Memo to NBC Interactive: STFU!
February 11th, 2010
It’s old news that the Olympics is going to lose money for NBC, but do they have to be so obnoxious in the process?
Yesterday, something new started popping up on my teevee screen: an NBC Olympics Interactive widget. What was particularly interesting really obnoxious about this widget was that it kept appearing at random times during actual programming, like a power up in a video game.
Once you click into the widget you can get news, medal counts, information about Team USA, and ads for Parenthood. But if you want this information, you need to wait for the power up to appear; it’s not part of the FiOS widget directory, at least not as I type this.
I can just imagine some genius in the interactive marketing department of NBC selling the idea: “It’s going to be great! We’ll push content right to the viewer! They’ll be able to choose whatever kind of Olympics information they want! And we can work with the cable operators to push content not just on NBC itself, but on all the networks of NBC. Plus, we can tag the widget with promos for our shows — it’s a win-win!”
Except that it’s not, genius. It’s interruption marketing at its worst, and it sucks. I’m trying to hear what Rachel is saying about Newt’s Daily Show gaffe and you’re trying to suck me into reading a bio of Tanith Belbin. Really?
Okay, deep breath. To be fair, this is probably a beta test gone wrong. The few news stories I checked were all incomplete and the medal count was showing the U.S. as having 25 medals two days before the Games have yet to begin. And maybe NBC isn’t even to blame; maybe the dear people at Verizon FiOS are responsible for this wretched customer experience.
Either way, it sucks.
Oh, and by the way: Those animated program ads on the bottom of the screen? They suck, too; USA Network is a particularly heinous offender. You all need to just stop it, already.
Takeaway for marketers: It’s not all the snow making me cranky. Interruption marketing sucks. Period.