Below is the transcript of my interview with Duncan Alfers which will feature in an upcoming article in Intelligence Magazine.

1. What is your opinion on using blogs as a platform for advertising?
   Blog and online ad spend for that matter, have grown tremendously over the last couple of years and we’ve seen it start to mature as a viable platform for advertisers and marketers, especially in the U.S. There is always the threat of another online crash but somehow I really doubt it. With the number of blogs increasing every second of every day and Internet penetration intensifying, blogs have become a very lucrative platform for advertising, in conjunction with other conventional forms of advertising.
2. How prevalent do you think this practice will be in SA in the years to come?
   I think we will start to see it grow in SA, albeit slowly, over the next few years but a suspicion of ecommerce and a low Internet penetration rate are hindering factors. The advantages of this type of advertising and marketing for SMEs is huge as the barrier for entry is low compared to other conventional forms of adverting and it’s easier and often more effective in targeting a specific audience.
3. What benefit do you see blog-verts having over more traditional means of advertising?
   Contextual blog ads are usually more effective, firstly, because the reader is more likely to be within the right target demographic. This is especially true when advertising niche products which conventional advertising fails miserably at. Another common reason is the fact that bloggers often earn the loyalty and respect of their readers, many of whom ‘support’ the blog by clicking-through on advertising links.
4. Do you see pay per click adsense type adverts being more effective than rich media interactive adverts or the other way round?
   Text-based advertising is what defined Google Adsense and made it what it is today. This came as a result of adblockers blocking clunky banner ads and flashing gifs and them losing their effectiveness amongst a web audience who became immune to eye-rot. Interestingly, Google is currently looking at expanding their Adsense program into audio and video podcasting as well as print advertising and with their recent acquisition of YouTube they will probably experiment with integrating ads into their videos. Rich media ads on the other hand can be very effective when they are designed properly and interact with the visitor but they run the problem of guzzling bandwidth (a major issue and pet peeve in SA) and have a much higher production cost. In some cases this might not be a problem, but on the whole I think pay per click text ads will remain the bread and butter of advertising on the Web for some time to come.
5. If you were drifting at sea on a small wooden raft and you saw a blog advert, a television advert and a print advert floating toward you which one would you trust?
   NONE OF THEM!!!