NONE: re: ONLINE-ADS>> Interstitial webcasted advertising....
re: ONLINE-ADS>> Interstitial webcasted advertising....
Kenneth C. Jenks (mindseye_at_tale.com)
Fri, 25 Apr 1997 09:07:04 -0500
>At 3:28 PM -0400 4/19/97, xerxes made this statement of rare insight:
>.......
>>
>> >From one perspective interstitial advertising (ad takes over entire screen
>> for 5-15 seconds) appears to be one of the leading motivations for certain
>> types of push technology.
>>
>> Advertisers, many of them, want/need/demand venues on web sites that
>> are more intrusive than ordinary banner ads........
There are other technical approaches to "interstitial" advertising that are
more intrusive and much more effective than the approach described above.
Let's pretend, for a moment, that you actually have some interesting content
on your Web site. (I know, it's a stretch, but hypothetically....) If you
package your material correctly, you can (1) get the customer interested in
your material, (2) show the customer an ad, then (3) show the customer the
interesting material. If you get the sequence right, and if the customer is
sufficiently interested, a much more intrusive advertisement is possible in
step (2), and you (the advertiser or his rep) have much more control over
the advertising "view".
For example, my short story Web site gives the customer a teaser consisting
of the first half of a story. At an appropriate point in the story
(determined by literary concerns such as dramatic tension and the amount of
the plot revealed so far), the customer gets a choice. He can pay the
royalty to read the ending (using pay-per-view), or he can read an ad. If he
chooses the ad, the sponsor pays the royalty in exchange for the customer's
participation in the advertisement.
The key words are "chooses" and "participation." We use full-page
"interstitial" ads that include a brief questionnaire about the ad. If the
customer wants the content, he must read the ad ("Eat at Joe's!") then
answer the questionnaire ("What is the name of our restaurant?") to be
rewarded with the Web content. This ensures that the customer has actually
received the advertising message.
The choice is important. Many users don't like ads, and if confronted by
them, they'll leave, even after they've invested their time in reading the
"teaser" for the content. However, the same users don't like paying for
content, and, given the choice, 90% of them will read an ad in preference to
paying for content, 5% will pay for the content, and 5% will leave. (Your
mileage may vary.)
Donna replied:
>To me, as a long-time computer and internet user, my computer and my
>internet use are things under MY control and I don't want anyone forcing
>things my way i don't want to see (or don't want to see at that time.)
That aspect of control is very, very important. If the computer runs along
and does its own thing, the user will get bored and go away. Interaction is
the key.
>*What will stop someone from hitting the stop or back buttons? Or going
>over to another application until the ad is done? (I do the latter all the
>time for slow-loading pages.) And if they actually figured out a way to
>stop you from doing any of that, I'd make a point to write both the
>advertiser and site with complaints, and tell everyone I know to avoid both.
What stops the customer from ignoring the ad is that questionnaire. What
keeps customers from complaining is the choice. If they want ads, they
choose 'em. If they don't want ads, they can pay-per-view or leave. It's
amazing how many people choose "free" content.
>*And what about leaving the computer to do something else while the ad is
>running? People do this all the time with TV ads and I do it myself when a
>web page is slow to load (but I really want to see the site)
If you really want to see the site, the advertiser can make the ad more
intrusive -- up to a point. If your content is desirable enough, that point
moves WAY up the intrusiveness scale.
>Another thought: Is it possible to tell the connect speed?
Yes, it is. I've written a Java applet that determines connect speed in
realtime because even a fast modem doesn't guarantee a fast connection
everywhere, all the time. It still needs some callibration, but the applet
works just fine. It runs on any Web server and does appropriate things on
non-Java clients.
-- Ken Jenks, Editor-in-chief, Mind's Eye Fiction
http://tale.com/ -- The First Web Publisher
MindsEye_at_tale.com
