As my outrage over awful online advertising simmers, I took a look tonight at some of the nation’s largest newspaper sites, and some that I frequent often, to see what kind of ads they’re running “above the fold.” I’m happy to report that very few of them are displaying the atrocious cookie-cutter ads I have come to despise – though one site, which shall remain nameless, has a rotating series of ads, meaning the worthless ads have been pushed off the page.
Without further ado:
USA Today features two ads for Chase, which take up a skbox and part of the right rail.
The Wall Street Journal is running an ad for MB Financial.
The New York Times features an ad for Fage Yogurt.
The Los Angeles Times: a somewhat local ad for a portrait studio, and one for Zoozag.com, which appears to be some sort of social network meets Craigslist:
The Washington Post has a skybox ad for Sprint, and in-house ads for its politics and China coverage. Interesting.
New York Daily News: Lots and lots of ads. There’s one urging you to vote, another promoting the Daily News, another for Deal of the Day, and … oh no. One for a wrinkle cream used by a Chicago mom! Noooo!
Houston Chronicle: A local energy company. Legit.
Philly.com (Inquirier and Daily News): Toro snowblowers and local property for auction.
Denver Post: The Denver Rescue Mission, Key Bank and Denver Daily Deals (which just makes it above the fold). Pretty much all local. Very nice.
Detroit Free Press: Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Michigan and Kroger.
Dallas Morning News: Hobby Lobby, Young Frankenstein and Wal-Mart.
Chicago Tribune: United Airlines
Chicago Sun-Times: Kaplan University and an ad urging readers to vote (Democrat)
Kansas City Star: Bancability.com (not totally sure what that is, but it appears to work with a network of local banks), and McDonald’s.
It’s a very unscientific look, but most of these ads aren’t specifically local. Some have a national reach, others offer readers very little. I’m glad I didn’t find these awful network ads populating the sites, but again, I did find them on the Daily News’ site, and one of these sites had one of them earlier.
That’s it. A pretty quick, non-insightful post. Maybe one of these days I’ll figure out to format pictures on my blog. Good night.
