Ultra Intrusive Pop Up Ads

from the lovely dept

Just when you thought that maybe, just maybe, advertisers were learning that pissing off people wasn’t the best way to get the message across, a company has come up with a new, ultra-intrusive pop up ad, guaranteed to anger anyone who gets it. The ad “fills the entire screen” of the user – and weighs in at 300k (fun for you dialup users out there). If I ever receive one of these ads, you can be assured that I won’t ever support the company using it or the site that is running the ad. At what point do advertisers learn that intrusive, annoying advertising pisses people off rather than makes them want to buy their product?


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Comments on “Ultra Intrusive Pop Up Ads”

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10 Comments
Mike (profile) says:

Re: News flash: 1999 is over!

Look, people need to realize that the free ride is over on the Internet, and folks are going to have to start either paying for content or accepting the fact of more dynamic advertising. That’s just the way it is, folks. No such thing as a free lunch!

Why is this so? You can’t think of more creative business models? If a business model involves pissing people off, then it open up an opportunity for someone else to come in and offer a non-pissing-people-off business model.

Look at Techdirt, for instance. We don’t offer advertising. Yet, we’re self-sufficient, because we came up with a business model that works.

Why is it that people can’t get their head around the idea that “free” content acts as promotional material for other things?

Why also can’t people get their head around the idea that intrusive advertising isn’t good for anyone. It’s annoying for the user, and unlikely to sell them on a product. I have nothing against non-intrusive, well-targeted advertising, like those found on Google.

I’m not asking for a “free lunch”. I’m just saying companies should be (and can be) more creative in their business models.

Mike (profile) says:

Re: Re: Re: News flash: 1999 is over!

what is your business model Mike?

Perhaps I need to make this clearer on the site…

Techdirt.com is a way of showing off our enterprise blogging work. We work with tech companies to make sure that, every day, they have all the news and analysis they need to better achieve their goals. We work with the companies to find out what they’re most interested in, and then provide that information to them – nothing more, nothing less – in a great format (the blog) that makes it possible for them to archive the information, search and sort the information, and discuss and annotate the info.

We’ve been in that business for a few years now, and Techdirt.com is just a way of demonstrating our skills.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re: News flash: 1999 is over!

For some small sites, coming up with alternative business models is just not possible. I’m not saying that for every case, but sometimes sites with niche content just have no alternative than to show ads to cover their costs. If we’re willing to accept this fact, webmasters have to run ads that are paying. Unforuntately right now a lot those ads are of the “annoying” type. I’ve started to see a shift in advertising though away from annoying pop/interstitial style ads to more integrated and non-intrusive branding style ads lately, so hopefully that trend will continue for both users and webmasters sakes.

Patrick says:

Re: Re: News flash: 1999 is over!

1999? How about 1994? Does any one else have fond memories of the idyllic pre-.com(mercial) cyber-scenery? The days when you could actually obtain valuable info through usenet, before those generously providing their time became fed up with spamming, flaming, and lazy, no-FAQ-reading newbies? Before open SMTP relays became a problem? I’m sick of these new attitudes on the internet today, where every one’s just out to make a buck. TGOS–Thank God for Open Source, the last remnant of the original internet ideals.

BTW, back on the subject, I think the advertisers may be operating on the assumption that even annoying ads provide name and product recognition, and are therefore effective. Personally, I try to remember the perpetrators of annoying pop up ads and I refuse to patronize these businesses, even on the rare occasion the product or service advertised actually interests me.

dr_stein says:

blah

What’s annoying is the fact that advertising execs have noticed that *people are fed up with ads* but they’re unable to think beyond “Bigger is better.” Larger ads are not going to sell more product. What is going to happen is that people will attempt to read an article only to be interrupted by a full screen flashing, noisy advertisement that they didn’t expect. Is that a good thing? Does that give a good impression of the product? No, because the comsumer will think “Oh yeah, that’s the stupid ad that came up while I was trying to read.”

I know it’s not 1999, but there really are better ways to generate revenue rather than blasting ads between page views. Especially when you *know* that it’s going to be abused. They said that it’d be between pages on multi page articles. Haven’t you seen web
sites that do
stuff like this.
You know,
cramming the
article text on
the side so they
can fill up the
..rest of the page with ads?

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