonder how far will we take this? I mean the advertising industry is even going so far as to incorporate product placement into other advertisements! Companies actively bid against each other for the opportunity to be the car driven in a Michelin commercial, or the clothier and footwear of whichever athlete de jour is hawking the soda de jour.

Maybe I shouldn't be so flippant, after all, my mortgage payments come from advertising revenue; but I'm also a consumer, and more than that, I'm also a 'user.'

Building advertising into applications is something that has been the subject of shadowy conversations, sort of tip-toed around and coyly suggested, but never really said aloud. Most recently, Microsoft has been testing the waters with their rumored online versions of Office (Which more than likely is a direct reaction to Google's announcement from late last year that it was forming an alliance with Sun Microsystems, reportedly to distribute their StarOffice desktop productivity software.). There were some suggestions that Microsoft would offer their Online Office Suite for free and allow MSN ads to creep into the familiar interface.

Imagine writing a sensitive document, preparing the press release for the biggest merger in the history of the industry, with information that, if released prematurely, could send you the way of Martha Stewart without an Empire to fall back on. Now imagine across the top and down the side of your online desktop seeing ads pertaining to exactly what you are writing, contextually matching topics like competitors and stock market advertisements. Does that make you nervous too?

There's an old advertiser's joke: If you could pause life for a commercial break, you could make some real money there.

As much as there are privacy laws regarding information, I'm still suspicious of anything that can read what my document is about, and serve up appropriate (are they?) ads for me. Granted, I'm never drafting press releases that will shake the foundation of the Global Economy, but it's still something to think about.

Advertising venues are where the new tech fortunes are made and will be made. But is a marriage of applications and advertising going to be a loving and fruitful relationship, or should it be doomed to appear on an upcoming episode of Dr. Phil? How much are we, as consumers and inevitably the rule-makers, willing to give up so that we can have the newest and trendiest applications for free? Where is the comfort threshold for our battery of branding?

We know that anyone who uses their Google account on a regular basis is being tracked through their Analytics, Gmail, Google Calendar, and any other Google tool you need to be signed-in to use. We know that Google is able to cross-tabulate demographic (analytics), historical (Google account history tracking), psychographic (Google Calendar) and much more data from any number of these applications. We know all these things, and we don't seem to mind. Why, because in a lot of ways, these applications are useful, and they simplify everyday life in the little ways that us online junkies crave; and maybe we don't mind being the sum of our demographic parts.

However, I'm not that willing to accept that every application can also be a venue for advertising, contextual or not. And I'm not sure how effective these ads would even be, at a certain point everybody develops advertising blindness; and at a certain point, even the best of brands are sometimes pumped so much that they actually become the fodder of ridicule - think of 'Zima.'

I guess we will all find where the natural saturation level will be, either we will reject the application or we will reject the brand. But whether people are openly talking about it or not, the open marriage of applications and advertisements is on the horizon; and I think we would all be better off if we started talking about it, arguing about, and making sure that when it does come to a full fruition, it is in a look and feel that we can all live with.

Cory Bates
Search Marketing Consultant
Enquiro Full Service Search Engine Marketing

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