[Sigia-l] Flash Ads At The New York Times

[Jared M. Spool]

At 07:28 PM 3/17/2003 -0500, William Quimby wrote:
>"Hey, if the user doesn't dig the result screw the user?"

Advertising rates are dropping because advertising isn't working.

Advertising is about disruption. TV ads disrupt you from the content. 
Billboard disrupt you from driving. And online ads are now about disrupting 
you from the content you seek.

Unfortunately for advertisers, users don't want to be disrupted. We've seen 
TV viewers pay extra money to rent movies that they can see for free, just 
to see it commercial-free.

The Eudora email client software comes in a free version (with ads) or a 
paid version (without ads). I predict we'll see more web sites that use 
this model.

William, would you be willing to pay extra money to the Times to *not* see 
the ads? What if it cost $10 a year? $10 a month? $10 a day?

Of course, as people choose commercial-free channels, advertisers will need 
to come up with more attention-getting devices. So, we'll see even more 
disruptive advertising.

Thus, the birth of the Flash ads. They are far more costly to develop that 
animated banner ads or flat images, but they have increased in popularity 
because of their attention-grabbing qualities.

Thus, the war is born. People learn to ignore the new formats, so 
advertisers come up with more aggressive, invasive formats, which people 
learn to ignore in time, thereby forcing even more aggression.

I fear the future is grim -- the advertisers won't give up.

Jared


Jared M. Spool        User Interface Engineering
http://www.uie.com    jspool at uie.com
Don't miss the UIE Roadshow: 4/22-6/12
DC, NYC, San Diego, Austin, and many more cities
http://www.uie.com/events/roadshow