Is Bre.ad the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread?
And enter bre.ad to the marketing arena. Taking from one of my favourite mantras, “A good product must solve a real problem” bread sets out to help you stand out from the crowd. You can create your own digital billboard that will show for five seconds and then carry your reader to their destination.
Ok, I can see it, but why should I buy into their philosophy? They give three reasons as to why I should love Toast:
- They’re Personal: A toast is a personalized recommendation from someone you trust. If you follow someone on Twitter or Facebook and you click on their links, it’s probably because you’re interested in what they have to share. All toasts are hand-selected by your friend because they represent something meaningful, so toasts are a great way to get a personal and relevant recommendation from someone whose opinion matters to you.
- They’re Quick: Toasts are shared only for 5 seconds while your destination page is loading. You can see the countdown clock along the top of the page. If you don’t want to see a toast, you can always skip it by clicking the “Continue” button in the top right corner.
- They’re Fun: Getting a taste of your friends’ interests can be exciting — toasts are a great way to learn about new charities, brands, and products that you might not have known about before.
Depending on how you came to this post you may have already seen the test billboard I created. If not then click this link and you will see it. The billboards, or Toasts, are clean and simple looking. The interface when setting up your own toast as a great feel to it. Easy to navigate and easy to complete. There is a great potential for self promotion through these but I think that the real magic here would lie in freely promoting something that interests you, like a cause or an event.
Overall, I am really happy with this new application. Kudos to Alan Chang and the rest of Team Bre.ad.
I think that this tool has an incredible potential for marketing, however, I also see the very real possibility of this becoming another form of spam. As in everything else, time will tell. I hope that this becomes a valued marketing tool.
What do you think?
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Wasting 5 seconds on an ad that is preventing me getting quickly to the content I thought I was going to is not a good thing in my book
The ads are easily skipped entirely if the user would like to do so, simply install this and slice your bre.ad!! http://is.gd/shortbread
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Wow, that came out quickly since they only officially launched two days ago. I, for the moment, really like them. But thanks for the blocker info.
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I see great potential for misuse in this.
As with any other technology, it may be used for “good” or “evil.”
Though the idea is very interesting. I say it’s worth a try. You can’t stop progress, but you can channel it.
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It is definitely worth a try. So far I like it pretty well.
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I wouldn’t mind experimenting with a toast or whatever you call it on the exit of a site. Forbes has been doing it on the front end for maybe 8 years and I’d say it’s so-so. They have a quote of the day which helps. Then the toast/ad below.
Stan
Recently on my blog: A Morning Litany for a Damsel in Distress http://wp.me/pbg0R-ig
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Oooohh! a link on the way out. good idea.
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I think the execution is really well done. Most people will hate the concept though for two reasons.
1) It’s unexpected, and unexpected ads are rarely appreciated
2) The user incurs switching costs – Switching cost is the time it takes the brain to stop processing what they were thinking when they considered the tweet, switch to processing the ad, then switch back to the thought about the post they landed on.
This one is going to be a tough pill for people to swallow if it goes mainstream. That being said, there may be variations on the idea that might be more palatable.
Best of luck to the bre.ad team.
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Excellent point regarding switching costs. I think that if this does go mainstream then it stands a good chance of being bothersome initially, but over time people will get acclimated to the switch.
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