Please consider this piece of evidence.



P&G wished to evaluate and advertising technique and asked that Dr. N.Roberto,Coca-Cola Foundation Professor of International Marketing, to evulate over $10 million of independent research examining the effectiveness of this technique which claims to make existing advertising more effective and accountable.

His conclusion:

"The interactive programme and the participating products generated recall scores that are more than 50.

hese results are just the tip of the iceberg in demonstrating that terrestrial TV aligned with interactive events can produce staggering increases in all key measurements, including sales.

The first rule of your advertising, obviously, is to get noticed but that is easier said than done. In the advertising are na everyone is trying to get noticed and as is clearly accepted these days, this results in substantial levels of clutter.

How ever, link terrestrial TV to interactive "events" in print and you will discover, that your job of creating additional sales becomes much, much, easier. And isn't that what you want, an easier job with less hassle?

The one problem facing interactive advertising is the fact that it has become a cliche in recent years, without any clear or consistent definition of what the word means or how it is supposed to work.

Properly executed it has none of the theorising that lies behind the arguments about various forms of so-called interactive communication using direct marketing and electronic media (most of which involves at best the minimum of true interactivity).

It is both practical and down-to-earth and uses readily comprehensible and verified mechanism to expand the relevance and salience of advertising and other forms of marketing communications. You can apply it to all of the major media and to various other forms of communication, including "new media". There is no theoreatical reason why it should not also be applied to packaging designs or product literature.

So why the need for interactive "Events"?

There is a clear understanding nowadays that your customers want to be taken account of; to affect change;to learn about your products that they buy and to personalize their relationships with you and your messages. There are a phenomenal number of reasons that cause people to interact, which go far beyond just giving them things.

To feel part of the process of developing products and services that they want and are willing to buy has much more value and allowing your customers to do so, builds their trust.

When people participate in your interactive advertising they are told that their efforts and feedback are of positive help to you and, therefore, to them. Moreover, by participating they then learn and understand the message from you and personalize their relationship with you and your products or services by becoming involved. And it can be said that involvement is the parent of trust.

Consumers tend to filter out information they do not want to hear and this alters the effectiveness of your advertising in quite a dramatic way. The purchaser's decision is invariably a ompromise and this leads to a certain amount of anxiety.

They worry that perhaps the purchase decision was not the best or right one. In order to minimise this anxiety the purchaser seeks to reinforce his choice and begins to take more notice of his chosen products' advertising. And, at the same time, the purchaser deliberately suppresses data which might challenge his decision, by ignoring the advertising of your brands.

People are often loyal to a brand simply because they do not want to readdress a decision. The opportunity to screen out undesired data always exists when media advertisements have to stand on their own and fight for attention.

Interactive Communication takes the consumer through the barrier of not wanting to address change, and this is certainly the market you will want to influence and capture - the people who use your competitors products.

Now the consumer can say, "Yes, I will change my behaviour and I have a very good reason or series of reasons why", and have a well-informed opinion or image in mind. If someone enters into a product purchase decision with a very specific image of the product and its reason to exist and why they have decided those reasons are worth its purchase, the test is, in reality, the use of the product. If the product delivers, this will confirm that premise and, therefore, conversion will be enormously enhanced.

Interactive Marketing Communication turns your passive one way advertising into active advertising and actually alters behaviour during the communication and learning process.