Truthfully (and, sorry, quite bluntly) I can't imagine this seeing any success or going anywhere. There are already places for people who want to do things (e.g. answer surveys) to earn points (aka prizes), if I want to do this then I will go to those sites, not wait hoping an advert appears.
But would you not consider this to be a better alternative to a plain ad.
Also, the sites you talk about are rather shady. You need to fill out lengthy surveys that collect your personal information. Here you are simply presented with tasks that are designed to expose you to the brand, not steal your information.
I wouldn't consider it better, no. For one thing, I don't think it will improve user engagement. For another, I think users who are enticed by these adverts are not the users you want to engage (not to say they aren't worth anything, just not much).
More than anything right now it's a gut feeling. Digging into why I have this feeling, the first few thoughts that come to mind include:
- Let's say you are offering me a free starbucks, and I have to click 5 adverts to get it. When I walk past a Starbucks do I buy a coffee, or do I think "that reminds me, I need to click more adverts before I go into Starbucks"? Perhaps even bigger, let's say it's for a graphics card, I decide I want it, but I don't want to buy it until I've seen enough adverts to get that 5% discount I was offered... What if I never see those adverts again? What if I forget about it, or see a different product before I've got there?
- I assume your tracking is based on cookies/etc rather than a login, and a huge number of people browse from more than one device, so that would be annoying
- Interactive "get something free" adverts are generally assumed to be scams, how do you get around the association that people will have between "get a free iphone" and "get a free starbucks coffee"?
The concept of engaging users, rather than just shouting at them, isn't new, and it does work, but I'm just not convinced that through banner adverts is the way to do it.
From your site, "If you’re an advertiser or publisher who is interested in trying out PLAY..." I'm a publisher / work in digital advertising, and while (as you might have guessed) I'm not sold on it, I'd certainly be interested to hear more as you move along. So if you fancy trying to change my mind any time, corin.c.cole(gmail) :)
Thanks so much for elaborating. I agree that each point you raised are quite valid, and each of them are drawbacks that PLAY has.
1. Its true that there's a chance that users may delay purchases in order to get discounts, and its a common issue for deals site like Groupon (where instead of going back to the business they wait for other similar deals from the same or other businesses). One reason I feel it'll be less of an issue for us is that we are using points, and these points can be used up now, or accrued to get larger rewards. So if you have 4 points and you need 1 more to get a free cup of coffee from Starbucks, you don't feel the need to wait, because you can always either get another cup of coffee for free later or simply keep the points and save it up for a bigger reward.
In case of the graphics card, even if you wait for the 5% discount, the ad has been effective because you are paying attention to that brand and favoring it over others. Its up to the advertiser to not put up deals that would hurt themselves (like offering the graphics card for free).
2. Both tracking cookies and having the user log in are clumsy and deters people from engaging. We are opting to have the user log in, and we're trying to do it in a very elegant way (after the user collects the first point, they are asked to "save" their progress). However, we will experiment with all possible options and see what works the best and provides the least friction.
3. This is another very critical issue we face. To counter this we will have to start out with trusted publishers and advertisers. Basically, the ads would have to be seen on websites where you know they wouldn't put up fraudulent ads or scams. Good design would also play a role, since most scam ads are overtly flashy and are poorly designed.
Having said all that, its all based in hunches and gut feelings now. We are building the first prototype and we hope that once we complete that, we can run some test campaigns, to better understand the issues. We know that this platform will have major flaws but we feel that we can also find the solutions for them. The flaws may or may not be the ones you pointed out, and the solutions I presented may or may not work, but we think this idea deserves to be tried and tested. And I personally feel that I can make it successful (otherwise I wouldn't be working on it).
Its under a startup lab (inlith.com) I created, and we are (or rather will be) working on multiple projects. We are also doing consulting work (madebyargon.com) on the side to bootstrap them.
PLAY is our first project, and our number one priority, and currently we are focusing all our energy into this. We are fully prepared to "make this our new life".
edit: Inlith has two founders, me (designer) and a friend of mine (business guy). We are based in Bangladesh. We plan to hire 4-5 developers initially, as employees, to work on our projects. PLAY is being managed by me and two programmers (all equity-holders), so there are three people working full-time on PLAY.
