Skybus move reflects opportunity
Skybus of Columbus, Ohio has hired the Travel Ad Network to serve ads on its website, a first for the airline industry in the U.S. According to an Online Media Daily article, about 40% of the ads will be non-travel and are expected to launch June 15. Ads will appear on destination pages, post confirmation interstitials, and booking confirmation pages and emails. Built-out destination spotlights with integrated ad opportunities are also in the works.
This may seem simply an interesting quirk in the travel business, but it’s really a sign of what I believe is a new phase in the growth of online advertising — the movement of ads to sites that aren’t media sites and therefore aren’t supported by advertising. This is going to be huge, because technology makes it easy for any business to build a new revenue stream by serving ads online. For advertisers, it’s all about aggregating eyeballs. Such ads can be highly contextual, too, and I expect to see ad networks serving this market within the next 12-24 months.
Even sites that are advertisers themselves can now earn money by running advertising — like an auto parts store running automotive ads — and this offers a huge opportunity to local media companies smart enough to begin building their own local ad networks.
This is basic Media 2.0 — where the rules are very different and the opportunities unlimited. Ask yourself this: if my local media company doesn’t extend it’s advertising reach via a local ad network, who will?
You guessed it: the internet pureplays.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 10:00 am and is filed under Media 2.0, Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:01 am
SKYBUS WILL NEED ALL THE P.R. THEY CAN GET.
IF YOU REALLY WANT TO FEEL WHAT ITS LIKE TO BE ANOTHER COW IN THE HERD, JUST FLY SKYBUS. CHEAP FARES FOR CHEAP ACCOMODATION.
EVEN IF YOU ARE ABLE TO ENDURE THE JOSTLING (HEAD EM UP AND MOVE EM OUT )FOR POSITION IN THE LINES TO GET INTO THE AIRPLANE, SKYBUS HAS A TREAT FOR YOU, (ESPECIALLY IF YOU’RE CLOSTROPHOBIC), WHEN YOU GET TO YOUR SEAT. iT SEEMS SKYBUS BOUGHT A BUNCH OF AT-319 AIRCRAFT AND SHOESPOONED AN ADDITIONAL FOUR ROWS OF SEATS INTO THE PASSENGER SECTION, MAKING IT IMPOSSIBLE TO EVEN LOWER A TRAY TABLE. ON SHORT FLIGHTS THIS MAY BE MARGINALLY TOLERABLE. BUT, ON THE LONG RUNS, YOU PAY BACK FOR THAT LOW PRICE YOU PAID FOR THE TICKET.
ADDING TO THE MISERY OF THE VERY CRAMPED QUARTERS, ALL OF THE SEATS ARE RECLINERS, MAKING IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO EVEN SIT STILL AND READ A BOOK IF THE PERSON INFRONT OF YOU DECIDES TO SIT BACK. OF COURSE, I ALWAYS END UP CHOOSING THE SEAT WHERE THE JACKASS IN FRONT OF ME JUST HAS TO RELCINE HIS/HER SEAT.
AS YOU WILL SEE AFTER YOUR RIDE ON SKYBUS, YOU PAY FOR THAT CHEAP TICKET.