Have AdAge Marketers Lost Their Minds?

While reading my THIRD article on AdAge for the day (which is three more than my usual consumption), my browser unexpectedly minimized with the exception of a message from PCTurboPro. Disguising itself as a system message, I was presented with an ad encouraging me to optimize my Windows computer operating system.

If the poor taste and misleading message weren't bad enough for you, the targeting was absolutely abysmal.

1. I am running a Mac.
2. I hate being interrupted when I'm trying to read something -- especially for work.
3. Like most people, I loathe being swindled.

Thinking nothing of it at first, I tried closing the message, but I got this screen in return:

So I hit cancel again, and the our heroes at pcturbopro.com still would not let me out. They insisted I optimize my PC while assuring me that the "file has been digitally signed and independently certified as 100% free of viruses, adware and spyware." Really? You put me through that and expect me to believe it?

At the time I got this, I had Google Reader (2), AdAge, WorldNetDaily, The Boston Herald, and SpinThicket tabs open. Since I read the others (with the exception of The Boston Herald) regularly and never had this problem and especially because the AdAge site was my active tab, I presumed that AdAge was the cause of this poor excuse for advertising, but I'll leave open the possibility -- the desperate hope -- that I'm wrong, especially since WorldNetDaily seems to be having problems with others hijacking its advertising (presumed by the publication's editor-in-chief, Joseph Farah, to be Google).

Still, I can't help but be suspicious of AdAge, the magazine that largely caters to traditional advertisers who are scared to death that someone might not appreciate their ads half as much as they do, and are thus madly seeking ways to prevent folks from ignoring them.

AdAge also made some waves when editor Jonah Bloom criticized the way Joseph Jaffe explained leadership changes that were happening at new media company, Crayon, and I couldn't help but notice that his words were dripping with sarcasm about Jaffe's marketing expertise, not just his rhetoric. (News of Bloom's rant comes courtesy of Matt Dickman's Buzz Friday).

Whatever the you think about the validity of Crayon's approach, Jonah, your apparent model (if AdAge is in fact the culprit) isn't the answer, either. - Cam Beck

Comments

[Morgan]

Just as ye sow shall ye reap. Jaffe's 2007 so far should have the subhead "How To Lose Friends And Alienate People". So unpopular is Jaffe, that Bloom's article seems to have actually struck a chord. and many bloggers have weighed in to attack Jaffe. He needs to learn from this experience (and stop writing terrible cliched prose).