Google AdSense On ColumbiaRecords.com
This one comes courtesy of Bob Lefsetz and should he filed under "What Were They Thinking?". Columbia Records is running ads from Vonage and Google’s AdSense on their from page and throughout their flagship site. Don’t believe me? Go to Columbia.com now….but be sure to come back and tell us what you think.
Even if it’s somehow OK to put ads on a corporate web site, is this really the best Columbia can do? Couldn’t they at least
attract some hip fashion or lifestyle
companies? Or why not trade ads
with someone like Last.fm that they’re paying good money to be on?
Of course, who I am I to get all uppity? Yesterday one of our ad
providers Adify was running dating ad on Hypebot. But this blog has no
income other than ads and Columbia has all that money they’re making
companies like YouTube and "forgetting" to pass along to the artist. I
wonder if I can sneak an add for a Universal act onto the Columbia site?
Do you think a band or label should put unrelated ads on their web site?
It’s not just Columbia Records – quite a few of the other labels are also running ads on their sites, as well as on their artists’ sites. They’ve been doing that for awhile.
I’ve pretty much thought it was tacky all along. I think ads like that on a corporate website devalue the company. Not to mention, it makes them look desperate for money. Which they may very well be.
Yeah that seems totally lame to me. I saw Google ads on another corporate site recently and it struck me as pathetic. I have Google ads on my site because it’s so small-time, and hardly anyone clicks on them anyways. But I can’t imagine a corporation thinking that those ads are going to be a competitive source of income, and make up for the loss of any cool and cache they had left…
For old folks like me, any advertising reeks of “selling out.” However, I’m a realist. Kids don’t pay for music, and if an artist’s content drives someones attention to the page for “free”, someone needs to pay for it at some point.
It all depends on the ads and what brand is associated with an artist. I’m not really sure I’d want a big pharmaceutical company or Burger King sponsoring my music, but I’d be cool with something compatible with my lifestyle.. indie clothing companies, solar energy, vegetarian products, or even progressive politics.
I think the issue is that there are few choices for ad networks… big agencies that only take big dollars, spam factories that do those annoying “whack-a-mole” ads, or Google. There are very few agencies (Indieclick) that hit the pocket the right way.
Humility is the new cool.. A buck’s a buck..