Pop up ads on www.iht.com

You're on www.iht.com as I am on a nearly daily basis, you have a subscription to the print paper (I appreciate many Internet users do not) and this advert (see below) pops up as an entire page. Indeed entire page pop-ups even on home pages are common on many media sites.

In the case of these pop-ups, or specifically in the case of the iht.com subscription pop-up, I don't know what the click-through rate is nor the click through to conversion rate is nor the conversion to retention rate is, but either way, they bug the hell out of me.

Is Internet advertising over-rated?

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

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Vacation /Business Trip Furnished Rental Apartment in Paris

Paid Content at WSJ

Group think says there's no future in paid content. The WSJ begs to differ and it was while visiting their site for my normal first two paras free of charge that I was presented with a full article under this header.

This prompted me just to take a look at their current offers and marketing. This house ad on top right hand corner of their home page.

This adclick takes you through to three offers, off a 2 week free trial automatic renewal offer:

2 Weeks Free(54 weeks in total) with your payment when you purchase

1 year of WSJ.com + the Print Journal

Print Journal
1 year for $89

WSJ.com
1 year for $89

WSJ.com +Print Journal
1 year for $99

All looking good. I'm in Europe, the dollar is a peso; I've had a subscription before but I can get round that - marginally alter my name and new address. Old trick.

They nearly had me.

Before I read the small print:

This is a special offer made available only for first time annual subscribers. Thereafter, your subscription will be renewed automatically at the then-current annual rate. You will be notified of any rate changes in advance. Savings percentage based on 52-week newsstand price for The Journal print edition plus the standard 1-year rate for The Online Journal. Offers good for new subscriptions for a limited time only. Newspaper delivery is only available in the contiguous U.S. Sales tax may apply.

Good, simple, clear marketing and a timely moment given the financial crisis to tempt me in with a full sample article (we can argue about pros and cons of automatic renewal offers subject to seeing their conversion data - as a consumer I personally never bite, but as a marketer I know they work).

However, they've forgotton one rather important fact: this offer is on something called the world wide web, their offer is for contiguous U.S only, I live in France and no option to click through to WSJE.

Mr. Murdoch, your subscription marketing people are asleep on the job. In Manhattan-centricitis land.

READ AN ALTERNATIVE IHT DAILY NARRATIVE AT
A PLACE IN THE AUVERGNE

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Vacation /Business Trip Furnished Apartment in Paris

Serious Accident for IHT delivery man in Spain.

According to a Think! reader in Spain, they received this message on August 6th, 2008

"Dear Subscribers,

Due to a serious accident with our car to Barcelona we will have no distribution in Barcelona today. All copies were destroyed and it is uncertain we can find sufficient supplies to deliver Barcelona subscribers on Day B. The driver was taken to the hospital and we are awaiting further news on his condition.

Your account will be credited for a day.

We apologise for the inconvenience caused.

Best Regards,
Gina Wong
World Wide Subscriptions Manager"


"Perhaps the Subs department could send readers or the Think! blog," wrote the IHT subscriber and Think! reader in Spain, "an update on the Madrid-Barcelona route driver's condition. I'm sure you'll join me in wishing him a fast recovery."

Indeed.

I will write to Gina and try and find out how the driver is. IHT delivery people really do a hard job - early in the morning, finding difficult to access buildings, often at the whim of late printing or problems outside their control. Most are pretty good, a few very slack but they generally get weeded out soon enough. The control of deliveries and the customer service operation dramatically improved in 1997 of thereabouts. For a while I was the worldwide subscriptions manager for moving on to greater glories.

Gina btw, works out of Hong Kong, where the subscriptions customer service operation has been centralised, although subscriptions marketing with EMEA is carried out by Kevin Hickman (a Brit) in London, and by Gina in Hong Kong.

Gina is a Brit, with Chinese parents, who returned to Hong Kong. I met her a few times in Hong Kong and rate her very highly.







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