NZHerald Hate

What is up with the NZHerald hate today? Huh?

Coke has decided to un-cork the coke bottle of Summer, and have done so online. Good on them. Nice, easy, broad reach. Makes sense to me.

First thing this morning, Lance Wiggs was on the case and highlighted the homepage takeover on the Herald website. He’s not a fan. That’s fair enough, I can understand. But I’m not sure it can be classified as ‘stupid’. I believe it is what is called being flexible for the clients who enable them to provide a bucket load of news content to us for free.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan of the ACTUAL creative, however the nice thing about the creative though, is it gives you the option to go directly to the site. It is quite clear; you don’t have to sit through the ad. More to the point, it is frequency capped, so you only actually have to see it once. That is of course, unless you are trying to make a point and are going through every browser on your computer to play “let’s make a point of this.” Hi... you are HUNTING out this creative now. You are looking for it, it is not targeting you.

The fact that the Herald can serve across browsers should be the point that is being talked about on this one people. Yay. For once I can see what people are talking about on Chrome. This is awesome. I always think that I am potentially missing out on creative executions because I like Chrome, thanks to the Herald, I’m not missing out, which means a great big potential audience across a number of browsers are not missing out. BONUS POINTS!

So what are my main points on this spiel?

• Obviously everyone is using NZHerald. This is great. Go The Herald site. If they weren’t using the Herald we wouldn’t have heard about it being their fault, obviously.
• Good on Herald for supporting more than one browser. Wanna know why you didn’t see the takeover on other sites? Potentially it is because the other sites don’t support browsers other than IE. Guess what, for advertisers, THIS IS A GOOD THING that the Herald does. Not a bad thing.
• It is on the other main sites as well. Hello TV3 and MSN. Look at that, other major publishers who are not willing to turn away advertising dollars.

I regularly bitch about online creative – but it is (more than often) the CREATIVE that I am talking about, not the publisher. Typically if I am talking publisher specific they are having some serious adserving issues or they have taken away formats I like, not because they are willing to keep business ticking over by accepting adspend.

I think people are being just slightly sensitive on this one. You only had to see it once. Get over it.

Love your work NZHerald. Don't stop a-rocking!