Banner Ads on Campaign Websites
Can you name any ads on the Washington Post web site?
I know I can't.
I've visited the site 4 times today and yet I can't remember a single advertisement. Political candidates face the same problems with banner advertisements.
Banner ads are interruption based advertising. Like television advertisements, banner ads can be annoying and frustrating. Ireland/Nash point out that most internet users do not pay attention to banner ads.
So why do campaigns continue to pay for these ads? They've certainly gotten much cheaper as advertisements have declined due to a lack of traffic (clicks). Perhaps this declining rate led to the infamous "pop-up" advertisement. While McCain was able to use "pop-up" ads to raise almost $6.8 million in 2000, many voters in the 2004 elections would never have seen these ads because of "pop-up" blockers.
The only advantage that I can see for banner ads are that they provide cheap visibility. I usually didn't take notice of banner ads, but during campaign 2000, I can tell you that John Kerry was on the Washington Post and New York Times websites a lot. And there were Bush ads on the Fox News website as well as the Drudge Report.
I will admit that I have clicked on advertisements on some blogs to see some of those candidates. They're running such underdog campaigns, that it's kind of fun to find out who is running for Sheriff in Tom DeLay's home district in Texas or who is trying to topple an established Senate candidate. I tend to click on ads when I don't know much about them and want to find out more. Is it possible to run a prominent campaign such as race for President and have your ads ignored? The answer seems to be an emphatic "yes."
3 Comments:
I can't remember what the ads were in the paper version of the post today, even though I read several of the pieces in the first section and turned through every page of that section.
If there had been sale at JCPenny and I needed socks I might have remembered to go buy socks there tomorrow. But I can't afford socks, so I'm not looking.
The immediacy of the internet can cut both ways: immediate action (rare), or immediate disregard and no retention.
Now, if I needed sock and Penny's was running an online sale of socks and I could buy some by making a few clicks...well, I’d have like fifty feet...it'd be awesome.
Banner ads are not interruption advertising unless you consider ads in the paper version of the publication interruption advertising. You the viewer choose whether or not to read it, and often you choose not to because you are reading the information you set out to find.
I also feel suspicious of banner ads, even when I am interested in the topic. I feel like they're going to have a bunch of popups on their site, it'll dump a bunch of cookies on my computer, and they'll want me to buy something.
I believe banner ads are necessary. Good web sites need money to stay alive and banner ads are a helpfule resource. But Pop ups are terrible. They are a disgrace for advertisement. They interrupt the navigation, they are annoying and it seems like they force you to read them. Also, they are disturbing, and people tend to ignore them all the time. Only if you are really looking for something specific, they might grab the users attention. I would not think that pop ups are not an effective advertisement strategy for politicians. But banner ads are useful, as long as they do not occupy all the space in your web site. Think of newspapers, little content and full advertisement pages. That is not fair for readers!
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