Online Magazine Introduces New AdFrame Ad Unit
Whether this goes anywhere or not is anyone's guess but no one thought the online ad banner would become what it is today either. A new online magazine, Dormant Forces, has launched and will be supported by what it calls an AdFrame designed to elicit "curiosity clicks." The Adframe consists of small, subtle squares with nothing but the advertisers name or tagline. Clicking the square takes the visitor to the advertiser's site. The publisher plans to do a similar thing in the printed version of the magazine. Anyone care to predict the future of this venture?
Comments
Steve,
This looks like the days of old - like really old.
Back in the early, early days we hard-coded ads on pages and charged flat rates for placements. Sure we were tinkering with ad servers but the 468x60 was pretty much what we had to play with in 1996. There was no other standard banner size yet. The tile was the next great thing. We plastered sites with them and charged $5K or more a month and wallpapered pages. I remember a finance site calling a page the "online banking center" where it was just 15-20 bank logos packed together so people could find banks that offered online banking. It looked like a resource center but was really just an ad page that was generating $100K/mos in ad fees!
This couldn't possibly be a return to the days of tile-ads. While they seem more subtle its like looking through a window of advertising. I remember Free-PC.com. One of Bill Gross' brain childs-gone-bust ideas. A free computer for anyone who was willing to look through a browser screen wrapped in ads. I dunno. This one has flop written all over it.
Ari Kaufman - Reactionary with Insight
www.AriKaufman.com
Am I supposed to click through on the adrants.com link? (bottom right corner)
Steve, thanks for the posting.
Sometimes what's old is new again.
Hey they said "how can anyone sell an anatomically correct replica of body fat".
Well we have and we still are.
3 TONS and 15 countries later we're still tickin...
Time will tell. Keep the feedback coming!
Jay
Steve,
What about all the readers who like to know the ads are there but don't want to be visually assaulted while they're going through the venue? There is something to be said in support of tasteful, less-is-more sales pitches. We like that this form of advertising gives the consumer a more progressive way of connecting to the advertiser, with style and savvy.
I agree with Ki: pop-ups, insanely annoying Javascript and Flash irritations, and pageload-dragging banner ads do not endear me to whatever they are flogging.
Sure, the screen wrap is completely outdated, and they do reduce visual real estate. But what about even more subtlety for this "opt-in" strategy? What about smaller, translucent squares lightly sprinkled throughout a page of good content? If a reader is already interested in that keyword or brand name, he'll click on it when he's ready to be pitched.This execution of their basic idea is what good ads are all about: reaching the customer when -he- decides he's interested in your offerings, and then offering good reasons to choose you over the rest.
It could work. But that border stuff is reeeeeally cheesy.
I agree with Ki: pop-ups, insanely annoying Javascript and Flash irritations, and pageload-dragging banner ads do not endear me to whatever they are flogging.
Sure, the screen wrap is completely outdated, and they do reduce visual real estate. But what about even more subtlety for this "opt-in" strategy? What about smaller, translucent squares lightly sprinkled throughout a page of good content? If a reader is already interested in that keyword or brand name, he'll click on it when he's ready to be pitched.This execution of their basic idea is what good ads are all about: reaching the customer when -he- decides he's interested in your offerings, and then offering good reasons to choose you over the rest.
It could work. But that border stuff is reeeeeally cheesy.