Adverts are designed to attract the attention of some subpopulation of buyers.
For each subpopulation, many different adverts exist.
Today’s invention is the idea of metadverts…online advertisements which are designed to appeal to a particular segment of consumers, but instead of directing them to any product, each metadvert directs its target audience to a webpage of cool product ads all of which appeal to a common, narrow range of customer.
Such a collection may reinforce the effect on a particular group of people and although the number of clicks for any one ad will be diluted somewhat by being in the presence of so many others, customers may well enjoy being able to choose from a range of viewing experiences which are likely to appeal to them.
Note the overall ‘ad’ is just an enticement to click, advertising nothing other than content designed to be interesting to a subsegment of buyers.
Data about which choice is made will obviously be very valuable and a kind of natural selection process will take place. Ad agencies will then have to play the game of creating ads which contain all the most attractive features naturally selected but which are also distinctive from their pagemates.