Re: Pop-up Windows Embedded in Banner Ads

From: Keith Lacy <keithl_at_vistatec.ie>
Date: Thu 21 Dec 2000 10:30:57 -0500

MARK BARNETT <mark_at_fishlinkcentral.com> WROTE:
> I quickly turned them off when they started using them
> after receiving numerous complaints from visitors.

Ok I'm going to stick my neck here and have a bit of a
rant. Pop-ups are about the most annoying thing you
can encounter when surfing the Web. I recently read a
book called The Cluetrain Manifesto, which I'm sure a
lot of you have heard of and may have read. This book,
to me, was very enlightening and made me sit back and
think, in the future, especially with the advent of the
Internet, advertising/marketing is going to undergo
some dramatic upheavals - this book gives us a look at
what might be instore.

Marketing, from what I remember from the classroom, is
about developing a mutually satisfying relationship
between company and customer. But in reality marketing
and advertising, it seems, is about bombarding the
consumer with enough commercial messages to make them
dizzy. Advertising is like gravity where the consumer
is the ground - wherever you are it is going to find
you and hit you. Looking at the rise in ad spend
globally it makes you wonder where is it all going to
end as the noise level from advertising increases it
becomes necessary to throw even more money at it next
time round to be heard above the cacophony. Nike
spends about half a billion dollars annually on
advertising this is probably more than the GDP of some
small countries!

The point I'm trying to make without going on too much
(and belive me I can!) is that something is going to
have to give, currently growth in ad spend is
outstripping sales growth, I'm told by about one-third.
I've said it before and I'll say it again the Web is
interactive and it is here where we are going to see
the changes happen first. Marketing should not be
about a war with consumers, about getting your message
to them before they get there finger on the mouse to
shut that annoying pop-up it should be about letting
them talk face to face with the company with your
'marketing guard' down, on an individual level.

I think sometimes we get caught up in the tactics of
how to market on the Web (or anywhere else for that
matter) and sometimes don't see the wood for the trees.
I'd like to see what people think about the notion that
ok - maybe there is a better way to present a pop-up
and ...ok - maybe there are ways to generate better
click-throughs than others... but maybe we are trying
to perfect something that is fundamentally wrong.
Maybe we should be looking to more functional methods
maybe they won't be as sexy cand appealing but maybe
that is what the consumer wants - cut the bs and give
it to them straight and even if you don't they'll find
someone on the Web that'll be more than happy to tell
it like it is with regard your products/services.

Just a thought...

Keith Lacy
VistaTEC Limited
http://www.vistatec.ie/





Received on Thu Dec 21 2000 - 09:30:57 CST