Internet ads you must watch
NineCo Inc., of Boston, joined the ranks of companies offering television-style "interstitial" advertisements Monday, saying it will target its game-show audiences with two-minute commercials chock full of audio and video.
The strategy of forcing users to watch television-style ads has cropped up here and there on the Net, notably in the online game-show "You Don't Know Jack," from Berkeley Systems, but the vote is out on how successful or appropriate the method is.
For example, a recent study by Yankee Group discovered that most users find pop-up ads irksome: 44 percent responded they were "very bothered" by the ads, compared with only 20 percent for junk e-mail.
"In terms of being an intrusive medium, people view it that way, but for the right type of pitch it could work," noted group director Joe Bartlett of Yankee Group. He pointed out that America Online's popup ads are significantly more successful than the service's regular shopping channels.
Many sites won't touch interstitials for fear of driving off traffic.
"The drawback to using this concept on the Internet [as opposed to broadcast] is that with a click of the mouse the user can be gone," said analyst Tom Huskerson with Zona Research. NineCo's environment may be more conducive to full-screen ads, however. The 1.2 million registered users of Gamesville.com, nineCo's (cq) game-show site, will see two-minute ads after each eight-minute gaming session. NineCo says users typically stay online for just over 30 minutes, or three gaming sessions.
"If the person goes to get a glass of water for the first intermission, we have two more intermissions they can watch," said Mark Herrmann, (cq) nineCo's director of sales and marketing.
Internet naturals
For now the ads will simply display clients' Web sites, but next week will see the premiere of audio/visual-intensive ads, Herrmann said.
Not every site can use interstitials, but where they're appropriate, analysts say the ads can tap into the unique advertising advantages of the Internet, combining the advantages of television with the specificity of direct marketing.
"Online is an environment where brand advertising and direct marketing practices will co-exist in a symbiotic relationship unique to the medium," wrote analysts Marc Johnson and Evan Neufeld in a recent Jupiter Communications advertising study.
NineCo is hoping to achieve that symbiosis by combining a detailed database of users with an environment that encourages passive consumption of advertising messages.
"These are full-screen ads, targeted on a one-to-one basis," Herrmann said. "Everyone sees the ads at the same time, but you'll see a different ad depending on whether you're male or female, or old or young, or live in Iowa or California."
No escape
And unlike other sites trying out interstitials, Gamesville.com's programming runs on a set schedule, so there's no way of getting around the advertising, except to come back later -- or sit and watch.
Besides Berkeley Systems, a startup called Internet Commercial Systems Inc. recently signed on Sony Pictures Entertainment to test-launch its interstitial ad software on the Comedy Central Web site.