The article reviewed for this analysis was When Ads Get Personal from CFO, The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives written by Randy Myers, a contributing editor at eCFO. The main point of the article is that companies are beginning to turn to the Internet and personal advertising to create loyal brands rather than brand loyalty. The article focuses on potential results of this fairly new application of advertising.

Nearly seven percent of all retail sales will be conducted online by 2004, according to a Connecticut-based research firm cited in the article. The author argues that the ease and diversity of shopping online gives consumers the potential to more directly influence the market. He says that generic advertisement, meant for every customer, will no longer be as effective since point-and-click navigation make it possible for the consumer to more rapidly change his or her mind.

Randy Myers, author of the article, says that companies are going to have to try much harder to keep the customers they already have, since consumers are more willing to leave a brand behind now then they were in the past. He says that the business world is beginning to rethink the advertising equation because consumers are going to start expecting loyalty from the brands rather than demonstrating unconditional loyalty to them. Myers says that sellers will have to develop a one-on-one relationship with their buyers where the seller can understand and meet the unique needs of every individual buyer. Some of the methods suggested by Myers to accomplish these objectives are product reviews, price comparisons, and buying suggestions, which he says are already being offered by some etailers, Myers colloquialism for online marketers. He also believes that ecommerce sites should attempt to collect information about their consumers in order to more readily appeal to them on a personal level. Something, he acknowledges, that isn t necessarily new.

Myers also suggests that advertising and marketing might soon be embedded in products themselves. An example he offers is the HBO website, where consumers can go to find out who designed the clothes worn by actors in the network s series Sex and the City. He says that there will come a time when consumers will actually be able to order those clothes through interactive TV while watching the show. Myers cites Jerry Shapiro, an advertising and marketing guru, in saying the messages will be embedded in the content. He says that if the viewer is watching something that interests him or her, he or she will have the immediate opportunity to buy it.

Myers argues that getting personal is what loyal brands are all about. He says that etailers who spend millions of dollars on advertising, without considering how the products can meet individual consumer needs, may be in danger of demise. He says that the brands that don t keep up individually with its consumers will eventually die.

Randy Myers seems to be pro-advertising. Although no opinion is actually expressed, the overall tone of the article seems to praise the new methods of advertising. No negative aspects of loyal brands were actually presented in the article.

Works Cited

Myers, Randy. When Ads Get Personal. CFO, The Magazine for Senior Financial Executives. 16.11 (2000): 75. Infotrac.