Was just reading a really interesting article in AdAge ( http://adage.com/article?article_id=138673 ), about WPP, the holding company for such advertising behemoths as JWT, Y&R and Ogilvy. It’s probably not a shock to anyone that their profits are down 47% in 2Q 2009, given the economy and marketers need to cut back ad spending (media, production, and creative costs).
What I found really interesting about the article is the shift in where they made their profits. The article states that “More than 61% of the holding company’s revenue came from nontraditional services such as direct, digital, PR and research.” Back when I was a worker bee at JWT, media (as in broadcast and print) was a huge profit center. Considering the huge cross-section of clients they represent, it’s an important shift.
About a week ago, we had construction work done in our offices. Once the guys left, we thought maybe we should have the carpeting professionally cleaned.
Since we practice what we preach, we went online and Googled “professional carpet cleaning,” and some other similiar terms. That’s how we found the Stanley Steemer website, and clicked on commercial services.
Here’s a link to the page we were looking at: http://www.stanleysteemer.com/Home/CommercialServicesLanding/CleaningServices.aspx
The image they chose is a stock photo that has nothing to do with … anything. It’s a guy, pumping his fist because he’s so excited. Why? Because his carpets are super clean?
This led to a long conversation about just how many sites we come across that have totally irrelevant images, that do nothing to help inform, educate or otherwise add anything to a user’s experience.
Images aren’t window dressing on a website. They are as important as the words you choose. Pictures help users understand the content they’re about to read. In some cases, users can simply scan the image and not have to read the content to understand what the page is about.
Remember, there’s no such thing as “wasted” space on a website. And so often, these meangingless images take up some of the most important real estate on the site.