Mitsubishi Takes Over Yahoo, Firefox Blissfully Ignorant

mitsu_2006_eclipse_yahoo.jpg
For Your IE's Only

So, today, Mitsubishi launched their cool-ish Yahoo page take over to promote the new 2006 Eclipse. By using the a,s,d,w keys, visitors can drive the car around the Yahoo page before heading to the car's microsite. It's engaging enough as page takeovers go but we have one concern. It's hard to believe that most marketers, especially a supposedly savvy marketer like Mitsubishi, still think Internet Explorer is the only browser worth designing for. You see, we use Firefox here because, well, it's just, like, way better than Explorer. We also spend our entire day writing about advertising. You'd think Mitsubishi would want those who write about advertising to easily and without need to fire up another browser, view their page takeover creative. Apparently the 10 to 20 percent of us that use Firefox don't matter. Actually, maybe that's a good thing. Those that use Firefox also use it because most of this fancy stuff doesn't work with Firefox and we like that little "feature" just fine.

Written by Steve Hall    Comments (15)     File: Campaigns, Creative Commentary, Online     Jun-15-05  
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Comments

Original article: http://www.juiceenewsdaily.com/0605/news/eclipse_ad.html

Posted by: Landon on June 15, 2005 10:37 AM

I wrote an article about just this point 2 weeks ago...see CAN YOU SEE ME NOW?

Posted by: Ian Schafer on June 15, 2005 10:44 AM

Ian,

Thanks. I must have missed it. Thanks for pointing to it.

Posted by: Steve Hall on June 15, 2005 11:02 AM

Anytime Steve...anytime :)

Posted by: Ian Schafer on June 15, 2005 11:30 AM

Their demographics are aligned with Mac users, who the majority use Safari, which also doesn't work. So they've now shut out that potential market, too.

Sure, Mac users only account for 4% (less? more?) of the computing population, but that's thousands and thousands of 100K$+ HHI that they're not reaching.

Which is all fine and dandy for me: I use Google :P

Posted by: .:. tony on June 15, 2005 01:39 PM

Y'all can talk "badly" about it all you want - fact is, they did make the decision to go with something that works only on IE... and perhaps we all should take this into account with our own opinions and decisions instead of coming from such a place of rightiousness.

Posted by: greg on June 15, 2005 03:27 PM

>It's hard to believe that most marketers,
>especially a supposedly savvy marketer like
>Mitsubishi, still think Internet Explorer is the
>only browser worth designing for.

It's hard to believe that some blowhard blogger would think that because his personal choices put him in the 20% sector of an 80/20 pie chart that the world should bend over backwards to accomodate his choices.

Posted by: Anonymous Coward on June 15, 2005 03:31 PM

I think they are actually smart for making it IE/Yahoo. Think about it... I bet you own an Audi/VW/Prius/Volvo/Saab/Land Rover/Vespa... the Google/Firefox blowhards would never be caught dead in that car.

:)

Posted by: a35mmlife on June 15, 2005 03:46 PM

adage.com don't display their commercials in Quicktime, the de facto media viewing software of the advertising industry.

Posted by: Macintel on June 15, 2005 05:19 PM

Wah. Wah. Wah.

Sometimes you gotta go with the majority. Get over it you babies.

Posted by: Voice of Reason on June 15, 2005 05:44 PM

amen brother coward, amen. budgets are budgets and cross-browser compliance (or cross-OS for that matter) be damned.

Posted by: Anon Coward 4 Life on June 15, 2005 06:13 PM

Mitsubishi is a terrible company. They make terrible TV's (they self destruct to make you buy another one). They pollute the environment more than most auto makers. Their commercials don't sell the features or reliability of their cars, they just show people driving around and smiling. And, worst of all, they played that damn commercial every night during the talk shows (letterman, leno, conan), for 15 MONTHS, I kid you not. You know exactly the one I'm talking about. FIFTEEN MONTHS. EVERY NIGHT.

Posted by: Bog on June 15, 2005 08:52 PM

Uh...huh. Actually, most of us on Firefox LIKE not being involuntarily shanghai'd by pointless ads, thank you very much. First Mitsubishi ad that manages to make it through will get nuked -- literally. I have severe ad-killing extensions and I'm not afraid to use them!

Posted by: Kelly on June 16, 2005 01:27 PM

Most of these overlay rich media formats don't run on Firefox or MAC OS and never have. Not really a Mitsubushi creative issue -- but a technology issue. PointRoll and Eyeblaster just announced THIS WEEK that their ads are FINALLY compatible with Firefox. Here's a link:
http://www.pointroll.com/press/article_05061.asp

Posted by: beth on June 29, 2005 02:21 PM

In short, Yahoo! is very behind the curve when it comes to "new technology" and who they develop for. They are stuck on JUST developing for PC users and those who are on I.E.. As far as Safari goes--forget it, they do not care about Mac users. Firefox--uh that is way to out there for them.

Posted by: Suz on July 25, 2005 10:52 AM

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