orld Wide Web Wizardry

PARENTAL WARNING: This page contains references to Presidential Acts! You must be 18!

One consequence of the World Wide Web is that web addresses are supplanting vapid corporate and product advertising slogans. Driving visitors to a commerce-enabled or business-aiding web site can boost cash flow a lot better and a lot faster than classic branding.

This is good. A basic WhizzO concept is that attacking the consumer with :30 or :60 of TV will almost never succeed as well as engaging the consumer via a well-designed, useful web site. As much as we may have liked that Apple 1984 TV spot, its day is long since gone by.

This trend seems especially prevalent among products. It's almost laughably ironic. Agencies live and breathe to slap stupid slogans onto the backs of products. But with domain names at a premium, getting consumers to the right address is taking priority!

Who'da thunk it?

Not to be overly prideful -- we did. So, too, have other people, but we here at WhizzO postulate that we're the first to see the implications of the URL on classic branding strategy.

Here's what we predict. Call these

The WhizzO Rules.

1. URLs will replace tag lines in the majority of advertisements, especially on TV.


2. URLs will be used in tandem with taglines in a growing percentage of the remainder, especially print advertising.


3. TV advertising will be used as a promotional tool to drive traffic to web sites, where the 'real' branding work will be done. This means TV ads will get even goofier, which is not necessarily a bad thing.


4. Web site development and management expenditures will exceed the value of network TV advertising within five years. Easy.


5. Unfortunately, this means web sites will become even more impenetrable, as advertisers mistake their mission. Instead of delivering information, web sites will strive to 'engage' and 'retain' the surfer. Sometimes -- like here on WhizzO -- that's part of a site's charm (we hope). Othertimes -- it's not.


6. Radio may eclipse TV as a branding tool. And with its lower cost to produce and buy, radio will continue to dominate as a traffic-generator. (WhizzO loves the traffic-building power of radio.)


7. All sorts of sneaky shit will take place to figure out exactly who you are when you surf. Some of this crap is truly terrifying, invading privacy worse than moms ever could. (WhizzO has some interesting privacy-protecting plans in this area....)


8. Direct/Response mailers will continue their slide, to the joys of free people and mail carriers everywhere.


9. Magazines and newspapers will defy odds and thrive, marrying web and print effectively -- at least until The Next Big Thing shows up, allowing anyone to print full-color, two-sided, inexpensive copies of anything.


10. D/R will continue to invade your email and -- if you think junk email is bad -- your wireless devices. Then we'll have phone-gabbing dipshits trying to sort through 500 voice and text commercial messages while driving their Firestone-fitted Explorers over your rug rat's bicycle. That's when the revolution will come.