Got an email through the website pointing me to this blog at ideasonideas.com that attacked an ad agency exec for being clueless about banner ads. I had to admit that if not clicking on banner ads makes one clueless, then I must be counted among the clueless as well.
But, before my sentencing …
I do an insane amount of shopping on the Web (I’d bet I go online 30-50 times a day if I’m not speechifying), so does my wife, for any damn thing-category you can name, from clothes to food to books-DVDs-song downloads to trips to used stoves, etc, etc. Moreover, her home furnishings company does 50% of its sales on the Web, and the share is growing. For me, tompeters.com, ad-free incidentally (I’ll explain if you’d like), has become my best marketing tool ever, ever, ever.
But neither my wife nor I is a banner-ad user, and I admit to harboring suspicions that Google is over-priced. I am at work on a Japanese garden at home (or will be when the weather allows, a jillion Vermont days from now). Among other things, I-we want a little bridge over a wee stream, the sort I saw a picture of somewhere, Web, mag, whatever. Now what? Susan’s and my “now what” is 100% Web, but 0% banner ad. And, indeed, God bless Google. I simply typed in the search box “build or buy little bridge to traverse narrow stream,” or some such. As I recall I had 87,000 choices, a surprise, but no surprise, given the # of words I used. Obviously, most were useless-unrelated. But after 15 minutes, and digging waaaaaaaaaaaay down beneath the top 10 or 20 (I always look for stuff deep down just to see what’s there), I had a nice starter list of perhaps 20 leads; better yet, my mind, re possibilities, had been stretched beyond recognition. Now to me (old, 65) and my wife (none of your business), that was truly wondrous—100% use of the Web, circa 2008. But not banner ads.