Something I’ve been noticing for the last few months has me curious…
Every time I navigate to a portal, or open my webmail, I am finding the same series of completely nonsensical (imho) banner ads for getting a diploma, dog-grooming certificate, or what have you from home. I’m fairly certain that I’ve previously noticed the same ads (either exactly the same, or in a similar “style”) for mortgage refinancing a few months back.
There are the horridly animated silhouette dancing guys. One wearing a cowboy hat and apparently line-dancing, and another who seems to be stuck in a Paula Abdul video from 1988. They do their little dance two or three times and then freeze.
There are the obviously staged “caught dancing in her cubicle!!!” video montages. I’ve seen a handfull of different ones. They play the short video two or three times and then freeze.
I can only assume that there are a small number of ad producers that are repeatedly hired to create these eyesores of advertising, and someone is spending a lot of their advertising budget on them.
What I don’t understand is what the hell it is about the repeatedly used content of these ads that makes them successful enough to keep using them?
What the fsck do the silhouette dancing man or the “caught in her cubicle” woman have to do with the average internet user being inclined to click on them, and then sign up for a home-certification course for flower-arranging, or refinance their home?
I’m “in the business”, or at least I work for a company that is (obviously I don’t work in marketing) so I am as desensitized to most online annoyances as one can get. They don’t annoy me, but they do perplex me.
Seriously. I mean…ok…so there are a bunch of stock animations available out there, but does anyone actually look at them after following the “<insert your company name here>” instructions?
Are they going purely for the fact that people are more likely to have their eye caught by movement, and that is their only criteria for the ad?
The only criteria that counts for any of the low-end banner ads you see on the web are that they make money for the people running them. The NY Times did an article on the Lower My Bills ads back in January. The founder and CEO said this:
Note that he claims the ads don’t just get people to click – they get people to fill out loan applications.
I don’t think they analyze why they’re working – not on a psychological level, at least. They just go, “hey, the dancing silhouette worked. How about a dancing alien?”