Online, I may see an ad that says “Shop Kroger” and if I click it, it may lead me back to their weekly savings, but that takes effort on my part; While, when I see the full-page, color ad for Kroger in the Saturday paper, I see what’s actually on sale without doing anything. The same can be said with all of the other examples that I cited.

In my opinion, the two mediums are different because of what the consumer has come to expect. We don’t expect or particularly want a big screen for every ad and if we were to run across a site with car dealer ads, we only want one ot two banners and not a large ad from every dealership in town.

In my opinion, comparing online to print is like comparing apples to oranges. I’m sure most people ignore the little print ads which are the equivalent of banners, but they are served by those which are closer to a catalog or product list in the paper. And, not because they were necessarily trained, but because they’re two different animals.

i talk a lot about trust and security in online commerce. we offer at the very least a perception of security, but we are still working on building trust both in our audiences and in our client advertisers. and trust just isn’t granted overnight for most people. we can’t move up the pyramid to the higher levels until we establish that sense of security.

the blessings of online advertising, hypermeasurement and hypertargeting as well as the ultrathin barrier to conversion, are a double-edged sword that we are still learning how to wield without hurting the ourselves or the ones we love.

when you see a display ad in a static/broadcast medium, the message is delivered and the transaction is done. the conversion onus then lies on the receiver to buy/do something either buy going to the store, picking up a phone, going online, etc. — a thick wall. we’re comfortable with these propositions because they have evolved with us and we are conditioned to accept them or filter them the same way we will either come to a complete stop at the sign, or kind of roll through it because we know the corner so well.

while we have had electronic distribution and reach over television and the internet for a long time, the web is anchored (pun intended) in hypertext referencing — even before graphical browsers started us down the multimedia road, the core of the web is simply hyperlinking.

whether the content is text, graphic, or video, the problem has always been the value proposition in going blindly down the rabbit hole when you click something. you have to be able to trust that when you click, you will be safe and secure and you will get something valuable back. at the core, it seems to always be a time issue - what used to be time to download is now time spent weeding through oceans of irrelevant content to find something meaningful.

going hyperlocal is only one part or one way to deal with this. local or national, building an online reputation where people trust you is the heart of it, and that is just not sexy. impatient investors want immediate results and buy on speculation, but the time it takes to build credibility can’t be ramped up. it calls for good content, clear and thoughtful presentation, and the right mix of advertising — we damaged our cred by going with quick fix remnant banner inventory for click here to get smiley icons or x10 peeper cams that actually coached people not to look at advertising or just plain not trust it.

so will the advertisers come to your hyperlocal content — if you want the right kind of advertisers, only if they trust you. they trust their print or broadcast ad, they can see it, hold it and understand it because they assume the feeling they get when they look at it is transferred to other viewers. it is an issue of perceptual and mental accounting.

i think we see the biggest disconnect when the people buying advertising aren’t a part of the demographic they are trying to reach.

I know that Hobby Lobby runs their ad on Sunday and where it’s at in the paper and though I could click from website to website and when I’ve been in the market, I’ve followed it online; But, there really isn’t anything easier for when you’re shopping for a car, then flipping open to a single section of the paper and comparing the deals.

Oh, and I have to also say that in addition to the furniture ads, I usually see the department store ads, but that’s the wife’s domain and I usually just glance at the pretty girls.

i can’t believe the wonderful traffic this little thing is generating.

how they’ll monetize those eyeballs is still to be decided, but i’m f’in impressed.

i agree with cory… someone in a much larger local media company would be wise to hook-up with this effort and ‘own’ this niche… do like Terry Heaton says and provide a local ad network (something out of these kids’ league) and leverage this talent that seems to me to never tire.

That’s why it’s so critical to own local niches.