Orbitz Marketing head says Pop-ups are Great!

November 19, 2002 11:53 AM

Orbitz Marketing head says Pop-ups are Great! Yes, I got this from Fark, but it is still worth a look. The article includes the marketer's e-mail address. Let him know what you think about his ads!
posted by trigfunctions (25 comments total)

Orbitz' Pop-Unders are great. The ones I see from surfing espn.com everyday are for the most part kind of fun, like shooting hockey pucks past the goalie or sinking golf putts. They don't use sound, they don't intrude on my reading like some other trends lately, and they don't flash like a blink tag on viagra, and they're kind of fun and interactive.

I'm mailing him a letter noting that more advertisers should take their lead, since its a necessary evil.
posted by Stan Chin at 12:19 PM on November 19, 2002

Huh?! They do use sound and they are a pain to close because the are positioned partially off of the screen. And, there are a MILLION of them!! They are evil.
If you, stan chin, enjoy those ads you are obviously the exact demographic they are looking for.
posted by trigfunctions at 12:25 PM on November 19, 2002

I am not sure why the poster seemed a bit worried about getting something from Fark. There are often nice items posted at that site. It is the comments upon most posts that is annoyingly juvenile.
posted by Postroad at 12:30 PM on November 19, 2002

You know, that is a pretty good marketing idea on Mr. Sands part. People who hate popup ads will think, 'Hey, I can flame this guy now'... when really, all they are doing is providing another email address to be spammed. ;)

Surprised no one thought of it sooner!
posted by irishkitten at 12:31 PM on November 19, 2002

I am sure that even with a sustained campaign, the amount of emails he would get would be dwarfed by the amount of clicks (and perhaps sales conversions) generated by the pop-ups.
posted by cell divide at 12:34 PM on November 19, 2002

Marketing you say? You mean you can make money from it? Where do I sign up?
posted by blue_beetle at 12:42 PM on November 19, 2002

Otherwise Inc. is responsible for the design of Orbitz ads.

Here are all the Orbitz pop-unders.

Cons:

Some (but not all) of them could cause epileptic seizures
Orbitz' aggressive marketing to upend x10 has overwhelmed cosumers
They are very large ads

Pros:

Most are tastefully executed
The interactive ones have about 1 second of fun
None of them mask the 'x' close button
They all pop-under and don't intrude your reading

The debate on the evils of advertising on the internet has been done. I congratulate Orbitz for restraint in the design department, unlike many other ads I'm seeing lately that take over your screen. Their enthusiasm in the brute force marketing department however, needs to be reexamined.

My point is: WE'VE ALL SEEN MUCH, MUCH WORSE.
posted by Stan Chin at 12:42 PM on November 19, 2002

And it seems to work as well, until now I'd never heard of Orbitz but thanks to this clever piece of marketing I now know where to get cheap holidays.
posted by sebas at 12:43 PM on November 19, 2002

Sebas - other websites are cheaper. Orbitz is run by the airlines themselves and do not offer deals as good as the websites that are trying to find bargains.
posted by trigfunctions at 12:46 PM on November 19, 2002

Pop-unders? Pop-ups? What is this strange language of which you speak, o intrepid Internet Explorers?
posted by dhartung at 12:55 PM on November 19, 2002

"How could you turn down a startup that was founded and funded by the major airlines that consumers are really passionate about?"

How, indeed. Golly gee: a consortium of large corporations banding together to collectively set prices? How could that be anything but good for the end consumer?!
posted by vraxoin at 12:57 PM on November 19, 2002

If you're a great big GEEK!, you might be interested in some of the interesting usage of LISP behind the scenes at Orbitz
posted by websavvy at 12:58 PM on November 19, 2002

Orbitz is run by the airlines themselves

Also, because it is run by the airlines, it is better for consumers if Orbitz has less market share than the other travel sites. The airlines would like nothing better than to see all the competitors to Orbitz go out of business so they can exert better control over ticket pricing to the detriment of consumers.

I always use Expedia or Travelocity unless the fare on Orbitz is significantly cheaper (which it occansionally is, btw)
posted by boltman at 1:05 PM on November 19, 2002

I must concur with dhartung. I haven't seen a popup or under in months. I use Phoenix and have been so happy about it. It is light on the resources and seems pretty darn stable. I haven't seen a X-10 camera, Orbitz, credit card, casino, classmates etc popup or under in months. Why are you still tolerating them?
posted by spartacusroosevelt at 1:25 PM on November 19, 2002

To save this thread from being a purely orbitz marketing fest, how about posting some of those cheaper sites? I would love to know about some cheaper ways to fly.
posted by cell divide at 1:42 PM on November 19, 2002

Go on, eat the rabbit turd, I mean, WE'VE ALL SEEN MUCH, MUCH WORSE.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 1:54 PM on November 19, 2002

I haven't seen a X-10 camera, Orbitz, credit card, casino, classmates etc popup or under in months. Why are you still tolerating them?

Because we are at work and can't modify our machines at will. I suspect that is how 90% of people access the internet, and we're all stuck with these annoying freaking ads.
posted by trigfunctions at 2:13 PM on November 19, 2002

PopUp Stopper anyone? Simple, Free.
posted by dhacker at 2:27 PM on November 19, 2002

They all pop-under and don't intrude your reading

They do intrude. They delay the loading of the page I have requested. They shuffle windows, creating a visible interruption/intrusion. They intrude on my time by forcing me to close an unasked-for window. And the next time I create a new window on my machine it comes up popunder size, causing me to spend even more time resizing my window. That's intrusive.

The statistic this marketing god isn't tracking is how many people are so turned off by Orbitz popunders that they shop elsewhere. Even if Orbitz offers a lower fare, I won't buy from them because of their popups.
posted by neuroshred at 2:27 PM on November 19, 2002

Cell Divide: not the greatest source on travel sites but it's timely.
posted by OneSmartMonkey at 3:27 PM on November 19, 2002

Maybe if they'd come up with some funny ads, I'd actually bother to look at them.
posted by alumshubby at 4:18 PM on November 19, 2002

i fired off an email to orbitz a few months ago after seeing the popup everywhere.

i recieved an email back from the customer service guy thanking me for my opinion and recommending a few pop up killers that would stop all popups, not just orbitz.

i have an ad killer new that gets rid of everything. yahoo looks so strange with no ads on it.
posted by birdherder at 4:57 PM on November 19, 2002

*because we are at work and can't modify our machines at will.*

Just a note on Phoenix. It runs without an install. You unzip and run it. Depending on how tight your user restrictions are, this might be a way for some folks to use something besides IE from work.
posted by spartacusroosevelt at 8:16 PM on November 19, 2002

The only way I can think of for a admin to stop a standalone like phoenix, assuming you can write data, is to restrict what executable can be run. However since the NTs do this by name instead of something tied to the executable all one has to do is rename phoenix.exe to winword.exe and your good to go. Use your new found power to surf employment sites to get yourself out of that fascist, control freek, playground.
posted by Mitheral at 9:49 AM on November 20, 2002

Two things:
1. To those of you who have made my very first FPP somewhat successful, I thank you.
2. The e-mail address of the marketing genius has since been removed from the article. Looks like he may have received a few contrary opinions?! Here is the address that was originally given in the article:
msandsorbitz.com
posted by trigfunctions at 11:50 AM on November 20, 2002