OK, so the last one was made up, but it is still important, although not necessarily for interactive advertising.
Thanks to our friends at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, like Moses with his tablets of stone, we now have the golden mantra for successful online advertising. Sounds simple, doesn't it? And obvious - which is where the problem lies.
The IAB faces the accusation of stating the bleedin' obvious, particularly from those in the know and who feel their online advertising and ideas work very well, thank you very much.
But if the obvious is so bleedin' obvious, why does the industry continually face complaints about the standards of banner advertising and creativity?
And elsewhere, why is there still a feeling of deja vu as some companies flirt with mistakes and ideas that many have discredited? For instance, a company that has just secured a tidy £20 million in additional funding, offers one-hour delivery, and a strange name that is basically a fruit with the front lobbed off. Of course, it's not Ple or Nge, but Ocado (see Editorial, p15).
One of the more obvious points to be made about digital media, although for argument's sake it'll get repeated here, is that not only are newcomers encouraged to use the medium by its lower barriers to entry, but more and more people are getting involved every day. The obvious may not seem so obvious in that context.
And rules are rules - and, within reason, are there to be bent and broken.
An interactive medium encourages that above all, and there's the rub: while no one should be trampling on experimentation, plenty of advertisers still file online advertising in the folder marked trial and error.
And it is not just advertising - online businesses still get treated far too often as a nice experiment.
So anything that aims to clarify that and help them on the first rung of the ladder should be encouraged. They might not be the right rules.
They might change. But they might help someone. Isn't that obvious?
_1.jpg)
.jpg)
