disappointed by stupid ad campaign

[MacGuges]

It seems like the Slim Jim Dare Sticks campaign has been going on forever, and I for one can't wait for it to end. Every time that "manbulance" driver opens his mouth about how "studies show" their product is essential to my masculinity I can't mute him fast enough. I ought to be all Zen and let his ridiculous marketing-ese roll over me, I know, I know. But this ad is so ridiculous I want to take those loud-mouthed brats aside to tell them to leave their perfectly ordinary, emotionally vulnerable "patients" alone.

I understand the magazine needs advertisers, and that you can't pick your customers, but surely I'm not the only regular Escapist visitor to be offended by this ad.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

I'm hardly "offended" by them (in fact your usage of that word makes me roll my eyes) but I am certainly tired of them. But there's not really a way to solve that problem without just getting rid of the ads and YES I KNOW ABOUT THE PUB CLUB.

 

[emeraldrafael]

I dont know if i've ever really seen a good ad on the escapist.

Now of coures Im not saying that the ads arent important or that the escapist shouldnt have them or any of that jazz, I just dont think I've ever really seen a good one.

 

[MacGuges]

I dont know if i've ever really seen a good ad on the escapist.

Perhaps that is because gaming hasn't been widely recognized as an adult lifestyle, so the advertisers haven't learned how to market to us. Or maybe it's just that most ads are dumb, and I should already be a paid subscriber so I don't have to (feel obligated to) watch them,

 

[MacGuges]

I know how you feel. I solved it by getting adblock plus. I don't know if it's only for firefox or not, but I've almost forgotten what it's like to be subjected to internet advertising since I downloaded it. Can't recommend it enough.

I've got AdBlock too, but I disable it for the Escapist. I didn't need to read about the Extra Credits debacle to understand that it's a hard world, so I'll let their ads through. I just wish this particular one didn't raise my hackles so.

We should absolutely invent time travel so that we can implement unpurchasing products from companies that have annoyed us in the future.

 

[emeraldrafael]

I dont know if i've ever really seen a good ad on the escapist.

Perhaps that is because gaming hasn't been widely recognized as an adult lifestyle, so the advertisers haven't learned how to market to us. Or maybe it's just that most ads are dumb, and I should already be a paid subscriber so I don't have to (feel obligated to) watch them,

Im not saying tehy have to be great or anything, just i dont think i've ever seen a good one. or at least not a good product advertised, but thats just my opinion.

 

[Worgen]

Slim Jims seem to have some of the most annoying ads around, the current man ones are still 100 times better then the old ones they used to show all the damn time, I still have bits and pieces of that damn ad stuck in my head, enough to make me never want to buy one of those "meat" sticks.

 

[Tselis]

Yeah, I'm a little tired of them myself. I preferred the AMD ads, because they were something new. AMD is so much more professional then Slim Jim, and more polite than NVidia. NVidia's strategy seems to be 'NVidia, or else *****!' Although, >.>, the AMD on AMD performance seems technologically naughty to me for some reason. I think that's just me though.

 

[LobsterFeng]

I had a dream about these ads last night. I'm dead serious, I've seen them so many times that I have every second memorized, and I dream about it.

 

[MrMoustaffa]

Would you rather we get all those national guard adds again? I imagine those would be much more annoying to the average person here since not very many people here are Americans. I remember there was a moment where literally every add on this site was for them. Not knocking the National Guard (since here in the US they do a lot of important jobs, especially during disasters), but after about the 5000th add, I was fairly sick of it.

The slim jim adds are just kind of repetitive. They were funny maybe the first time, but the jokes in them get old way too fast.

 

[McMullen]

I think this thread demonstrates that, instead of warning users for taking certain steps to avoid the offensively bad ads on the site, they might better spend their time finding different advertisers. Ideally, these advertisers would have a target audience that actually matches the Escapist's demographic.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I think this thread demonstrates that, instead of warning users for taking certain steps to avoid the offensively bad ads on the site, they might better spend their time finding different advertisers. Ideally, these advertisers would have a target audience that actually matches the Escapist's demographic.

Huh? I'm pretty sure The Escapist isn't going around asking companies to advertise. They ask if anyone wants to advertise on the site, and whoever pays for it gets to. It's not really down the The Escapist (within reason, I doubt they allow things like porn site to advertise) and they're not going to turn down the money, because from the sounds of things they damn well need it.

Thankfully, I have never seen a Slim Jim ad, must be a regional thing. I'm pretty sure I don;t even know what one is.

