NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Creative
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Creative
BULMASH.COM Sales (sales_at_bulmash.com)
Mon, 16 Jun 1997 02:32:24 -0800
On 13 Jun 97 at 19:43, alan said:
> >I know of non-adult content sites making a profit on banner
> >advertising.
>
> Care to share and post the URLs?
Well, I asked one for figures and they asked me not to name them. But
my site will be in the black this month. Given, the overhead is tiny
compared to a site with a staff and more than my 1,000 or so visitors
per day (100,000+ page views a month), and the profit is basically no
more than beer money. But it's a profit nonetheless. Eventually it
may even become an "income."
The bad thing, as one friend who runs a large site commented, is now
that I'm profitable, I am excluded from putting out an IPO.
> >You simply cannot account for all and should not. Why worry about
> >whether your ad copy on a coffee site will be attractive to Mormons?
> >They don't drink coffee and no matter how cool your site, they're not
> >going to choose eternal damnation because you accomodated them. The
> >first rule of any media is to know your audience.
>
> I think I know, they can't see the coffee site because it uses frames
> and they get no choice. The first rule in this media is what does the
> site look like on Netscape 1.0 or AOL 2.6 or early Mosaic, if you
> don't know you're flying blind. Some of the internet traveling people
> I run accross daily don't know you can click on a banner to go
> anywhere unless it says "click here".
>
> I believe that too many technical people simply assume that everyone
> gets it like they do. Here, next door to Silicon Valley, some in the
> populace complain that they can't find the 20,000 businesses we have
> listed on our site in a searchable database because they don't know
> what Search It! means.
You're taking one statement and making a LOT of assumptions. Did I ever
say not to offer a non-frames alternative? I'll ask you now to keep
your words out of my mouth.
Given, if you're designing a Pepsi site which is targeted at every
person on the web, then you better keep it simple enough for the person
who is still looking for the "any" key on their keyboard. But if you
were targeting your site at a techno-savvy audience, why would you be
concerned with the woman who thinks her mouse is a foot pedal or the guy
who thinks his CD-ROM tray is a cup holder?
For example. Your site is targeted at graphic designers and your
product is a magazine which is still distributed by the dead-tree
method. If you design with AOL's old browser in mind...
A: You may well find that none of your visitors are that backward
B: You will find that you cannot implement design options that
your audience will expect and desire to inspire confidence that
your product can assist them or instruct them in the better
performance of their duties.
As I've been trying to say... design for your audience. Design your ads
and your site so that they meet their expectations and needs. If you
try to accomodate and appease everyone, always designing for the lowest
common online denominator in all cases, in some of those cases you could
end up watering down your message to such an extent that your
communication lacks enough focus or snap to be effective. If your
potential audience is everyone, then you _should_ design for everyone.
But if your audience is rocket scientists, then shouldn't you dispense
with worrying about how your site will appeal to housewives?
The opportunity of the web is not just as a mass communication tool, but
as a niche communication tool. Even if you could bring the whole world
to your web site, what would you do with them, what percent of them
would be useful to you? Unless you're a mass-market product, the
characteristics of the niche audience you are targeting should drive
your design.
Now as a caveat... the Chiat Day web site <http://www.chiatday.com> is
beautiful, visually striking, and near totally incomprehensible from a
navigation standpoint. When I was trying to find the address of their
Los Angeles office, I had to browse around until I found it in such a
roundabout, guesswork, "this better work or I'm going to bail" way, that
it might as well have not been on the site at all. The design is
impressive, but you almost have to be able to read the designer's mind
to get where you want to go. And I'm lucky enough to know the ins and
outs of the web pretty well. Imagine a potential client like a Nissan
exec checking out their site.
There is a balance to maintain between utilitarian and design
concerns. But to see things in terms of black and white... It's just
not that simple.
-Greg
sales_at_bulmash.com
http://www.bulmash.com - "Laugh out loud funny" sez Netsurfer Digest
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