I have to say; Whoever it was that decided to let banners like this (http://juggler.inetinteractive.com/banners/Client478/1110323306575_HRflushaway_468x60_Mar8.gif) be on the forum, really needs to look at the ad's a little closer before adding them in to rotation.

That's just wrong, on so many levels.

Simon

Yeah, more going for the shock value than anything. I don't think INET have to approve banners, as they can be changed midstream of the campaign etc.

If people are impressed by that kind of advertising more power to them.
Personally I think it is low class and affects credibility of the industry as a whole, but who am I to say.

Agreed, blue. I would not purchase web hosting from that company. It shows me that they cannot show class and honor, and that the leadership of that company aren't too mature. The banner is ridiculous. Personally, I think iNet should remove it at once.

Its pretty obvious HR is making am attempt to do the same type of 'shock' banner as site5, the only thing is site5's banners are somewhat stupid but funny at the same time.. HR banner is just garbage and I would imagine would only be appealing to the middle and high school crowd.

Then again the purpose could be just to get a thread like this going :)

What can I say.... I agree with all the above... what an indecent advertising campaign. Really shocking.

I don't understand how that advertising reflects poorly on WebHostingTalk.

Originally posted by SoftWareRevue
I don't understand how that advertising reflects poorly on WebHostingTalk.
Most media properties have advertising standards that they adhere to, as they realise advertising shown through their media properties can reflect back on them.

On most TV stations for example, you can't just advertise anything with them. The ads have to be of a certian quality and adhere to their code of conduct etc. They're more than aware of low quality and controversial ads will have a negative impact on their media brand. So they have to approve the advertising, before it goes to air.

But, in this instance, with that HR banner, IMO, it does not reflect badly on WHT/INET. HR designed a simple banner that was meant to be somewhat eye_catching/controversial, and following in the context of the simple Site5 banners.

If anyone deems an ad to be unacceptable, then reporting it to the mods will ensure the matter is looked into.

Right. We've had ads replaced before.

We've removed them that about make me have a seizure. And them that have been objectionable on other levels.

But, I don't see this ad as being insulting to members in any way.

We're always happy to listen to reasons as to why a certain ad should be removed though.

But, I think if this one were removed, it would look worse on iNET than leaving it.

I dont think its that offensive... Certainly not worthy of removal from rotation?

Originally posted by UH-Matt
I dont think its that offensive... Certainly not worthy of removal from rotation?
Come on now, Matt.

How can you condone swearing on a banner. Sure, they censor it out, but even suggested swearing is in the same class; vulgar, and uncalled for.

The banner it's self is just plain wrong.

SWR, I disagree with you on this one, this does (in my opinion) bring the credibility level of WHT down. When a banner of such a nature is allowed, it almost screams out unprofessionalism, on both the part of the advertiser, and the company serving the ad.

iNet do approve banners, so this was seen and approved accordingly, which baffles me even more.

We have banner campaigns running at the moment on here, and I shudder at the thought of being in the same rotation as such a banner.

Simon

Who says it's swearing? Come on it could be anything. The advertisement has worked as you and everyone in this thread are talking about it ;) Is this what they wanted, us to talk about it? I say yes but only they know the truth.

Could someone upload the banner in question elsewhere? Perhaps to imageshack.us or uploadimages.net? I don't see any ads for some reason despite having disabled all filtering software.

John,

You know what they mean by that. They purposely intended it to look that way. In my eyes, this company is unprofessional and does not have a care in the world for ethics. If I want to go place an ad on the radio, they aren't going to let me say: "Your host ain't BLEEP." Everyone knows that this ad is inappropriate, though I doubt iNet will choose to do anyting about it. To SWR, removing this ridiculous ad would not look bad on iNet. I think it would give them credit points with current and future advertisers. Like IHSL stated, he doesn't like the idea of having his banners and ads rotated in with such rubbish. A client could see his banner and then see this HostRocket one and think ... why would a hosting company choose to advertise here? They must not be entirely credible. A person seeing this ad might decide to to click on the banner ads here at WHT just because they had an adverse opinion on one. It only takes one ad to spoil the lot. Just my thoughts, however. Interpret them as you like.

Scratch that, I just realised Simon linked to the ad in question in his original post. :)

Thought this forum for adults? I do not care for ad personally but as an adult I am not so disturbed by a censor swear word that I have to come crying for it to taken down. :stan:

It's not a matter of not being able to handle it, but rather, a matter of class. Since you're an adult, do you swear when you're doing business with others?

