NY Times Needs Classier Ad Buys

You're not being snobby the ads should match the brand not only from a design perspective but from a brand reputation level as well.

One thing no one seems to have mentioned is the advertiser's perspective.

These ads and variations on them (in color/size/shape, but textually the same and with the same idea of 4 levels of credit) are extremely effective. Otherwise you wouldn't see such ads running everywhere.

Compare that to 'Powered by mosso' (What is powered by mosso? Search? Hosting? Something else? I know it's hosting, but that's not the point?) or the barely legible Thesis ad you have here. Guarantee you the ROI is higher on the credit ad.

Now if the NYT were really smart, they'd cut out the middlemen and work with the credit companies directly to place ads like these.

They probably use re-targeted advertising which places a cookie with the user. Then the ad follows them wherever the user goes, allowing them to have more exposure, for no price. This is probably an example of that, not sure if there are filtering options with it.

Agreed. Everything on the NY Times site represents the value of their content and their brand. They should be more picky about advertisers to keep the value of their brand and create exclusivity (word?) among advertisers. Win win!

weak NY times

I agree on that. But, I just don't think that they would have the resources to approve every ad. I'm pretty sure that their ads are rotated from a pool of ads in an auction-based setup.

You would think that they would try to get their print advertisers to advertise on their site, that way, they'd have a steady stream of income. I'm guessing that they tried it, but the print advertisers didn't find it to be beneficial to them.

I'm surprised that you even noticed that ad. After a few years of visiting the cookie-cutter online news sites, I have pretty much ignored the 728x90 or 468x60 ad at the top of the page.

That's a 'Remnant Campaign'.

The New York Times Company, and most online news publishers, are desperate to fill every single page of content with an ad to generate revenue.

Unfortunately remnant advertisers drive down the CPM overall, paying as little as $1 per thousand impressions.

One school of thought holds that local advertisers would be willing to pay more if the ad space was more scarce, and the thinking goes, more effective.

In the pursuit of short term profit, I wonder if these ads damage the brand overall to the point that all ads become less effective (not sure, just wondering).

A solution to the silly ad you posted is 'curating' pages so that one advertiser at a time has the chance to 'own' a page - or the entire website or entire section for an hour/day/week.

Once the easy money is there though, it's hard to turn away (Just look at what the Times is giving Carlos Slim).

Maybe a new ad model is in order? Something more custom, more compelling, like they used to do in the magazine. Make the extra creative effort!

Point taken - I'll look deeper into it, I've just sent out a query to a Y! sales rep to ask if I can set aside money for ads that will display only in these remnant overrun times, non-guaranteed but only on the homepage placements, at a CPM well below the normal rate but higher than the pennies that the ad-exchange probably pays. We'll see if they are willing to negotiate with their formerly most prized possession!

Actually, I give them credit for lowering their standards. Too often their "standards" stand in the way of interesting business experiments.

They're about to go bankrupt. They need to try everything they can. Give them credit for trying.

As someone who works in interactive media buying, I can say that it's sad to see once top tier brands running filler junk in premier spots. Last week I saw filler ads similar to the blinking one you highlighted on the homepage of Yahoo - a spot that used to cost over $500K a day to lock down. I spoke with a rep in the last few days who said even home-pages aren't being sold the same way anymore. He sells based on impressions, so even people who buy out a day won't get more than 10-15% overrun. These sites are cashing in on every impression to fill the need of revenue despite the hit to their brand.

absolutely agree. It looks ugly and maybe it's me but, I tend to take pages with those awful ads less serious.

Desperate times = desperate measures.

As reputations fall and diminish, what used to be high-profile accounts will increasingly have to make do with what they can get. Sad to say, but now many newspapers need advertisers more than advertisers need newspapers.

Funny how things change so quickly...

Unfortunately, NYT is in no condition to turn ANY ad down.

If the ad showed the NYT's credit score, it would have needed another column to the right.

I think that the ads you show on you newspaper or blog have to match with your design standards.

I do not know if this happens with others, but consciently I do no trust in ugly ads. If they deliver such a bad ad, what about their services?

That's how desperate the Gray Lady is dude.

I agree completely. It cheapens the entire perception.
Then again, I don't respect the times near their classic reputation.
But this is obvious.

In other news, funding adwords to their Twitter article for months now,
is so telling if you think it through...

Ugly ad. The marketing people of NYT sure underestimate their online brand