I have been wondering over the last few months what spurs people on through the great media channel in nowhere land. I thought therefore that I would bring these thoughts to the table. Let me give you a little background, my first role in the computer/internet world was so be a sales executive for an online advertising network. That was 3 years ago, I'm now a senior account manager. However I have been building computers and playing around with the web for a good 9 years or so. Now I have a massive in-depth knowledge of where to run campaigns profitably and efficiently. Also how to build traffic freely and effectively however one thing bothers me, I don't ever seem to be on top of it all at my work level. When my blue-chip clients rang me up recently because they are appearing next to a 'certain group' on a certain relatively new massively growing UGC site I wasn't prepared for it, in fact as a company we weren't prepared for it. I wonder why it didn't dawn on me sooner that the brand image of clients could be damaged through official political parties, afterall they have a say and they are legal. Where should the law lie, what clients are we dealing with here in terms of the ones that pull, and the ones that don't? When you walk past an outdoor advertising hording (say Chrysler for example) in a bad mood after a mugger has stolen your shoes in the rain, do you look at the hording and the brand on it suddenly becomes responsible for all of the muggings in the world, does the client jump on your complaint and pull all advertising from hordings in certain places because of it's locality to potential muggings, or do you just keep walking down the wet road on your bare feet hopelessly late for work wondering when you'll be able to buy your next Chrysler? Of course the above is metaphorical, if it's happened to you I'm truely sorry for dredging up the memories, please do feedback however, did you complain? Where should publishers stand on these issues? Is it the sites fault, the networks for not monitoring it closely enough and not removing the site in total from the network offering, or is it the clients for attempting to become modern and take on free speach, yet not like what we talk/think about behind closed doors? I would like to know the thoughts from everyone, but please do mention if you happen to be a webmaster on a network, or offering branded sales, or work through affiliate companies etc etc. I love the online world, and I love being able to provide cheap campaigns with massive effectiveness as opposed to the more expensive branding campaigns where obviously I would see the reasoning for disliking the placement of that site, but when dealing with networks surely the clients should realise they are potentially advertising on 000's of sites, while policing actively goes on things like the above example fall into 'safe' sites. Where does "questionable content" start and "politically incorrect" finish? I'd love to hear from other network reps also if they're around on here.
Name of the game these days is either start first or make a loud splash. With the growing number of people who connect to the internet, I don't think there is any "questionable content" anymore. If you write something, chances are someone out there will not only like it but also shares the same mentality as you do. One (company) needs to evolve as the technology around them evloves instead of bitching about why they aren't the one who is ahead of the game.
I wholeheartedly agree, within the online world it seems everyone copies everyone else, then you have certain companies who have looked at the issue, changed the way we as users would think about it and make it easier, yet everyone else is stuck on copying it instead of progressing forward, We could maybe be at web 4.0 by now if everyone who wanted to make a buck or too progressed forwards.
As a followup to this and hopefully to build some more response, at the end of the day surely it's the webmasters who always do and will win in terms of advertising revenue. If that website is represented by a network or agency then it's them who get the blame to pass on to the site, probably in a watered down way if the performance to DR achievement puts the site into a clients goodbooks....