The Wall Street Journal picked up on a study by Alloy Media + Marketing that reveals kids attitudes toward advertising on “their” social networking pages. Not surprisingly, preteens and teenagers don’t like banner ads and other interruptions from marketers. But the study found that in the right circumstances kids enjoy playing with ad-related features on their personal pages in social-networking Web sites.
Rabbit widget via Brain Sells
Ad related features means widgets. “The concept [of widgets] is simple. We are not going to push something in front of your screen. We are not going to annoy you. You choose what you want to engage with,” says Chris Cunningham, vice president of advertising sales at Freewebs, a Silver Spring, Md.-based company that makes widgets for advertisers.
Widgets have “so much buzz now and every advertiser wants to do a widget,” says Marc Fireman, head of digital media for Reebok, which sponsored a widget six months ago. Widgets can include a link back to the advertiser’s Web site, which adds to their attractiveness for marketers.
The interactive, mutually beneficial nature of widgets can produce a relationship with potential consumers that is cooperative rather than intrusive or “in your face” marketing, says Jason Lee Miller of Web Pro News.
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