διαφήμιση
Advertising
DEFINITION
Form of non-personal communication through different on- and off-line media to attract customers' attention to a product or service. With the advent of personalised Internet advertising (see below), this definition becomes partly obsolete.
IMPACT ON e-BUSINESS
The best product or service is useless if nobody knows about it. Therefore, its existence must be publicised and this is done by advertising. The Internet offers targeted advertising that can be effectively used to reach the target group most prone to react to the advertiser's merchandise. "81% of consumers are interested in receiving personalised content recommendations, 64% of consumers would provide insights into their preferences in exchange for personalised products and content recommendation" (Source: Web-Reloaded?, A.D. Little). Google takes these findings into consideration whit its "AdWords" programme where advertisers can select a geographical area (country, city), and "Gmail", personalised advertising relevant to the content of the e-mail. The "new" advertising services offer a broad panoply of business models for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) but at the same time, give raise to legal questions: privacy on the one hand, and potential abuse of keyword meta-tagging, e.g. when using third-party trademarks.
Another legal issue connected with advertising is "spam", or, in legal terms, unsollicited commercial communciation. That is, the sending of (commonly) e-mails to potential clients. If the addressee is a business and already a client of you, sending out a communication to advertise a product or service connected to your business relation is permissible. If, however, you client is a consumer = private person, the prior consent of this person is necessary. This can be done, for example, to let them tick a box that says: I agree to being informed of further offers etc. The rules on "spam" are regulated at European level but are implemented at different levels in the Member States. Germany and Austria forbid unsollicited commercial communication also for business adressees (unless they agreed beforehand, so-called "opt-in").
The reputation of a business may be at stake if it is the target of so-called "collateral spamming": Its e-mail address is used to send out spam, without knowing it, it may end up at a spamming "black list". To avoid this, it is advisable not to put an automatically recognizable e-mail address on-line. For example, add spaces before/after the @ sign, or write "at" and "dot".
PRACTICAL LINKS
Dealers in a selective distribution system may place advertisements throughout the single market and address mail shots and personalised e-mails to consumers located anywhere in the European Union. Dealers may not be penalised in any sense for selling in this manner. www.europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh
Intellectual Property Issues in Advertising:
www.wipo.int/sme/en/documents/ip_advertising.htm
Advertising in Portugal, see blogs:
Comunicações publicitàrias - identificação e informação
Comunicaões publicitàrias em rede e marketing directo – âmbito
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