[thelist] Seriously cool advertising technique

M. Seyon evoltlist at delime.com
Fri Mar 4 15:03:27 CST 2005


Message from Chris Johnston (3/4/2005 02:33 PM)
>Okay, I usually do not support ads on a website, but I just saw the
>*coolest* technique. It is completely unobtrusive and very cool. It is
>obviously using DHTML. Check this out:
>
>http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=60404858

Unobtrusive, until you go play with it. Then it sent my CPU usage straight 
to 100% for several seconds. And on Opera closing it leaves a big empty 
white space on the original page so the content isn't visible.

The novelty factor may be great, but really, unless there is some sort of 
motivation, who is going to go out of their way to look at the ad? I try to 
do everything I can to *avoid* ads. Making them unobtrusive is great for 
me. It means they'll be there but I won't ever look at them. So really 
that's just scamming the ad buyer.

Of course if the ad campaign were tailored to the technology - "peel back 
for a chance to win a discount on that new computer you're looking at" - 
that'd be a different story. But corporations have historically been 
notoriously bad at not understanding the need to tailor their ads to this 
medium and its content.

Personally I still think, in theory at least, that Google's ad idea is 
still the best. I will look at an ad if
- I don't have to go out of my way to do so
- it's actually relevant to what I'm doing
- it doesn't bug the heck out of me while i'm doing my other stuff by 
flashing, dancing, jumping around or otherwise suffering from "ad ADD"

But the old media method of shoving arbitrary ads down people's throats 
just doesn't seem to have caught on online. No matter how "seriously cool" 
they may be. I wonder why.

regards.
-marc

--
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http://www.playyuhself.com/


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