I doubt it.

It's not a matter of not being able to handle it, but rather, a matter of class.

So hostrocket are appealing to a different class of person to you. Thats up to them... they dont want to impress you with their banner.

Originally posted by DanX
It's not a matter of not being able to handle it, but rather, a matter of class. Since you're an adult, do you swear when you're doing business with others?

I doubt it.

Sir Alan Sugar does.

I think if iNet keeps this ad around, it's only going to lead to more provacative and more inappropriate adverts. They have got to draw the line somewhere, and I don't see any lines being drawn.

They have got to draw the line somewhere, and I don't see any lines being drawn.I'm sure they will draw the line somewhere, but we might not be at that line yet.

I don't like the ad, and I think that having it there reflects poorly on each and every one of us (as members of this community). Luckily it will reflect badly primarily on HostRocket itself and, also luckily, it will be them who will deal with the many rebel kids attracted by that ad. :)

Originally posted by WarpFactor
. . . They have got to draw the line somewhere, and I don't see any lines being drawn.
The mods have drawn the line plenty of times. You're new here, so you might not have been aware of that. They've pulled a lot of banners, for deceiving content etc etc. It happens. If you see a banner that you think shouldn't be there, report it to the mods and they will look into it.

What types of deceiving content to they pull? "Unlimited" bandwidth offers? "We're the best" statements? You're right, Aussie Bob, I am new here, and I haven't seen a lot of the stuff which has gone on in the past. Believe me, I highly respect the opinions of the long-time WHTers. I agree with the point ldcdc made, their ad is definitely going to attract a lot of "rebel kids." I'm glad they will have the chance to deal with them rather than me. That is one bright side to the ad. :)

I have watched this thread silently throughout the weekend to see how it would unfold.

This was an expected topic. As a matter of fact, I actually told HRBrendan when he created the ad that I would be willing to bet any sum of money that it would cause a thread debating professionalism to appear.

It’s really interesting that even if we have negative publicity, it almost always affects sales in a positive way. Most (I won’t say all) talk is good for business. :)

I can now say that this particular ad was successful and did exactly what we wanted it to do.

With any advertisement, you will have praise and you will have criticism. Some of that feedback will be silent; some will be voiced.

I could run an ad (ANY ad) and at the conclusion of its run, survey several consumers. Regardless of what the ad might have been or contained, I would receive different feedback across the board.

Consumer A: “That’s a pretty boring ad. If it was for a mattress maybe it would be OK since you’re putting me to sleep.’

Consumer B: “That solicitation is utterly and unequivocally atrocious, unprofessional, and disgusting. I would never do business with your establishment after witnessing something of that nature.”

Consumer C: “Awesome; HostRocket rocks. I’m getting 10 accounts.”

Consumer D: “It was OK, but I’d rather host with my own hosting company.” (a lot of hosts are out there these days)

I could go all the way to Z, but you get the picture. Everyone will have an opinion.

Different “groups” of consumers will have different opinions. As an example, this ad isn’t going to go well with conservative people. I accept that; it’s not meant to. We have different kinds of advertising that target different “groups”. Other advertising that we deal does appeal to conservative consumers. It’s all about balancing it out.

I would not let our brand be created around one single advertisement or target one single group of individuals. For those groups that this ad is not intended for, there may be some negative feelings. Some of you suggest that the ad would not only be unappealing those to groups, but would also negatively influence opinions about HostRocket. That's not the case, but if it were, I would be completely confident that our brand would not be tainted due to strength in other areas. Any experienced marketing professional will be able to identify the pros and cons associated with this type of ad and will be able to weigh them and see value.

Bottom line…this ad is risqué, there’s no doubt about it. It does however serve its purpose when in front of the right target audience.

Thank you all for your feedback. I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekend.

I agree, the ad was in a very bad taste. I would avoid any company that would put something like that up, even if it's part of a marketing gimmick.

Originally posted by ldcdc
I'm sure they will draw the line somewhere, but we might not be at that line yet.

I don't like the ad, and I think that having it there reflects poorly on each and every one of us (as members of this community). Luckily it will reflect badly primarily on HostRocket itself and, also luckily, it will be them who will deal with the many rebel kids attracted by that ad. :)

Agreed, KimmiKat. It's their ad, their decision. If it helps their business, good for them. WHT does seem to be full of younglings these days. In hindsight, I will admit as someone said before, we are adults -- I am confident I can tolerate this ad for a short while. I would not, however, be pleased if they continued to further push and sniff-out their boundaries.

