Perez Hilton and CollegeHumor have something in common
I love to see new trends and directions in Internet brand marketing. From roll over flash adverts to page takeover advertising, it is getting easier to push a brand on viewers - maybe a little too much for comfort.
For those not familiar with page takeover advertising, it is sometimes just referred to as a site “takeover” or “layout skins.” It is essentially those over obtrusive ads that take over the background of an entire site and possibly the majority if not all of the available ad slots on this page.
Some sites known to do this very often include MySpace and Perez Hilton. Unlike a skyscraper ad or text link - they are next to impossible to overlook and not surprisingly provide some of the best brand advertising possible on the web today. But at what cost? Well for PerezHilton.com, “Page Takeovers” come with a hefty price tag. Ads are sold on their site through BlogAds.com, and here is their most recent quote for takeover adverts on Perez Hilton:
“Takeovers on Perez are $36K per day and includes the 728×90, 160×600, 300×250, and the custom skin. Please let me know if you have any other questions.” - BlogAds.com Sales Rep
Cha Ching Perez! But is it really time to cash in at the sake of overly forcing a brand on your loyal visitors? You be the judge. I haven’t worked on implementing splash / takeover / site ownage advertising as of yet, and most likely will not in the near future.
Now let’s take this conversation to the next level, where ad campaigns can get really shaky - let’s take a look at CollegeHumor.com. Yes, the college, frat boy, fart joke site that I read every day - makes a killing in advertising revenue - so much they were picked up by IAC/InterActiveCorp in 2006.
CollegeHumor’s takeovers allow clickable backgrounds (yes, you read that right.) Now think how many times you have strategically clicked off a pages main text or on the background to begin scrolling or by accident. At CollegeHumor.com this subconscious movement translates to dollars. I imagine an extremely high bounce rate is given to advertisers in these slots as in the last month I personally have clicked on 6 advertising slots on their site, all by accident because of their “strategic” placement and immediately exited the screen. Keep in mind I place, buy, sell, review ad space all day and still get bounced from their site often. Ad placement + user psychology = CollegeHumor’s ad department. In my book, genius. But for the average user I see the ability to make backgrounds clickable advertising a hinderance to the overall user experience. Hopefully this is not the future direction of web advertising, but a stint that will eventually become common bad etiquette on the web. I think large online publishers should be held to certain regulations and wouldn’t be surprised to see this happen in the coming years as more and more advertising dollars and consumer spending shifts online.
You’ll see there aren’t any outbound links in this posting. Just in case “takeover” advertising is currently being run on one of these sites, I didn’t want to be the one endorsing Perez Hilton making 36,000 for an ad.
I wonder what TV Show PerezHilton.com wants me to watch today??
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