Lab+5


 * What is the difference between advertising methods used in the real world and the virtual world. Please explain. **

The main difference between real world advertising and virtual world advertising is their physical presence and customers. Real world advertising methods include but are not limited to: newspaper/magazine ads, billboards, TV, movies and commercials. Advertising in the real world involves a lot of money. This is because these ads require man power (the presence of humans and extensive labour in some cases). Cost is also incurred because the ads have to be printed on paper and/or captured with expensive equipments. These high costs = High risk, which is not good for any business. Because the target market is carefully selected, real world advertising can be very effective.

Virtual world advertising on the other hand include but are not limited to: emails, banner ads, online videos and pop-up’s. Compared to the real world, virtual advertising target almost everyone without incurring as much cost. Virtual ads are cheaper because they do not require physical man power. E.g. “Face book” ads only require the user to select a launch and cancel date. Codes and other software’s do the rest. The costs associated with virtual ads are almost always a onetime payment. The problem with virtual ads is that it targets anyone and everyone, therefore sending information to people who do and do not need them. This is how spamming is started. Spamming dilutes whatever value virtual ads have by sending unsolicited information to people who did not ask for, or even need the product/service.

Unlike the real world, virtual ads are responsive and provide feedback. They have the ability to send back information to the owners. E.g. how many times an ad is clicked, how many people purchased a product/service because of the ad and where these people are located can be monitored. The information can be later used when mining data (data mining) to find relationships.

In conclusion, Virtual world ad’s (VWA’s) seem to be better than real world ads. VWA’s have the ability to serve a very diverse market, reaching millions of people. They have relatively low risks and are a cheaper option.