And there's always the banner blockers. Some of them can stop specific banners while letting others through. If a tasteless banner such as that oneat issue appeared again, I could add it and not be bothered with it no more.

Originally posted by WarpFactor
Agreed, KimmiKat. It's their ad, their decision. If it helps their business, good for them. WHT does seem to be full of younglings these days. In hindsight, I will admit as someone said before, we are adults -- I am confident I can tolerate this ad for a short while. I would not, however, be pleased if they continued to further push and sniff-out their boundaries.

Originally posted by HRTimothy

Different “groups” of consumers will have different opinions. As an example, this ad isn’t going to go well with conservative people. I accept that; it’s not meant to. We have different kinds of advertising that target different “groups”. Other advertising that we deal does appeal to conservative consumers. It’s all about balancing it out.



No, it's called brand diffusion, which results in Brand dilution- nothing to everyone. Obviously you don't know s&^% about advertising. Effective communications finds commonality and reaches multiple audiences without diffusion. For example Pepsi and Coke reach multiple targets audiences, especially the jaded youth segments with the same on brand message differentiated via target situational delivery; whether print or broadcast; you'll never see coke say "the b'gizzle thang" - regardless of audience. There is great void between creative innovation and an amateur's mindless sensationalism; this is the latter.

Originally posted by cowabunga
No, it's called brand diffusion, which results in Brand dilution- nothing to everyone. Obviously you don't know s&^% about advertising. Effective communications finds commonality and reaches multiple audiences without diffusion. For example Pepsi and Coke reach multiple targets audiences, especially the jaded youth segments with the same on brand message differentiated via target situational delivery; whether print or broadcast; you'll never see coke say "the b'gizzle thang" - regardless of audience. There is great void between creative innovation and an amateur's mindless sensationalism; this is the latter.

Obviously we have different opinions. You continue to market your company in the manner you choose; we'll continue to market ours as we have for the past five years. We experienced high levels of growth during each of those years. Additionally, this year we've broken some records in terms of growth rates.

We will continue to market our company in a way that works.

Originally posted by HRTimothy
Obviously we have different opinions.
As well as the definition of success.

Originally posted by cowabunga
As well as the definition of success.

And you evidently have no clue about Business.

Originally posted by jheslop1
And you evidently have no clue about Business.
And your little image network is evidence of yours?
:rofl:

That isn't even my Business, nor am I in Business.

And some ways of marketing can lead to tasteless advertising.

Our transit has been also guilty of coming up with some odd ideas now and then. They made a bunch of images and logos to use on the website and they were so weird I refused to put them on the site after I convinced them that it would offend riders.

Originally posted by cowabunga
As well as the definition of success.

I'm sure it does. Everyone is unique.

Originally posted by HRTimothy
I'm sure it does. Everyone is unique.

Some more successfully BECAUSE its unique. If its good for your business HRTimothy, thats excellent for you and I applaud it! Good job :).

Personally without blocking I have still yet to catch more than a handful of ads on WHT with all the hours on end I spend here. That being said I did see this one, and I didn't care for it, but I doubt hostrocket is aiming to have me as a customer anyways.

Censored swearing is nothing an adult can't handle, if you don't like their ad you are welcome to E-mail them with your feedback and refuse to use their services. This all seemed to start with Site5's ads (not dirty ads by any means, but definatley something different). Since then there has been a slew of posts about the different ads of local (by local I mean WHT local) companies.

If you think this is speaking horrible about hostrocket you shoudln't be complaining, instead you should tell them way to go, more customers for you eh?

If you aren't a webhosting company they aren't going to be stealing any customers from you, and you can simply not use their services.

They are breaking out of the mold with their ad, and that's something that many many hosts seem to be afraid to do in this day and age.



As far as this reflecting poorly on WHT I'm still unsure of how that is really. I see 10x worse commercials on television all the time and if I don't like them I flip the channel.

WHT is a privledge, not a right, if you think that iNet is doing a poor job you can open up your own webhosting forum and have at it. iNet does not own or create the HostRocket ads and so long as they are pg13 (technically I would say R rated) which they are, then there should be no problem at all. I saw jokes worst than that one (as far as adult humor goes) when I went to see Robots in theaters a few days ago. For those that don't know Robots is an animated film.

Anyways, that's my two cents so take it as such.

Site5's were more entertaining... Anyway it's marketing 101, do something different and get attention, even if the banner in question is is tacky. Like the above post mentioned, if one disagree's with the company's marketing tactics, they don't have to patronize them.