If you live in the Atlanta area you may very well be aware of the changes that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has made not only to their Website ( ajc.com ) but to their Sunday paper as well. It’s no secret that the newspaper industry is hurting – a business model almost 100% dependent on advertising is just not a good model these days. As advertising and human behavior on the Internet is evolving – publisher’s are being left in the dust.
The AJC is my local paper, and they’ve done a fairly decent job redesigning their site with a new Web 2.0 look and feel, as well as some social network functionality. Definitely some nice steps in the right direction. However, where they’ve gone a little crazy is with the new advertising units on the site. The most noticeable advertising feature on the new site is a giant expandable ad that greets you immediately upon visiting the site. It takes up nearly 80% of the page on my screen. Sometimes it rolls up after a few seconds, and sometimes you have to click to close it or scroll down to see the site’s news content (it seems to depend on the advertiser). This ad, while very obtrusive, is not something to scream over by itself. Many sites have integrated units like this – they are usually very expensive sponsorships.
However, this ad combined with the AJC’s newest addition of a background ad unit is just down right annoying. A background unit is when the publisher allows an advertiser to take over the Website’s background image – usually adding a very large advertising image to the top, left and right side of the site’s content. Ad networks like AdCamo have even made a business out of automating the process. On AJC.com, today’s sponsor is Publix, a local grocery store. Combined with the expandable ad unit and the background ad unit, the Publix ads almost dominate 50% of the total page’s real estate. “Above the fold” they clearly dominate at least 80% of the real estate. I came to the site looking for news – which they are making me dig for now. In reality the site is so hard to look at right now that I went elsewhere for news. It physically is straining my eyes.
This type of advertising dominance was made popular by MySpace – the site that is also very well known for poor design and usability. I would not be surprised if the AJC suddenly changes their logo to appear in sparkly glitter text.
Now don’t get me wrong – these ads no doubt bring in a ton of money for the failing newspaper, but really at what cost? They lost me today, and who knows who else. I’d be interested to see the bounce rate reports during one of these ad campaigns.
What are your thoughts? What could newspaper sites do to integrate more creative advertising units that don’t annoy their visitors?
