Fark Founder Doesn't Get Advertisers

Guys who like their news spiked with the occasional fart joke, jedi reference and wet t-shirt shot love Fark. And of course, since that doesn’t rule out too many guys, lots of ’em love the headline compilation site (my main man included).

There’s an interesting and entertaining interview with Drew Curtis, the guy who runs the popular site, on Media Orchard.

At one point, the ad thing comes up, and not surprising, Curtis has an everyman kinda take on Web advertising. Weird ads work on his site, he said, “like the guys that ran the ads for cowabduction.com a few months back. That particular campaign set records on Fark. Ads that don’t work are the ads we all know are BS, like smack the monkey to win $10k or click to get a free iPod. Farkers are savvy; they already know about this crap and won’t go there.”

It gets better:

The whole advertising industry confuses me sometimes. Advertisers for some reason really, really want to buy ads that annoy the shit out of the consumer. They want to buy ads that block you from seeing content, that shout at you when you hit the page, that stay on the computer desktop when you leave the site. You know why ads on the right sidebar get better clickthrough rates? Because people are trying to scroll down with their mouse and miss the damn bar, accidentally generating a click. Most popup ad clicks are generated by people missing the X to close the thing out.

What value is that kind of click to an advertiser? I can’t figure out why they want this. Surely they don’t want the added stigma of annoyance tacked onto their brand. Remember X10? Yeah. Assholes. Maybe I’m crazy but I think advertisers should concentrate on enticing the customer with either good product, good ad campaign, or better yet, both. When we have those types of ads on Fark, they go gangbusters.

I just checked out the site, and as usual, the prominent top left spot displays an animated ad featuring rotating close-ups of cute chicks that links to a forum site called SportsbyBrooks.com. There are also Google sponsored links, text classifieds and tile ads for Federated Media and Opie and Anthony on XM Radio. That’s about it.

I’m not sure what to make of it besides the fact that he could probably sell a header banner and skyscraper that allows for a lot more visual appeal and would be a lot more attractive to brand advertisers who would probably pay a solid CPM to reach that elusive young male demo that, if anything like the guy I’m thinking of, visits the site throughout the day and night.