Will pixel sites revolutionise advertising?
Added: (Sun Nov 06 2005)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
On September 5th, 2005, advertising as we all know it changed. A British 21 year old student who was attempting to earn some money to pay for his college fees, sent a press release out announcing the launch of www.milliondollarhomepage.com. The young student had come up with the idea of selling a million pixels at one dollar each to anyone who wanted to advertise on his homepage. A pixel – by the way – is no bigger than the full stop at the end of this sentence. But, advertisers can buy them in blocks of 100, which makes them much more viewable, and then using advertisements which look like little microchips, they take customers to their web sites. If you click on the little ad squares, you are sent hurtling through web space to the advertisers own web site.
Visit The Million Dollar Homepage and you’ll see that the savvy young student is just a shot away from becoming a half millionaire!
There have been quite a few copy-cat sites already, but the owner of www.nipixels.com believes he has the right sales strategy in place to make his new site work. “The novelty of the site will be a large part of it’s success”, Terry says “Alex’s site got lucky, but a Northern Ireland site needs a strategy as well as it’s novelty, and we have a strategy!”
“Alex’s idea was the first and good luck to him! It’s mostly running on it’s own sheer publicity because of the fact that it was the first. Not all copy cat sites will work. I believe Northern Ireland can use a site like this because there are lots of website owners out there who are not prepared to pay the large fees established websites might charge. nipixels offers incredible value for money! Five years of advertising space for as little as £50 is much less than most other sites charge” said nipixels owner Terry Waugh.
“nipixels will work because the site is quite different! It’s the fact that it is different and its simplicity that will get it noticed. The fact that all the sites who buy nipixels will be on the one page, rather than sorted under headings or categories that you have to go searching through, make it attractive and fun to look at and use. The more catchy or the bigger your gif or chosen image the more chance someone will click on it”.
The question is whether this is a fad, a gimmick, or a trend. Based on the people who are now copying, and even enhancing the Alex Tew creation, my guess is that this promotional service is here to stay. The advertising world faces a challenging promotional environment with internet usage on the rise. Every advertiser is now having to develop new ways to get in front of potential customers. Pixel based micro ads are now becoming quite popular among 18-35 year olds, of whom 20 million adult males are on computers 20 hours a week. Marketing savvy companies are developing micro-ad strategies involving sites like Million Dollar Homepage. Other copy cat sites like PixelBay.org intend to put micro-ads in every nook and cranny of the internet, and people will start clicking away to find out who the heck is on that micro chip ad.