(Image from http://myblogs.sunderland.ac.uk/blogs/mac250/subservientChicken05.jpg)
As I browsed through the interactive ads that we had to read for class today I noticed how easily disinterested I became in certain parts of the ads. The key for any interactive ad is limit the content available, even more so than with other new media forms. This needs to be done for two reasons.
First, Americans have serious problems with maintaining their attention span for a long period time. As a society we need constant attention grabbers or we easily get distracted and bored with whatever we were doing. With interactive ads this presents a particular problem.
The goal of an ad is to sell a product. If there is too much content available people will use the content on the website and will eventually get bored. They will be done using the content and will want to find something new before they even have a chance to see what the product that’s being sold is.
If people have too much to choose from, statistically speaking the odds that they will choose to look at the product rather than the interactivity is decreased. This is not a problem if the interactive parts of the website are selling the product. However, if this interactivity is something funny, unrelated to the product, or just describing the product without actually selling it then the ad is not doing its job: to sell, sell, sell.
The second problem also stems from our limited attention span. Interactive Ads that are loaded with content take a while to load. If it takes more than 5 seconds to load I’m already bored and have left the website. It is very rare for something to be so interesting that I’m willing to wait longer than 5 seconds for it to load. Seriously, it’s like going to a hotel and being forced to use dial-up internet that’s running at 56K speed when your used to high speed internet. Bottom line here: limit the content, because if it takes too long to load I will have left the site before it even finished loading.
A great example of what worked well was subservient chicken. It was unique, and because the website had limited content it loaded quickly. Also, because the content was limited to only 4 tabs I went to the actual Burger King page much more quickly than I otherwise would have.
The Summary: Keep it basic and limit my information choices so that I have to visit what you want me to visit.
Completely agree with you that if an ad isn't selling something well then it's not doing its job.
ReplyDeleteThe whole point of making any advertisement -- interactive or not -- is to sell the viewer something.
It's just the nature of an ad.
If you're not being sold something then it should be considered a public service announcement or, for lack of a better term, art.
The Samsung "ad" didn't make me want to buy anything.
It was more about the artistic value of creating your own story, which is rather pointless.
At least if the "ad" did a better job of showing off the phone then at least it would have some kind of purpose.
Out of all the ads, Subservient Chicken was certainly the best.
Unfortunately, I've been around on the internet for a while and have seen many ads, games, and "artworks" that are similar to SC.
I didn't realize until now that they were probably mimicking SC's success and popularity.
When I got to actually type commands in to SC I've done it all before.
Oh well.
"Sell, sell, sell."