Lack of respect for internet advertising

From: Jeff Edelman <studcent_at_i-2000.com>
Date: Wed 28 Nov 2001 10:50:08 -0500

Having seen a lot of really good discussions on
this list, I wanted to address how it is important
for content providers to draw at least some kind
of line in the sand when it comes to providing free
advertising and promotion to companies.

I work with one of the most popular teen websites,
and we have just taken over another site which is
specifically for college students. So our entire
audience is a student market of high school and
college students. Next month, Sony is coming out
with a film called "Not Another Teen Movie," which
is going to be a spoof more or less on teen movies
- kind of like "Airplane". Sony should definitely
want to advertise on our sites. They will be spending
millions of dollars to promote the movie on television
and radio, and it would be incredibly cost efficient
for them to advertise on our sites because we are
the absolute perfect fit for them, and with the ad
market what it is, we'd offer them such attractive ad
rates that they couldn't possibly get a more efficient
ad buy anywhere else. But Sony, like so many other
companies, has no respect for internet advertising, or
at least see that they can get websites to promote
their products for free. They have hired a group to
make a website for the movie. The group has made a
website for the movie, created games, banners for the
movie, the works. So we got contacted by them asking
us to put up these games and banners on our site "for
fun" because our users will enjoy playing the games
that they post on our website to promote their movie.
Any teen site like ours who agrees to put up such
promotion for free is crazy. This is just digging our
own grave.

I'm sure that companies like Sony are realizing that
all the people who are potential customers for their
teen oriented movie can be found at sites like
ours, and that is why we have been contacted. But
unless content sites band together and refuse to
provide all these kinds of freebie promotions, then the
content sites will continue to die. And in the long
run, groups like Sony are only shooting themselves in
the foot because by squeezing all of the content sites,
they are putting them out of business and losing out on
the ability to reach sizable audiences at low rates.
In our space, teen sites like thirsty.com and kibu.com
have already gone out of business. They could have
provided Sony with millions of more teen eyeballs for
this movie promotion, but they're already gone. And I
know of two more major teen sites that have cut
their staffs practically to zero although the sites
are still up.

I realize that this is a rant instead of a question,
but I would love to hear what the users of this forum
think.

Jeff Edelman
The Student Center Network
http://www.studentcenter.org
http://www.student.com



Received on Wed Nov 28 2001 - 09:50:08 CST