In a down advertising market, a game maker has decided to absolutely flood the available online ad space with the image shown to the right. For some reason, my ad block software seems to fail on this particular set of ads, so I see it all the time and I’m sick of them. So my plea is, please don’t play the game, or better yet, do play the game and kill Evony!
It’s interesting, yesterday I sat in a marketing meeting and there was a discussion about advertising and one of the key execs in charge relayed a story that when he goes to parties and people ask what he does. He replies advertising and they move away to talk to other people. His view is that this is the opposite of what he’d like to see happen (he’s one of these forward thinking, advocacy-based authentic voice advertisers based upon tangible benefits communicated by others on behalf of the company.)
My view is that the most scarce resource we deal with is attention. Since the attention span is shrinking dramatically and since there is much more competition for that scarce resource, advertisers are taking a more brute force approach as a general rule to “take” attention rather than the more effective and subtle approach advocated by the advertising exec in the meeting yesterday. The question is, how can an organization effectively communicate its message without alienating the population? That’s a question worth answering.
[…] It’s Not Just for Breakfast 2009 June 11 tags: strategy by Jim Fister Good post by Mike over at Musings, on the dangers of saturation advertising, and advertising in general. …the most scarce […]
On a related note, I remember back when _Building_the_Perfect_Beast_ by Don Henly came out in the ’60s or whenever it was… I hated hearing “Boys of Summer” endlessly on the radio. Three years later, I finally listened to the album, and I really liked it. Saturation in any form is bad.
Great point about music, it works that way too. I find I listen to so little radio that the issue doesn’t come up anymore in that medium.
Evony will self destruct. There is already dissention in the top ranks because the developers keep mucking with the attacking algorithms.
Theres not much end game content, so hopefully it should be short lived.
Unfortunately UMGE, the developers of Evony, were also the ones that flooded the advertising world with World of Warcraft gold ads. They’re just up to their old tricks again.
ur just pathetic,becuz an add annoys u u want the game to die?
Theres THOUSANDS of adds wich i find ridiculous and sometimes just plain stupid,
then u tell us u work as an advertizer,so basically i could kill u to have less ads? this post is just full off stupidity and if i wanst bored out of my brain i wouldnt even take the time to reply on it XD
I am flabbergasted by the ridiculousness of Evony’s tactics. Its so shameless and transparent but evidently, its working well enough if you look at alexa numbers and general users…. sigh, we’re gonna have little hope when the aliens turn up.
Here’s my blog post on the subject if anyone is interested in another laugh at their expense…
http://machetesquadhq.com/2009/11/15/shameless-advertising-evony-pulls-the-titties-card/
I’m trying to get this software off the patient computer at NRGH. I thought I got it yesterday, but it’s back. Can you load me some software on my gmail site to narc it in, please.
Hair ornament
This is really pathetic. You sound like an over-protective parent not wanting his/her kid to see erotic ads and the such on the internet. What do you expect? The internet is filled to the brim with all of this crap. If you don’t want to see it, don’t go to any of the sites that show it. If your too stubborn to do so, complain to the site and make them take it off, not make personal comments like this and hide in the dark.
All the Evony is trying to do is get more players like all other online RPGs and MMOs. They’re just aiming it at a different audience. Yes, I’m talking about sexually active teenagers and any above that feel that this ad is interesting.
But, really, if you join Evony and actually play the game, you’ll see that the ladies in the Ads have no part in the game. It’s about building empires. Live with it.
-Monty
Monty, You’re assuming this is a morality objection, it’s not. Read the entries in the blog. It’s a carpet bombing objection as if the Evony folks were the only ones to advertise during this time.