AdNausea

“I like ads. It’s not that we don’t like ads, we just don’t like ads when they are out of place.” 
Bill Barnes

I was browsing through some online information earlier this morning and came across someone saying that internet advertising is the way to go, that money is wasted unless it is dumped into online advertising.

I beg to differ. Let’s go ahead and look into a bit more, shall we?Yes, more people visit Yellowbook.com instead of actually flipping through their phone book to find a doctor, massage therapist, lock smith, etc. But that is not advertising in the sense that I’m talking about - that, to me, is making your information available to your potention consumer base. There’s nothing creative, targetted or conceptual behind it. So we’ll forget about that aspect of online.

As for true online advertising - pop ups, pop unders, voice-overs, spam mail, junk mail, web banners… does any of that stuff sound exciting? Does it give you good feelings? Do you say “Oh, I hope when I close this window, I’ll have three more underneath it that have absolutely nothing to do with the page I was on!” Probably not.

 Yes, it’s annoying. And the people who produce these ads KNOW it’s annoying. But it’s kind of a necessary evil if a company wants to put money toward online advertising. Think about the facts - lots of people are online every day.
- it can be tailored so your sports store ad is on ESPN.com instead of Cosmo.com.
- people click things - it’s as simple as that.
- this is fast becoming the only way to reach certain target audiences - males between the ages of 16 and 24. (They multi-task more than anyone else, i.e. tv on, radio on, surfing online, texting friends, listening to iPod… that makes them less observant of other media).

But when was the last time you purposly clicked on an internet ad? Or actually read what your pop up said and decided to try that new insurance company? In my opinion, internet advertising (when done wrong like it is 99.9% of the time) only lowers my opinion of your brand / company. How much stock do you put into an insurance company that has you test your strength against George Bush push up style? If they’re running that kind of junk trying to get you to click, I don’t think they’re that serious about their business. Don’t annoy me - catch my attention. Catch me off guard. Captivate me!

As I’m sure you saw this coming, this is the segway into….

Internet based advertising that DOES pass the test.

This web banner is for Tylenol and was found on this website and while it’s not funny and entertaining - it’s perfectly targeted (whether you’re a student researching, a mom surfing, a bored receptionist) to people who use the internet. Also - looking at it, yes, it looks like it’s from Tylenol. It’s not all jokey-joke and loud, because that’s not what the rest of Tylenol’s stuff is like. These are the four still frames from the animated banner.

And one for Apple - who true to their form are still creative geniuses. I did not see this one while it was active (and can’t find it now, although they may be moving it from site to site) so I will explain to the best of my ability. It looks like a normal headline on the top of the page (which is really one piece of a two piece ad). The two guys enter from the right (piece two of the ad) and PC Man climbs the ladder to staple on “NOT” after the “headline.” It works for a few different reasons, as summed up by Brian. It’s humorous, it keeps with the image and attitude of Apple. It surprises you, which is hard to do when things are flashing and talking to you and popping up all over.

There’s a few of them.

I’ve tried finding more - but the truth is there aren’t many good ones to be found. And when there are (like these Apple ones) you just have to be in the right place at the right time and happen to take a screen shot of it. Anyone else have favorites?

Trackback URI | Comments RSS