Despite huge expectations of online ad spend in the next few years, an expert in the UAE said the print media will remain the leader in attracting the money spent on advertising.
Neither TV nor outdoor is expected to rival the print media, said Sami Raffoul, General Manager of Pan Arab Research Centre.
The internet will also lag behind as an advertising medium, he said, because of factors such as internet illiteracy and difficulty of access due to the language barrier.
"I am not sure how they calculate advertising on the web. First you have to define what web advertising is. Advertising on the web means placing a message on websites that you think generate viewer traffic," Raffoul said.
"There is a narrow line where this communication pays back. I believe this a one-to-one communication that is limited between the advertiser and the visitor of a website. Therefore, it only works when it is placed on specialised websites that target specific audiences, like a professional association's website," he added.
According to Raffoul a moderate internet user can enumerate at least 100 websites dealing with careers, real estate, general interest, sports or business in the UAE. Audiences of the same age group and interests in different geographical locations, such as Jeddah or Cairo, will cite a different 100 sites. "In other words, the club of websites likely to be visited by an audience is influenced by the local community and personal needs and the universality of information sought," he said.
"We do not know where the money is going when it comes to internet advertising, because everyone uses the internet in their own way. And if we complain about fragmentation in TV audiences then, with internet audiences, we can talk about a granulation," he said.
He said that an internet user in a place like Egypt or Morocco would only visit an Indian or Malaysian website for a specific reason, and that too rarely. Advertising pop-ups that might appear in the local languages of these portals will definitely mean nothing to the viewer, even if he of she has a rudimentary understanding of the languages used.
Raffoul said that advertisers' geographical locations will continue influencing internet advertising, even if the internet was without any borders. "One news website, for example, might claim that it has received hundreds of thousands of visitors in a certain month, but who are they and where is their location and would they be interested in viewing an advertisement for a local bank in the UAE? We don't know," he added. The reason why internet ad spend seems so huge, he said, is that advertisers would need to target numerous websites to receive the desired viewership. On the contrary, in a newspaper environment, a single advertisement can be placed for a specific rate, undoubtedly higher, yet reaching a wider audience, Raffoul said.