Monday, May 11, 2009

Is Advertising Going Backwards?

The 30 Second TV/Internet ad?!

"This summer ShortTail Media will initiate a beta test of what it’s calling the Digital 30 (D30), a full-screen, deliberately intrusive placement built to showcase traditional 15- and 30-second TV spots. But unlike most Web video ads, the D30 loads between Web pages much like an interstitial."

Er...it's a TV ad online. 

I particularly like the use of the word intrusive.

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

So advertising again will fuck up this medium. I'm so done with this business...

Giles Rhys Jones said...

that said, great creative, brilliant targeting, relevant offer...we might be begging for interruptive 30 second ads...

JT said...

Giles,

this is not a surprise. I was attending Digital Hollywood last week, and all they could talk about was online video with ads.

So from an ad industry perspective, I guess what you have is that since that is what clients are asking for, that is what they will get. A shame, as it means truly foresaking looking into what truly is effective advertising for their clients.

Anonymous said...

I agree with JT, however I think both the ad industry and clients are to blame for this. Why? Because it's mutually beneficial. Clients understand the 30 second spot and, especially in this economic climate, don't want to risk their budgets on experimental creative - and let's be honest, agencies love television commercials because they're extremely profitable.

Also, we don't fully understand what the market is going to embrace (in terms of new media) until the market actually reacts to it - and most agencies aren't going to spend their own money finding out. They'd rather do it with their clients' money.

Suffian said...

Hi, Giles. Thanks for writing about D30; I hadn't come across it before reading your blog. I found your blog from a friend's tweet and thought I'd check out the rest of your posts - good stuff!

Now, to address this D30 thing, interstitial loading between web pages? What about loading times? This might work in the USA and/or Europe, but it will probably mess up the user experience for people in Asia.

Think about it: You click on 'Check Out' or 'Find out more' and wham, you suddenly can't do anything for 30 seconds except wait for the ad to finish. You can't fast forward, you can't 'Skip Intro' and you can't block it from happening again (unless some open-source dude invents a plug-in for Firefox, and we both know that's probably going to happen, too).

Imagine how bad that will be if you're on dial-up or broadband that sucks.

Now, I'm not against intrusive - if it serves a purpose or reinforces a brand's USP. But being intrusive for the sake of being intrusive is just going to annoy the hell out of people.

Well, that's my two cents.

Unknown said...

I think you can take Ryanair as a good case-in-point, whereby some people still want great customer service after paying peanuts. For people who are more realistic, it’s worth paying that little bit more for a better experience. After all, our time and how we feel, are the most important things for many people.

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