Day: 20 March 2005

Cabinet War Rooms

I’d recommend the place to anybody looking for an interesting day out in London.

I hadn’t been to the Cabinet War Room for a number of years, so today’s visit was a great chance to remind myself how wonderful they are. The Rooms are really well done, and the audio guide brings some of the exhibits to life. The new Churchill Museum is also open now, and that’s got some really interesting interactive exhibits to follow Churchill’s life (concentrating, of course, on his years as War Prime Minister). I’d recommend the place to anybody looking for an interesting day out in London.

Online Advertising is a Nuisance

43% of users think that online advertising is a nuisance. But will they pay for content? Isn’t that the question?

According to MSNBC earlier this week, 43% of users think that online advertising is a nuisance, and, in another survey, 53% respondents said online clutter was a problem – both via Marketing Fix.

Of course, consumers do not like advertising. Nobody likes being advertised at, just as everybody believes that they are not swayed by advertising (but they know people who are!). Is this a big deal? Well, of course, no advertiser wants to believe their advertisement gets in the way, and no advertiser wants to annoy users to the extent that they are turned off the product by the commercials. Yet, as noted in many places, TV advertising is the most intrusive advertising – the programme physically stops so they can show you an advertisement. So, why does online advertising come in for such a hard time?

Badly designed advertising can be a nuisance, but I think advertising isn’t generally too much of a problem. What I am interested in is the concept of clutter. So many sites these days surround you with advertisements. Banners at the top, buttons down the left, a skyscraper on the right and some kind of rich-media thing walking across the middle. There’s a very large portal that does this kind of thing all the time. They’re making money, but it’s very frustrating.

I’m sure cleverly designed advertising in the right place works – in all media. The online challenge is to make it work and make it profitable, at least profitable enough to pay for the sites we like.