If you’ve ever sat and envisioned what the stereotypical “hell” was like, chances are fire, all things red, and horns made up most of it. But little did you know, “Hell” also includes HP and Yahoo. Why you say? Ooooh, only because after a few trial runs, HP and Yahoo have somehow come up with the belief that consumers don’t like and in many cases, actually look forward to ads on their printouts. This new advertising scheme only affects web connected printers and scheduled printouts tied to Yahoo’s ad network for now, but as we all know, once a toe is in the door, it can only get wider.
Hop inside for HP’s rationalization and a few key reasons why this isn’t going to work…
From the horses mouth:
HP ran two trials where consumers received content from a U.S. national music magazine and major U.S. newspaper along with advertisements, said Stephen Nigro, senior vice president in HP’s Imaging and Printing Group.
“What we discovered is that people were not bothered by it [an advertisement],” Nigro said. “Part of it I think our belief is you’re used to it. You’re used to seeing things with ads.”
Now first of all, no one likes ads. No matter how you spin it or try to rationalize, ads suck. HP and Yahoo are full of shit if they think this is going to fly. Furthermore, HP as well as countless other printer manufactures make a killing on obscenely marked up ink costs. And lastly, there’s no way in hell I would give in to ads on my printouts as I would essentially be paying HP and Yahoo’s advertising costs seeing as how they’re using my paper and ink.
And if I you really want to get all save the trees on the subject, printing out random ads no matter how targeted is a huge waste of paper. HP and Yahoo are essentially moving backwards in time. Isn’t email spam and ads on every single web page known to mankind supposed to help save paper and unnecessary paper waste?
There are plenty of awesome ways that web connected printers can benefit us humans. Printout ads being shoved in our faces is not one of them. Anyone re-thinking an HP printer purchase?
