Sidebar Ads

Everyone is probably familiar with this concept in advertising. Where I found this image was on a little sidebar on an online website to play games, telling me to play their game now.

Now, whenever I see these things, they seem to fall into two main categories: either a) blatant sex appeal, getting some random scantily-clad woman who probably has nothing to do with what’s being advertised right in the front, or b) trying to make you interested by showing some cool thing about the product. Here we have the benefit of both tactics, in relation to games.

On the left, they have completely failed to peak my interest. I see some weird badly-animated gorilla fighting a tree, and I just ignore it, basically. I have no reason to click this, and so I will not look at the ad again for the rest of my time spent on the website. They have failed their purpose by spending money for screen space, and then having their ad not catch the attention of their audience.

On the right is even worse. Although I notice it, I immediately dislike it. My initial feeling is that this is either a scam, trying to get guys to click on it so that they can download a virus or make me fill out information, or it’s a really lame game which they can only advertise by trying to draw people in with animated women. Now, thinking about it, it’s probably not a scam. However, within seconds of seeing the ad, the maker can rest assured that I will not play their game, because now I have a negative connotation to the whole thing. Their attempt to distract us has backfired.

I don't know, maybe this method works on some people. It must, or it would no longer be done. But personally I find this a bad way to advertise, because mostly, it just annoys me.