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Why?
Monster masks.
That’s why I love advertising.
When I was a kid I used to read on old movie magazine called “Famous Monsters of Filmland.” It was chock full of horror and science fictions images – only some of which I was interested in. but I would get a copy whenever I could, and still like seeing old back issues from time to time. Why? Because of the advertising.
I loved to look at full one or two page ads of monster masks you could buy – usually for insane amounts of money at the time. Unheard of amounts (for a kid) like $60 or even $75 for the super-deluxe mask! The hours I use to wile away imagining what I might do with one of those masks. Maybe I could use an especially horrific one to strike terror in the hearts of criminals and become a superhero when I grew up. Or maybe I could make my friends believe I was really an alien by having them see me in my “true form” at a distance.
The Latest Toy Catalog
Take a yearly catalog like Sears toy catalog. It is literally nothing but ads. But they are ads aimed at what you want, and they become as welcome as any entertainment content because they represent your dreams. What you see on those colorful pages are things that you want and need – things you enjoy dreaming about getting someday.
When advertising is like that – like a wonderful looking dancing snow cone animation on a drive-in movie screen on a hot summer night – it is not only welcome, it’s fun.
The secret of good advertising is that if it is done correctly, it is basically another content channel. Go to a favorite hobby website and look at the advertisements for things to help you do your hobby better. Think about stepping into your favorite comic store as a kid, or maybe a toy store. stores are full of ads – from promotional posters to the packaging its self. It’s all drawing you in, giving you information, flooding your brain with welcome content.
Like a traveler from a distant land unpacking large trunks full of exotic gifts we come to appreciate his visits, and they conjure up dreams we’d never dreamed before. It can take us places that we’ve never been before.
Conversely….
When it is ham-handed, advertising can just be an annoyance. A waste. A pain.
The key for the advertiser, or the person presenting this new content channel, is not to sell what he or she wants to make money from but what the audience actually needs and wants.
That is the trick from their end – find what drives their customers and tap into that wellspring of passion that has their audience positively dancing the the streets at finding something new and exciting.
They it become useful. it becomes a content channel as much as anything else being presented. It becomes a service just to offer up these wonderful tidbits. It become more like a friend sharing things he loves to other friends. And there is a genuine excitement when some new toy or idea sets off a supernova of imagination.
That’s when the content channel clicks, and it’s not about crass comercialism.
It is about sharing.
It is about passion.
It is about creating a new and very different type of contenet channel.
A Content channel that makes connections.
So as I work to bring advertisements to the site to help me grow this website, I hope you will be patient and understand that it is an experiment in content. This content will not always live up to you expectations or excite and delight you. But the ultimate aim is to always be working very strongly in that direction.
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