February 7, 2008

AdCamo Offers Background Advertising: Hmmmm

Duncan Riley

28 comments »

AdCamo is billed as the first and only background advertising network.

The concept is simple, like any ad network you sign up and display ads, but along with a banner the advertiser also gets to post their image(s) on your sites background as well. The ads are offered on both a CPC and CPM basis.

Background advertising isn’t new, Perez Hilton regularly uses the format, but this is the first time I’ve seen an ad network dedicated to these sorts of ads. Ugly, in-your-face, intrusive and overwhelming are a few words that come to mind, but I don’t hate the idea as much as say automatically playing audio ads, but I’m not fond of the idea either. Ultimately you can be the judge.

A couple of examples below.

Sphere It

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 4:13 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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February 7th, 2008 at 10:06 am

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CanCar

February 7th, 2008 at 5:27 am

It´s not a bad idea… this article make me think that every day we have less oportunities to do shopping -and dedicate time for us- because we stay more time working
Fred

February 7th, 2008 at 7:13 am

This is brilliant idea. How to get in the private beta ?
Soniac

February 7th, 2008 at 7:15 am

Good way to avoid the high costs of page take-overs and good (for a limited time only) for CPGs but it’s got limitations in other verticals I think. I’m struggling with attractive backgrounds for insurance, finance and even automotive (would look like a kid’s bedroom border no?).

If I had a peanut allergy, as a consumer, I’d feel oppressed by the nuts… Yes, I know, I may not be the target but my experience with the overall site might be compromised.
John Fitzsimmons

February 7th, 2008 at 7:16 am

It’s interesting.

I’d like it more if it were “just” background advertising with out the intrusive banner. I could picture designing a site with very neutral colors and then just letting the background change. Might keep things interesting and earn some revenue at the same time.
Mark

February 7th, 2008 at 7:22 am

What are the expected CPM rates? Thats the most important thing…
Logan

February 7th, 2008 at 7:33 am

I like it to an extent. The background looks great, but then you have that ugly banner at the top. It’s an idea for people who don’t have great ideas for their own back grounds.
Louis

February 7th, 2008 at 8:16 am

We are only selecting a few publishers at first. Send out a request to get on the queue.

Yes, you can have “background only” ads. You don’t have to have show the banner. Plus, you are able to be the banner anywhere on your site.

CPM Rates: Our average is almost 75% higher then that of traditional ads.
bob

February 7th, 2008 at 8:25 am

Maybe I’m just a money grubbing publisher, but I like it. I think it catches your eye really well(I know it always does on perez hilton for me), but it doesn’t cause the site to become less useful. I’m all for that when it comes to ads.
Anand

February 7th, 2008 at 8:25 am

Techcrunch should probably try this form of monetization..if it works well, then I too shall sign up..
bhc3

February 7th, 2008 at 9:08 am

Reminds me of the proliferation of ads in the offline physical world. Every bus, building wall, train station, etc. has ads. If its flat and available, it has ads. It’s just the way of things.

This fits that trend.
Tony T

February 7th, 2008 at 9:14 am

i’ve seen it done well on a few videogame sites..but this burns the eyes!
david

February 7th, 2008 at 9:23 am

i hope i don’t see these popping up on a bunch of people’s tumblrs now. that’d be a shame. strange example choice.
Communication

February 7th, 2008 at 11:21 am

This background advertising form we can see on Gamespot where Game companies put add in baground of pages. It is interesting form and visitors is focused trought all webpage.
DtotheP

February 7th, 2008 at 11:23 am

Overall, I know that there is a growing demand for this type of advertising, coming directly from the movie studios and agencies directly to sites like break.com, collegehumor.com and egotastic.com. These deals usually involve a lot more integration than just a simple clip art photoshop deal and do command really high cpms ($10-50). So far from what i’ve seen about adCamo, they are doing it poorly and directly from louis’s comment “CPM rates: Our average is 75% than that of traditional ads,” don’t actually have any advertisers or any idea how much they will ever make for any publishers. It seems like TechCrunch is jumping the gun on this one, ppp, once AdCamo actually has publishers and advertisers and knows what they are doing, then write about them.
rubu

February 7th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

I’m struggling with attractive backgrounds for insurance, finance and even automotive
jbenz

February 7th, 2008 at 1:13 pm

I’m a little surprised they are making these images available as examples. I think it could be done with a bit more regard for aesthetics.

I really like the way Pandora does their advertising. It is totally integrated with the site, and even though the ads can take up a ton of real estate, they are still ignorable. But it’s hard to ignore them because they are really well done, like one designer from Pandora and one from the advertiser cooperated to create something great looking.

I would be happy if the future of advertising was a more integrated solution that kept the viewer as the top priority. This is great for big brands and big publishers, but I’m not sure how it could be developed on the scale of a massive network with small publishers and small advertisers.
jackmayhofferr

February 7th, 2008 at 1:54 pm

DtotheP -

well said

I’ve been contacted by these guys and they have no idea how creative decisions are made in the advertising world. They are trying to sign up pubs/networks rather than ad agencies. They have no sales team, clients or advertisers.

They are all backwards, advertisers do care that some random publishers are part of a network with a single product. They want specific sites to skin (like Perez) and they re willing to pay for it.

As a publisher, I want high CPMs for giving up control of my background — not 75% above of the average. Of course, the average what??? banner ad? so my crappy ~ $1 is maybe $1.50

Hell No — this is a terrible deal for a publisher.
Michelle Greer

February 7th, 2008 at 2:25 pm

I suppose it would depend on how much control the website owner has over the appearance of the ad. Does he or she get to pick which ads show up in their site? Or does the advertiser propose a deal, you accept it, and then all of a sudden you are obliged to put a background that looks like Willy Wonka’s wallpaper on your site?
bob

February 7th, 2008 at 2:45 pm

if adcamo is here, how many publishers are you accepting? How long to accept sites?
NobuNobu

February 7th, 2008 at 5:04 pm

It is a very good idea to have a strong & quick impact on the viewer (a bit like an ad on an entire bus for exampe). I think it should fit very well a film promotion for example.

In the long term, the key is to find out if you have more CPC if you have 1 giant background banner versus let say 5 different banners using the same total space on the page. Only few places in one page are visible for a long time, these spaces should be sold at a premium.
fitnessanywhere.com

February 10th, 2008 at 10:56 am

Very creative. Why didn’t I think of it!
Jason

February 20th, 2008 at 4:14 pm

Adcamo looks like a child created it. Looks like the owner needs to attend a college and learn about marketing and advertising.
Jeff

February 20th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

It is not “these guys” rather one guy who attended Art Institute of Phoenix for graphic design and his obvious work is all over Adcamo.
This is not a great idea, just an uneducated attempt.
The same owner had stukt.com shut down for copy right infringement!
Jeff

February 21st, 2008 at 3:06 pm

DtotheP … Well Put
Susan

February 27th, 2008 at 9:58 am

That Louis guy cannot write proper English, it is horrible. Is he affiliated with Adcamo.com?
Very poor representation…