For my first music startup (not so much a business as it was a fun service), I got bored with our product/benefit-focused ads and late one Friday night decided to get weird with things. I bought woodyharrelsong.com (no longer mine) and unleashed a series of really quirky FB ads about Woody crying because of the viewer's shitty music taste. Images of Woody in a bathtub, extreme close-ups of him making weird faces, and so on. Very vague headline copy, sometimes none at all. They performed extremely well on clicks. Pure crap on conversions.
In my early PPC days I had to learn that lesson in real time. Creating interest in clicking an ad does not equal campaign success. Maybe this company was doing this for buzz/PR. Maybe they needed to learn the same lessons I did. Maybe they are simply playing the numbers game.
And people ask me why I have ad blocker running.
It's getting to the point where you have to be tricked into clicking the ad.
It's ridiculous.
Some of us just don't want to click or _see_ ads but somehow marketing departments seem to think that "if we can get 2 seconds of you, you will be buying everything we sell"..
The marketing department in my company was flabbergasted when I told them I actively avoid products I see in ads, although I am not that exposed anymore.. Mostly public billboards and the like.
> Some of us just don't want to click or _see_ ads
Get off the internet and stop leeching content. If you're not paying for it, you get to see ads.
Having said that, I run a PiHole and uMatrix. I'll stop when;
- Tracking behaviour improves. I don't need to be fingerprinted across domains. Track me through your own site by all means, but no further.
- 3rd party networks become responsible for the content they serve. If your network serves up malware or a cryptocurrency generator script, you get penalised heavily or just dropped entirely.
- General behaviour improves. This hair-swiping trick, pop-unders, auto-playing videos, in-text mouseovers, active-content popups demanding email addresses, tiny X's that are impossible to click without activating the ad content... No. That stops.
- Forbes. Making your entire site rely on scripts from third parties to require enabling a slew of random site's JS is not the answer. Making your ads less obnoxious is.
Is it ppc? The company is paying for visitors not interested in their product? This does not make sense, it is not "growth hacking", it is a "creative person trying to be clever at the expense of advertiser's money"
I don't understand why Instagram would ban the company from ever advertising again. To be honest, if I was the one that got tricked, all I would think of is how awesomely they tricked me.
Maybe because they finally realized that advertising (on the internet) has gone too far in their ridiculous hunt to steal attention driving people to Ad-Blockers?
A bit silly really, but I suppose it has increased their profile somewhat, including this article. Though I bet their conversion rates are dreadfully low as there is little or no intent from the user.
Just to give some context for people not familiar with the Chinese Internet, it is a pretty popular and well known trick on Chinese social media and chat apps.
So the company might not have realized how foreign the concept is outside China.
I doubt there are any studies, but I reckon people are more likely to swipe it to the closest edge, with the swipe direction perpendicular to the strand.
You might be able to do even better when it comes to tinder. You could change the color, length and texture of the hair based on your personal preference. People with hair similar to the hair in the picture are probably more likely to fall for it, since most hair that falls on your screen is your own.
I'd imagine you should put the hair near the right edge, so people would swipe right since it's the smallest moving distance. Consider how one might hold a phone and the "area of easiest access" for one- and two-handed holding.
[+] [-] Disruptive_Dave|8 years ago|reply
In my early PPC days I had to learn that lesson in real time. Creating interest in clicking an ad does not equal campaign success. Maybe this company was doing this for buzz/PR. Maybe they needed to learn the same lessons I did. Maybe they are simply playing the numbers game.
[+] [-] tyfon|8 years ago|reply
It's ridiculous.
Some of us just don't want to click or _see_ ads but somehow marketing departments seem to think that "if we can get 2 seconds of you, you will be buying everything we sell"..
The marketing department in my company was flabbergasted when I told them I actively avoid products I see in ads, although I am not that exposed anymore.. Mostly public billboards and the like.
[+] [-] letsgetphysITal|8 years ago|reply
Get off the internet and stop leeching content. If you're not paying for it, you get to see ads.
Having said that, I run a PiHole and uMatrix. I'll stop when;
- Tracking behaviour improves. I don't need to be fingerprinted across domains. Track me through your own site by all means, but no further.
- 3rd party networks become responsible for the content they serve. If your network serves up malware or a cryptocurrency generator script, you get penalised heavily or just dropped entirely.
- General behaviour improves. This hair-swiping trick, pop-unders, auto-playing videos, in-text mouseovers, active-content popups demanding email addresses, tiny X's that are impossible to click without activating the ad content... No. That stops.
- Forbes. Making your entire site rely on scripts from third parties to require enabling a slew of random site's JS is not the answer. Making your ads less obnoxious is.
[+] [-] soneca|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] otp124|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Philomath|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tallanvor|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aluhut|8 years ago|reply
No, that would be crazy.
[+] [-] binaryapparatus|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eru|8 years ago|reply
I think similar tricks have been played before.
[+] [-] osrec|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rajadigopula|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krisives|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paradite|8 years ago|reply
So the company might not have realized how foreign the concept is outside China.
[+] [-] midgetjones|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martin-adams|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewingram|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lancebeet|8 years ago|reply
You might be able to do even better when it comes to tinder. You could change the color, length and texture of the hair based on your personal preference. People with hair similar to the hair in the picture are probably more likely to fall for it, since most hair that falls on your screen is your own.
[+] [-] vortico|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nasredin|8 years ago|reply
*My numbers may be off.
[+] [-] dustinmoris|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] randyrand|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamix|8 years ago|reply