Advertising+Critique

=Online Advertising Critique=

Beyond the Rack’s advertising campaign can be seen all over the Internet. I first noticed the banner ads on Facebook. I soon then started seeing these banner ads on fashion blogs and even when catching up on episodes of Gossip Girl online. The target audience for this campaign is geared towards the dollar conscious fashionista. In these banner ads it is easy for the viewer to decipher exactly what the company is trying to market. They are able to brand their website by showing that they are offering discounted price on clothing and even designer clothing. Beyond the Rack markets that they are an online company that allows this dollar conscious female to buy designer labels at an extremely low price. We are told that viewers respond well to being told what to do (Stokes 213). Beyond the Rack does this. They tell the viewer to shop now because there is a limited amount of merchandise. This sense of suspense causes the viewer to click and purchases.
 * Beyond the Rack **

Beyond the Rack is also smart in the sense that they are focusing on their social serving. Meaning that they cater to a specific target market and only place their advertisements on corresponding web pages. As well as they are extremely contextual where they will only place these ads on web pages that have similar content. Example: posted on Cupcakes and Cashmere fashion blog. Viewers of the page are fashionistas, which will give Beyond the Rack a more likely chance of receiving clicks. I think there is no better location for these advertisements than on fashion blogs.

I feel that Facebook is not a strong enough webpage in the sense of number clicks and other competitors. Also the people reading these blogs might try to recreate a look on that specific blog and use Beyond the Rack to do so at a lower cost. The one major down fall to these banner ads and the website is that once you click on the ad you are directed to the sign in page. You can only receive these offers/view the items being sold if you sign up which in my case I did not care to do. This can turn people away, much like it did to myself. The simple task of click, view, purchase is lost.










 * Nasty Gal **

I first came across Nasty Gals banner ads when I started blogging. I would see these banner ads in the side bar of well established fashion bloggers pages. These ads would be ambiguous since they had an array of different looks. Sometimes I would come across ads that would only show a foot and at the bottom say Nasty Gal. Other ads would be a picture of a girl dressed to look very vintage and again at the bottom it would say Nasty Gal.

I was skeptical at first to click on this link since the name of the company was Nasty Gal, and could be something completely different then I would be looking for. I typed “Nasty Gal” into Google and sure enough it was an online clothing company. The first link that came up in Google was their ad then the second was their website. This clothing company caters to a more vintage or hipster fashionista Much like Beyond the Rack they do offer reasonable deals but unlike Beyond the Rack they do not offer amazing discounts. The banner ad placement was also similar to Beyond the Rack. Except you could find these banner ads on more popular blog sites. The target audience is the female fashionista, but is not a dollar conscious clothing company.

This company was extremely smart with having their banner ads all over one particular blog site. The Man Repeller would have Nasty Gal banner ads on every page that you clicked on, this was a good tactic for the company since this blogger was taking off world wide. Now though that this blogger is more well known she has turned to a higher end company to fill her side bars with advertisement. Nasty Gal was replaced with Coach. But never the less I personal think that Nasty Gal has become extremely well know within all fashionistas because of these banner ads. Everyone that I have talked to within that industry always resorts to Nasty Gal’s webpage for fashion ideas, and purchases.