The Power of "Please"

Part of our job as marketing communications professionals is to find balance between our profession and, well, common sense. Take advertising, for example. It's highly unlikely that you will find an average consumer who loves ads, even relevant ads catered to their Internet activity (in fact, prepare for hostility if you mention that), so we must walk the fine line between achieving our goals and recognizing consumer freedom. I, for example, use AdBlock Plus, ever aware of the irony of a marcomm professional blocking the very ads that help drive our profession. 

But it really depends on the ad or the website. Some sites are taking the extensive ad blocking and making it a touch point. Tickld.com goes a far as to recognize that I don't want to see ads and says it's cool.

And then they use the power of "please." 

Well that was unexpected. By cleverly acknowledging my reluctance to allow ads to affect my user experience, and then simply saying "please," Tickld grabbed my attention. The simplicity of this tactic worked, and down came the block, so as to show, in my opinion, some fairly innocuous advertising.

I try to avoid cursing advertising as a whole. It is, after all, a pillar of marcomm. Having a site ask me (nicely) to consider allowing advertising is unexpected, and was, in this case, rather effective.