Has it been troubling you? Today's the last day, so if you don't want to see it anymore, you have only to wait a few hours. By the same token, this is your last chance to click through. It's not about sex, you know. It's about the welfare of chickens. (Image from the ad preserved here.)
Anyway, the click-through rate on that ad is so much higher than on any other ad I've run, it's pretty funny. It definitely got your attention. You know you ignore most of the ads.
August 22, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
44 comments:
(the other kev)
I never click any of PETA's ads, so it doesn't really bother me. But it does make me a little leary about someone walking past my desk at work, so I'm glad it's leaving.
I thought the ad had a certain grotesque draw to it. The overly fleshy, surgically changed Pam Anderson was really no different than seeing pictures of a plane crash or a terrorist blast with bodies strewn about.
The old "you don't want to look and find out what's going on, but you gotta!" media trick..
I hadn't even noticed until you mentioned it.
I'm able to maintain cruel neutrality on the issue by using a Firefox browser with ABP Adblock Plus.
Is that an extra arm coming out of her abdomen? Man someone really screwed of her last augmentation surgery!
I've never clicked that ad...Pam Anderson...whatever.
I'm with the other kev. Not that I expect you to bypass cash in order to accommodate people who want to read your blog from work. But it did strike me as funny when you warned us a few days ago that some other site was NSFW. Maybe if the situation comes up again you could warn us and see if we want to pool our money to outbid the advertiser for the spot. Win-win.
I voted yes, you should've rejected it.
Just because it was NSFW, and just plain bizarre to boot.
But you know, it's hard to argue with greenbacks, so if that helped you to enjoy your LA trip a little more, good.
Cheers,
Victoria
Should I have rejected that ad?
No! No! No! No! No! Wrong question! Did I make enough coin off of that ad to make it worth it? That's the question.
I made $450 having it there for a month.
If I had thought I might actually get to see a nekkid woman I might have clicked on it. Too obvious, though.
I certainly didn't mind it, but I've spent way too much time trying to figure out where that other arm is coming from. Seriously, could someone explain what's going on there?
I made $450 having it there for a month.
Which doesn't necessarily make it a good performer. Not that I'm asking. In fact, I'm really not (not my business and I don't want it to be). Just sayin'. Numbers in a vacuum are just figures on a page. So to speak.
Ann Althouse said...
I made $450 having it there for a month.
Question answered.
It doesn't bother me, but I will tell you that I was quite embarrassed when I was visiting my brother at his home half a continent away. We were talking about something that I had seen on your website and I went to find the link you had included. His 6 year old daughter was standing beside me at the computer and said, "oh, that's gross" referring to the ad in question.
I told her, yes it was and please don't look at it. I had seen it before, but I had forgotten it was there. It really isn't very family appropriate but I don't much think of your website as being visually rated R -- or at least unsuitable for 6 year old girls.
I voted yes to reject, but I'm thrilled to hear you made $450!
Just yesterday I was going looking for a place in your comments to complain about that ad. Instead, I made some other drunken remark.
Sooo delighted to hear it goes away tonight..! (I'm celebrating with another drink right now!) I thought I'd have to live with it until the end of August.
You know, Pam Anderson's normally hot, but that picture's just garish.
Skyler, that was very well put, and I really do care about that, but when I made the call, I was influenced by the fact that it was a humorous come-on for something that wasn't about sex. I also like Pam Anderson and think she is a kind, decent person who cares about her animal welfare cause. And never rejecting an ad has been an easy policy to have, especially when so many of the ads are about various causes.
Oh please there is nothing wrong with it. Making a few bucks off it is good old fashioned capitalism.
Also, who doesn't like to look at a great set of knockers?
a great set of knockers
Knockers??!
That's a breast?
I thought Pam Anderson was revealing some sort of conjoined twin she had secreted away, a grotesque creature, like Kuato in Total Recall.
"Open your mind.
Open your mind.
Open your mind.
Open your mind.
Oohhpehhhn yourrrr miiiiihhhhnnnnd."
I vote for not rejecting ads; I like the actual neutrality of that practice.
I was embarrassed a few times with this one, as I've called up the site while at work. But I coped by deciding the principle at work is the right one and I should be comfortable with it in practice.
Of course, my horndog office mate came running over to see why there were boobs on my computer screen.
The Real Titus would NEVER say knockers. It's TITS. Tits, I tell you!
I voted "no," (don't reject), but you should charge more for ads that are disturbing (because of harm to your site) and/or unusually effective (because they should be willing to pay more if they are getting more).
Ann, I certainly wouldn't suggest you should pass up $450. I just wish I had remembered it before my niece sidled up to watch me.
The only problem I had this ad was the third arm. But I think soft-core porn is pretty swell so maybe I am not the best judge.
