Adweek published a story today entitled “Out-of-Context Ads Prove Effective” In this article it says:
“Yahoo! and MediaVest recently studied a group of consumers passionate about a particular subject area. Product ads displayed out of context had roughly the same impact on brand preference as identical placements shown next to related content.“
then it’s followed up with this:
“Yahoo! asked self-identified food lovers to rate various brands, including the single-serve gourmet coffee product Tassimo. Brand affinity increased 26 percent among those shown the ad on a Yahoo! Food page, and 21 percent among those shown the same ad on a Yahoo! News page.“
Your kidding me right? Based on this study I know there are going to be people who totally adjust their thinking on contextual ads. You mean to tell me because a group of people told Yahoo! that they liked food and because “brand affinity” increased 21% among those individuals on a News page; that contextual advertising aligned with similar content isn’t the most effective?
Now there’s plenty of cases where contextual ads when placed with content that is simliar is totally inaffective but there’s no way I believe that out of context ads are nearly as effective. In all my experiences thus far CTR as well as the quality of visitors have been higher when matching ads with related content.
I also want to add that behavior targetting is something I find very intriging and I know that Yahoo is dabling in this as well. But from what I saw with this story, this isn’t behavior targetting this was just a simple case of ads being displayed out of context.
