Jim Nail Quotations

Rightly or wrongly, advertisers have concluded that a little rectangular banner is simply not intrusive enough, and it's too easy for consumers to just mentally block them out.

I think that's why you're seeing some of the leading fortune 500 companies picking up on them.

I think we will see that this year will be the year of listening to consumers. Last year when I was at that first WOMMA conference, everyone was talking about 'How do I inject myself into these consumer conversations? How do I push my messages though word of mouth marketing out to the consumer?' More and more marketers are coming around to the idea that the first thing you have to do is understand the conversation.

And what we saw in 2001 was marketers cut back dramatically in online advertising. There were a number of responses to that, and one of them was pop-ups.

Publishers now really need revenue, and so they're going to push as far as they can until consumers push back and say 'Stop!' ... That's where the self-correcting aspect of the market will bring things back into line, when they push things too far.

That has a very different impact on the consumer.

The impact of a pop-up is relatively crude and relatively negative.

If enough consumers download these programs, then the marketers who are trying to use pop-ups to advertise will see that they are not able to serve any of them because they're being blocked, and then they'll try to find the next idea and tactic.