Ann, I certainly wouldn't suggest you should pass up $450
Oh is it $450? That's a bit low for Ann's traffic stats.
For the record: If I were to worry about ads on blogs, and other internet incarnations, I'd have no time to do anything else. So. No worries.
Also, Pamela Anderson is OK by me. My comment was a joke about financial figures being thrown out and potential reactions to the amount of money involved, when as always the impact and value of the money involved is strictly contextual. Without context, external judgments of value or impact are relatively useless, and profoundly open to reactions based on projections. Therefore, say I and for myself, best not to go there. No impugning of Ms. Anderson intended.
Hey, Althouse, if you are feeling bad, maybe you can go to KFC later.
The only ad I ever objected to on Althouse was the one featuring the scrotal-looking Don Imus.
It made me less likely to look at your blog while at work, but that's probably a good thing.
$450 ain't chicken feed, leave it up until you find something better.
I miss her already.
I wondered if there was a choice of where the ad was placed on your blog.
After the first time I saw it, I never opened your blog again at work because it was hard to miss. The policy there is ZERO tolerance regardless of any principle that is supposedly involved.
Incidentally, I agree with you about Anderson although I don't agree with her about her activism. She reminds me of Rush Limbaugh (there's visual image). Both are fully aware of the image that they have created and deliberately use it to their advantage. I believe that both have a certain moral code that they live by, but it isn't the same one that many people assume that it is. Rush is not nearly the prude that some like to assume that he is and Anderson strikes me as a good (and quite possibly, strict) Mom.
I'm having trouble with your blog. After I open the comments and then go back to the blog, I'm directed to the top of the blog and not where I had been. Then I have to scroll down. Also trying to post a comment takes a long time. This time it took so long that I had to click refresh.
"Which doesn't necessarily make it a good performer..."
I'm not paid by the click-through. I'm paid by the month or week. I set the prices, so $450 has nothing to do with the "performance" of the particular ad. It's purely about supply and demand. If I had more takers, I would raise the price again.
Notice that I don't have Adsense ads. They don't make enough to be worth the clutter.
"I also like Pam Anderson and think she is a kind, decent person who cares about her animal welfare cause."
Me too. She's not someone I would have expected to like as much as I do. But it always makes me happy to stumble upon kindness where I wouldn't necessarily expect to find it. Thanks for pointing that out.
"Me too. She's not someone I would have expected to like as much as I do."
I've seen her interviewed on Howard Stern (on HowardTV) and really liked her. Her father was on with her, and he seemed like a good person too.
Well, did it affect your overall traffic for the month?
A lot of people say they didn't want to click from work, and since people seem to read blogs from work a LOT, I could see that having a negative impact.
Of course, now that I think about it, you couldn't really know for sure. Your traffic might go up and down (or stay the same) in any month due to a number of causes.
A better poll question might be: "Did the ad cause you to visit Althouse less?"
Hey!
And TitusStagLeap--did you see Bottle Shock?
Whoa--the ad cane up again just after commenting on this...
...Must still be in my cache.
Regarding Pamela Anderson's third arm: Pamela and some other women stripped off in a UK shop window a couple of years ago, behind a banner that said they'd rather be nude than wear fur. The third arm belongs to a woman standing next to Pam. Pamela was the most naked, btw.
Well, I chose not to link to a couple of articles I really liked that you had written because I couldn't send my readers to a site with that ad on it.
As for the logic that "if it pays well enough," there's an old proverb:
A guy stops to talk to a beautiful woman standing alone by a bus stop. "Hello, I must say, you are about the most beautiful women I have ever met."
"Thank you very much, replied the women."
The guy quickly follows up, "I was wondering if you'd sleep with me for a million dollars?"
"A million dollars!" the girl responds. She thinks for a moment and answers, "Yes, I would sleep with you for a million dollars."
"How about five bucks," responds the guy. "Five Bucks!, What kind of woman do you think I am?"
"We've already determined that," he replies. "Now we are just haggling over the price".
Seriously, what's worse: me having that ad or you retelling the oldest joke in the world?
Seriously, what's worse: me having that ad or you retelling the oldest joke in the world?
lol
Is that Pamela-Anderson-ad fallout?
Is it the "oldest joke in the world" because it's about the "oldest profession in the world".
And how did it get that name, anyway? Wouldn't the oldest profession be farming?
In any case, I meant to sum up in a clever way the argument that "it was worth it if it made $X.XX" was a silly argument.
If it was ethical for you, then you should feel no guilt. If it felt wrong for you, you probably shouldn't do another one. No amount of money will change what you feel about the ad, or showing the ad.
And my comment stands-- I chose to stay in my feed reader for the most part, and I couldn't link to your great posts on different topics over the past month.
Post a Comment