Thursday, January 17, 2008

Web advertising that doesn't think like web advertising.

Stand back.
Generalizations are coming.
But at least they're generalizations based on years of observation and experience.

The interactive branch of the advertising industry grew up out of the direct branch of the industry. People in direct, people in interactive don't believe in and don't understand the power of intrusion. For their entire history, their underlying thesis has been: list, offer, creative.

That is why you see in banner ads and the like a passive acceptance of tininess and quietude. That's why 99 out of 99.1 interactive ads suck.

Today Apple is running interactive ads on The New York Times site. They are large ads, above the masthead and abutting it in an upside down and backwards "L" shape. They are interactive. They speak to each other. They are funny, smart and intrusive.

They are by large measure the exception. Because someone at some Omnicom TWBA/C/D agency has said, the web is as cluttered as TV and print and we have to act accordingly. The dumb web agencies--you know who they are--don't get that. They don't realize that there are over 600 billion web pages in the world. They don't understand intrusion. Humor. Breakthrough.

They are boring.

1 comment:

Tore Claesson said...

and apples ads move? not just shake a little booty as is the action to draw eyeballs most banners seem to favor.
What's more, this excellent example of good interactive web advertising is produced not by one of the so called interactive agencies, but of a large creatively driven shop.
The best interactive shops today are creative shops that do interactive as well as "traditional" media.
Even interactive takes ideas. hooray.