Would you like to make a full time income from your blog? Download the free 30 day blogging course and start making money in just 30 days.My wife and I went to see The Dark Knight this afternoon. It was a good film. Heath Ledger was a truly iconic Joker and every bit the diabolical menace that real comic book fans had hoped for. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait until the DVD release before we find out how the film ends.
Roughly two hours into the film, after having glanced at our watches maybe a dozen times, we walked out.
After having endured a full thirty minutes of advertising before the film even started, including some mind numbing footage of the mono syllabic Vin Diesel, we literally had better and more important things to do than sit in one place for, potentially, over three hours.
Despite being very enjoyable, if a little obvious in places, the film was too long, as most reviewers agree, but it was the advertisements that ruined the so called cinematic experience. Once the two hour mark had been reached we found ourselves angry, not at the length of the film, but at the fact that it had started half an hour after it could have done.
Advertising only works when it is complimentary and unobtrusive. Blog advertising is no different.
If surfers have to scroll through a field of adverts before reaching your content they will leave. Maybe not immediately, maybe not even for a few days if your content is really good enough to bring them back, but they will eventually click away and not return.
The Dark Knight is a great example of good content. It only took heavy handed advertising to my wife and I walk out. And we were not the only ones.
If advertising can make people get up and walk away from an enjoyable film, long after the advertising has stopped, think how easily ham fisted half page banners and those ridiculous peel away scripts can send surfers running.
Don’t risk it. Keep your advertising clean and discrete. You’ll keep your readers and your bank manager happy.
Ashley, I agree with you completely. I have yet to see DN simply because of my lack of patience for the 2 hour line ups during premier week, but no matter the film I always dread the advertising, cheesy music, and irrelevant celebrity trivia.
There is no mercy when it comes to major broadcast advertising - whether television, movies, dvds etc.- it’s just too much.
The last thing we want to do as bloggers, affiliate marketers or seo consultants is to bombard our traffic with flashy, in your face, seizure-inducing ad blocks - it simply does not work. Some might argue this point, but I believe content is king, and with great content there is no need for flashy ads.
Like this site for example!
Cheers.
I don’t know why people walk out of movies. You paid for the movie and you could have checked the time limit prior to buying the ticket. It’s stated in the movie times that it starts at one time and ends 3 hours later. such is the same with blogs. I understand that I’m getting free content. Bloggers have to get paid somehow. Someone has to pay for the bandwidth and hosting.
That’s a shame you didn’t get to see the ending. But plot really wasn’t the most important part of the movie anyway: it was Heath Ledger. As long as you got to see him as the Joker, you didn’t miss much.
Peel ads suck. They intrude the webpage and can actually inhibit functions of it. There’s a link that’s just next to the peel that I want to click, but guess what? I can’t access it!