February 2, 2011
What's Wrong with This Picture?
Pay Per Click advertising uses cues from search and page content to display “relevant” advertisements. So it’s understandable that it’s not always spot ON. While I accept that, I’d say this is a little more than Spot Off:
A picture of anorexic Portia De Rossi, in an article about anorexia, with an overlay Gilt Group PPC ad asking me if I want to “get the look.” Um, no so much thanks.
Gilt Groupe signed up for a PPC service and presumably knew their ads would go out (somewhat) randomly on a content network-- but I kinda doubt they signed on to sell me anorexia. I am left wondering how closely we should monitor each marketing avenue. At which point are we micro-monitoring and wasting labor, vs. remaining carefully in control of the brand.
And- while being present with a target audience in a consistent fashion is the driving reason to employ multiple types of Internet marketing, we may be seeing a tipping point here: Too much, too blind, too gunshot. And all too often, inappropriate.
Spending dollars in many pots doesn’t a strong brand or connection make. I challenge those brand managers out there to think about the true cost of those impressions.
Sarah Szilagyi is elevator's director of strategy and client services.
