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Dodgy Ad Banners

Started by alan nagsworth, February 27, 2008, 02:18:11 PM

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alan nagsworth

They're everywhere. A few shit images strung together into one low-res flashing monstrosity. There are extreme examples, and also some low-key subtleties that strike gold. Here's one:


Why is the woman at that awkward angle? The guy in the foreground looks more confused than contented. And that berk in the background doesn't even look like he knows what he's doing! "So they gave me 50p and said I'd be on the telly!"

mothman

Looks like a cast publicity shot for a gritty new BBC police drama, inadvertently starring a shaven-headed Steven Merchant.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

After deciding no-one in the office had time to design a banner for yell we decided to outsource to someone who advertised as being quite good at doing this sort of thing.

and back came this pile of shit:



the response:

QuoteHi, ******,

I have chosen to be absolutely honest in my response to the banners in order to give the impression of the standard of work we expect.

Firstly, I should specify that we would like an animated banner advert. Anyway, neither Andrew nor I like the design of that very much. It does not match the style of the website in any way.

-We are not called AW Immigration, we are ************.

-The gradient background doesn't work and looks bad- the website address is dark blue on a dark blue background?! Tip- gradients mainly don't work and are a throwback from the late nineties.

-the web address is wrong (our address is *************) and no thought has been taken to its positioning or the size

-The icon looks too much like clipart and doesn't send out the right message anyway (faceless figures standing in front of the globe as if they are blocking it- we aim to do the exact opposite!).

-This is an internet banner for yell.com- advertising our Website. It should be saying "click here". It should be trying to get people to click on it. This key feature seems to be non-existent in the design.


So this design in no respect reflects what we want. Look at the design and ask yourself seriously whether it represents: "Professional web content that promotes your business". To me it looks unprofessional and would actually detract from the business. I should add I have quite a clear idea of the standards we should expect after seeing the work produced from my university course. We wish to come across to customers as modern and professional.

Given the multitude of issues with the banner I am effectively asking you to start from the beginning.

Also- I don't see what copying our email signature picture and then trying to claim it as your own work constitutes. If we wanted to have that as our yell.com banner then we would've done it ourselves.

We're looking for something that is clear and professional and bears some relation to our website. Please produce some designs that achieve this.

With the limit of the file size being 13K the options for animation are limited. Search on yell.com and you can see other companies who have managed. Bearing in mind the limitations, the designs and graphics should be quite minimal- but with the emphasis on quality and professionalism. (So not the banner you designed and not our current email signature either).

See what you can come up with. If it isn't good enough we will be looking elsewhere.

Cheers,

[me]


Suttonpubcrawl

You don't come off very well in that email Shoulders. I'm effectively asking you to start from the beginning and produce a version of that email which doesn't make you seem like a tosser.

Seriously, the banner ad is indeed shit but you seem so smug in that email that it makes me want to look at it and think "hmm, it's not that bad", hard though that would be.

olafr

Shoulders, you really should choose a better password for your email account.

You were right though, your hectoring paid off!


mothman

Yarr, 'tis a thing o' beauty.

olafr

Quote from: mothman on March 07, 2008, 02:13:20 PM
Yarr, 'tis a thing o' beauty.

It ticks all the boxes apart from the file size, but I reckon if I redo it, but this time spell "information" as 'info', by losing some letters I should get the file size down to 13kb.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

#7
Quote from: Suttonpubcrawl on March 07, 2008, 12:40:24 AM
You don't come off very well in that email Shoulders. I'm effectively asking you to start from the beginning and produce a version of that email which doesn't make you seem like a tosser.

Seriously, the banner ad is indeed shit but you seem so smug in that email that it makes me want to look at it and think "hmm, it's not that bad", hard though that would be.

I didn't really have a choice given the man wasted our time so badly. You have to remember that this person is attempting to make money from web solutions (Ie- stuff like this which businesses too small to have IT departments need quite badly). I don't see how expecting a professional company to come up with something of equal quality is tosser-ish behaviour. If it had been done by my 6 year old nephew and I'd said that, then yeah, I agree.

My boss seemed to concur anyway:

QuoteI don't understand why he thinks we would accept that rubbish!!!!! Your email is straight to the point thanks.

Here was the attempt to 'improve' things:

http://www.webstratprojects.co.uk/AWilliams/flash.html

I mean...come on. After those I suspected he was taking the piss, but apparently he was quite serious.

The reply:

QuoteHi *****,



After inspecting the animated flash banners Andrew and I have decided that it will not be worth persevering. Both the original design and the standard of the animated flash banner fall some way short of our expectations. Given the amendments that would be needed we cannot commit to the sort of time it would inevitably take going back and forward with the amendments. This is disappointing as we only required a very simple, professional looking banner; we are not looking to re-invent the wheel here. Very clean, very clear with a small element of animation involved.



Thank you for your effort anyway. In the future I would recommend researching the sort of standard people expect with banner adverts these days, they have evolved somewhat from the efforts we have been offered. Given these adverts exist on the same website we are advertising on, why are we being offered designs of this quality? The minimum we should expect is to be on a similar standard to other banners on the site- these are some way short and unfortunately show to me that the level of competency on the software and the design ideas in the first place would impair us interminably. So we have to say thanks but no thanks, I'm afraid.



Best wishes,


I think both my criticisms could be more concise but to be so they'd also have to be slightly more insulting/humiliating.

They really do look like the first attempt at a flash banner someones ever done.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

Quote from: olafr on March 07, 2008, 08:58:16 AM
Shoulders, you really should choose a better password for your email account.

You were right though, your hectoring paid off!



:) Lovely stuff.

quadraspazzed





eluc55

What's your point? That killing children is wrong?

You'll never win that one in court, Artemis.

Dragon

Quote from: Artemis on July 06, 2008, 03:48:45 PM


To be fair, actually being dead is not, strictly speaking, suffering.