aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Monday, September 24, 2007
Online ads we want
On The Media had a piece pushing the party line on the not-really-so-new ad-blocking plug-ins that “raise serious problems for websites and maybe even legal issues for those who use the software.”
C-Net’s Declan McCullagh suggests the global nature of the web makes legal action unlikely but a “technological arms race” wherein the software is defeated and developers come up with counter-measures and sites come up with counter-counter-measures is possible.
He and host Bob Garfield go on to agree that viewing a web page while blocking the ad is morally akin to stealing. Wladimir Palant, the 27-year-old German developer of the open-source Adblock project has heard it all before:
...this guy thinks that he as the website owner has every right in the world and the visitors that pay him indirectly don’t have any rights at all. He would probably prefer if ad blockers were forbidden by law. And the hosts file. And the remote control because it allows you to zap away to another TV channel when the advertisements come. Actually, I don’t think you have the right to turn away from your TV when the advertisements come - you watched the show so now you have to pay.
I’m with Palant; the need to appeal to morality is the mark of a faltering, lazy ad industry. I recall the day when ads were cultural touchstones, all the buzz among me and my young friends for their style and wit and trendy sophisticated appeal. Advertisers have no one to blame but themselves for poisoning that well.
Having lived in the heart of marketing mania and them moved to a place where advertising space goes unsold, I can tell you that I want advertising. As a blogger who’s embedded Apple ads, I am happy to have them online too. I think we all do. But few of us believe it a moral obligation.
Advertisers may want to construct a moral code that makes us watch, but do they really believe that will make us buy or accept the advertisers message? Ads that are well-produced and relevant and that do not interrupt or appear in a cacophony of clutter are effective. Those are ads we want and that’s the advertiser’s challenge.
While on the topic, Om Malik has 5 Ways to Make Web Video Ads Work:
AdAge in its latest issue offers up a few key lessons for brand advertisers and how they can make web video as work. These are tips are based on a recent study of video consumption habits by TNS, done on behalf of AOL and Google.
- Video-sharing sites are getting a bigger share of visits (77%) versus news sites (55%) and broadcast TV sites (49%). Lesson: Good for YouTube, not so good for old tubes.
- 43% of those polled want ads to be interactive and clickable. Lesson: Don’t put stupid TV-style commercials that are not actionable.
- Videos are for sharing. Lesson: Big media, listen to CBS Interactive’s Quincy Smith.
- 52% want ads to be relevant to them, 46% think they need to be relevant to web site’s content. Lesson: Consumer electronics ads next to people being blown up aren’t going to work. Make your ads contextual, relevant and of course tasteful.
- Make ads fun if you want attention. Consumers feel annoyed by videos ads today. Lesson: Simple enough.
