Earlier today i read an article titled Scylla & Charybdis by Giovanni Calabro on uxmag.com. If you subscribe to my bookmarks, this link has probably already gotten you attention. The article is about online advertising vs content and user experience. On the last page the Giovanni Calabro says, i quote:

Even though you’ve seen a few examples of advertisements I still have not answered what the perfect advertising placement is.

I believe that the current model executed online (standard formated advertising mixed with content on basically every page) is wrong. “The perfect advertising placement” doesn’t exist since content and advertising fights over the same piece of the pie; attention of the user.

The current format used online reminds me of product placement in movies or ads placed around a football field, and the “problem” with the current format is that the audience doesn’t spend enough time looking at the ads around the field compared to the ongoing game. Imagine if a TV show ran ads on the left-hand side of the screen throughout the show.

Online advertising should have it’s time and place. Similar to TV and newspapers. Or, maybe, adapting the same format that football (and other sports) has adopted, by having sponsors.

I don’t know, but, the current format surely isn’t right.

Like Al Gore said,

Trust me on this. If audiences had an unlimited attention span, I’d be in my second term as President.

Here’s the article url:
http://www.uxmag.com/features/313/scylla-charybdis