While television advertisers are scrambling to conquer Tivo and get many people
to actually look at their ads, a new breed of fast emerging media could be
just what theyve been looking for.
The new media that could save the day for advertisers looking to recapture lost viewers is called "pixel ads". Pixel ads are found on web sites that sell micro-ads sized in 10 by 10 pixel increments. The tiny ads are placed on the pixel advertisement
sites home page and hyperlink to the web sites of the various advertisers.
Here is the domain of Pixel Bay (www.pixelbay.org) a leading US based micro-advertisement
page
. Pixel based ads originally conceived of by Alex Tew of the UK, became popular with the launch of Tews Million Dollar Homepage (www.milliondollarhomepage.com) in early September and catering to mainly European businesses and consumers. But US based advertisers had nowhere to go until the arrival of Pixel Bay.
While television and other so called mainstream media advertisers are desperately trying to contruct
ads that will be watched by consumers at all, pixel advertisement
sites like Pixel Bay and MDH are literally attracting thousands of viewers daily who come to their sites just to look at the ads.
In fact average visitors to PixelBay.org look at a minimum of 4 - 5 advertisers with each visit. In fact, some advertisers report doubling their web site traffic in a matter of days along with greatly increased sales.
The micro-ads are intriguing because of their small size. Basically curiosity forces you to look at them and find out what they are. This writer spent about 5 minutes per visit to each of the above sites "pixeling" (hovering over and clicking on ads). I bookmarked many of the sites and left the pages open so I could go back and click ads I hadnt seen yet throughout the day. Its totally addicting. I remember having a similar addition when Tetris was released.
Pixel ads could also help many advertisers reach the coveted echo-boomer generation who are notoriously cynical and averse to advertising. Because of their "cute & cuddly" and off-beat nature, pixel ads are an ideal vehicle to advertise to this demographic.
Bob Cefail, Chairman of In Touch Media Group and creator of PixelBay.org commented, "Its a whirlwind," referring to the many advertiser calls In Touch has received. Cefail is also surprised that, when visitors click on the advertisers ads, "they are on these sites for hours. Already, the guys that bought the first ads are reporting tremendous volume shifts."
Echo-boomer, musician and rock blog owner Bishop Dolarhyde commented:
