Background advertising: the best way to test it is by doing some


If you hadn’t noticed today, The Inquisitr is running a campaign for the Jeopardy iPhone application (a screenshot above for future reference.) It involves the use of a background ad along with a traditional banner placement.

Background advertising (also known as “skinning”) has been a popular form of advertising in the celebrity blogosphere and on some news sites, but they’re otherwise rare outside of those spaces. The idea of such campaigns is to break through the noise on the given site, so the ads can’t be missed. Visually, they aren’t always pretty, but many swear by them as an effective way to reach an audience.

We won’t know the results of the current campaign until tomorrow, but likewise if you can see the background ad now, we’d naturally encourage you to click and visit the sponsor; it also helps that we feel comfortable promoting the application, and we think it’s a great product.

Set up

The problem coming into this campaign was setting it up. Background advertising is offered by a few ad agencies, but isn’t widely available. From what I could find, there was no off the shelf easy to use solution (such as a WP plugin) to implement the background ads either. The only solution was to hard code it, but the fun didn’t stop there.

Because theses ads aren’t overly common, there’s a wide variety of often conflicting advice on how to implement them. No doubt some will say that it’s easy to do X way, but I could find a Y, Z and A, B and C version of how to do it as well. Then it’s finding something that 1: works with a WordPress blog, and 2: is compatible across all browsers. The second point was one of the hardest: in our testing, we’d get these great solutions working, only to find that they failed in cross browser tests.

In the end implemented a combination of CSS (for the image) and a javascript call for the click side. As of last night, this was working in all browsers…until this morning we were notified that it possibly wasn’t working in Google Chrome.

If I haven’t mentioned it before, Chrome is more of a pain in the arse code wise than IE6, well at least for me, because I know most of the IE6 hacks. It does prove a point though: you can never test across browsers enough.

Bugs

We know there’s one bug with the implementation: in some browsers, if you click on whitespace you get the ad as well. From an advertisers perspective, I’d rather have overkill with click areas, then miss some, but for any future campaigns, it’s something we’ll need to fix.

Overall

This form of advertising is going to become more common as advertisers seek to maximize exposure and clicks. We’re grateful to the agency who placed this ad with us, and for being patient as we worked through the issues described above.

If you’re interested in advertising on The Inquisitr, be it a background placement like this, or similar ad spots, drop me a email.

And don’t forget to Play America’s favorite quiz show today! Here’s the official spiel on the app:

This…is…Jeopardy! Put your knowledge to the test in this exciting new game created for the iPhone and iPod touch! Pick a category and dollar amount and answer clues written by Jeopardy writers. Buzz in quickly and answer correctly to watch your earnings rise, then hum along with the classic Final Jeopardy theme music while you respond to the final clue.

Key Features

· Use the touchscreen to write your name on the podium, just like a real contestant on Jeopardy!

· Play in Landscape mode so that you see the contestants and the categories on the same screen

· Includes real sounds from t he game, including the class Final Jeopardy Music!

· Listen to the famous voiceover “This…is…Jeopardy!” from the famous Johnny Gilber when the game starts

· Create your own custom contestant

· Packed with over 1500 clues, enjoy hours of entertainment

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