 

[Susan Arendt]

I dont know if i've ever really seen a good ad on the escapist.

Perhaps that is because gaming hasn't been widely recognized as an adult lifestyle, so the advertisers haven't learned how to market to us. Or maybe it's just that most ads are dumb, and I should already be a paid subscriber so I don't have to (feel obligated to) watch them,

Little from column A, little from column B. A large number of ad agencies think you guys are all a) dumb, and (more important, as far as they're concerned) b) poor. So they're not interested in putting ads in front of you. For other advertisers, we're small potatoes - they're looking for HUGE sites, like EW.com or something. (I'm talking about non-game related ads, of course.)

As for overall ad quality, a shockingly large number of ad agencies still don't "get" online advertising, and how to do it well.

As for finding different advertisers, though there will always be exceptions, we're not likely to turn down money from someone offering to give it to us.

 

[freakydan]

Whenever I see one of the new commercials, which I've never found all that annoying, I just think of this:


and the new commercials seem to be positively brilliant by comparison

 

[imnot]

Is the commercial you speak of on youtube, I want to see what you mean.

 

[Woodsey]

I haven't seen them. I doubt you're actually offended though.

 

[Lilani]

I dont know if i've ever really seen a good ad on the escapist.

Perhaps that is because gaming hasn't been widely recognized as an adult lifestyle, so the advertisers haven't learned how to market to us. Or maybe it's just that most ads are dumb, and I should already be a paid subscriber so I don't have to (feel obligated to) watch them,

Little from column A, little from column B. A large number of ad agencies think you guys are all a) dumb, and (more important, as far as they're concerned) b) poor. So they're not interested in putting ads in front of you. For other advertisers, we're small potatoes - they're looking for HUGE sites, like EW.com or something. (I'm talking about non-game related ads, of course.)

As for overall ad quality, a shockingly large number of ad agencies still don't "get" online advertising, and how to do it well.

I figured it was something like that. It's kind of funny as a female to observe ad campaigns on the Internet. With the Escapist it's Slim Jims and other "manly" products dedicated to the poor male college student demographic, on College Humor it's condoms and rated R movies for the fraternity and "modern" lifestyle-oriented college student, and on the big news web sites like FOX and CNN it's those Google ads that are obviously scams but the technologically illiterate don't know the difference. The only time I ever see ads anywhere CLOSE to my demographic is online women's groups or female-oriented shows (and even then it's just ads for birth control, baby supplies, or clothes).

 

[tomtom94]

Wait until Desert Bus For Hope, see if there's a repeat of the "half your PubClub fee goes to charity" promotion, if there is, join it then.

£13 for a year is not an extortionate fee in exchange for no adverts, to say nothing of the little perks.

And, to be more direct... the Escapist can't pick and choose its adverts. They take whichever company pays the most.

 

[MacGuges]

I dont know if i've ever really seen a good ad on the escapist.

Perhaps that is because gaming hasn't been widely recognized as an adult lifestyle, so the advertisers haven't learned how to market to us. Or maybe it's just that most ads are dumb, and I should already be a paid subscriber so I don't have to (feel obligated to) watch them.

Little from column A, little from column B. A large number of ad agencies think you guys are all a) dumb, and (more important, as far as they're concerned) b) poor. So they're not interested in putting ads in front of you. For other advertisers, we're small potatoes - they're looking for HUGE sites, like EW.com or something. (I'm talking about non-game related ads, of course.)

As for overall ad quality, a shockingly large number of ad agencies still don't "get" online advertising, and how to do it well.

As for finding different advertisers, though there will always be exceptions, we're not likely to turn down money from someone offering to give it to us.

I understand, but thank you much for taking the time to respond. If I weren't personally facing a layoff this month, this would be my personal subscription point. Join the Publisher's Club, skip the infuriating promotional content! Now, I could see where that might encourage the Escapist to encourage the advertisers to produce even more aggravating advertisements, but I prefer to imagine you'd be tickled pink to have such robust subscription rates you could decline ads like this,

Aside from the grim economics of web publishing, I'm gratified to hear that others have been driven batty by these ads. I'll have to agree with freakydan that the new ads are a marginal improvement over the creepy stupid "near drowning to achieve sexy lifeguard" ad, but that's not saying much. These best thing one could say about these Slim Jim advertisements is how they demonstrate that sexism hurts guys too.

 

[chaosyoshimage]

Penny-Arcade is pretty cool about ads, they only take them in for stuff they genuinely like. However, most business can't run that way.