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Commercials Come To The Net (After This Word)
ctwxman writes "Say it isn't so. Full-motion commercials, when you go to click off a page, are coming to a website near you! The New York Times (standing in a bathtub with an electric iron required) reports: "Beginning tomorrow, more than a dozen Web sites, including MSN, ESPN, Lycos and iVillage, will run full-motion video commercials from Pepsi, AT&T, Honda, Vonage and Warner Brothers, in a six-week test that some analysts and online executives say could herald the start of a new era of Internet advertising." Unicast, the company responsible, says the ads will play regardless of pop-up blocking. "The only format that loads completely before it is allowed to play, the Full Screen Superstitial is guaranteed to play perfectly for every consumer, every time."
I work in TV where commercials pay the freight. Is this so wrong on the net? It's not what we're used to, but maybe we're asking for more than is reasonable. I just don't know." I think I hear the whip swinging back, but harder ...
Unicast, the company responsible, says the ads will play regardless of pop-up blocking.
The good news is that this requires Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, so I don't even need to modify my ad filter to keep them from showing up!
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
I use a mozilla-based browser with the ad blocking userContent.css that can be found here. I find that also helps.
Who's forcing them to go to these sites ? Last time I checked, you had access to this smart little "X" button that would close the window. I'm all for those ads. They dont try and trick you by using faked windows, they just plain make their sales speech, and then you move on. If you dont like it, there are a bunch of other sites around that dont use them.
That's just it - they *DO* trick you. The article clearly states that *while* the user is browsing a given web site, the full motion video ad is being downloaded in the background. It is only when you leave the site that the video starts playing.
You don't have the option to check the "No thanks, I pay by the MB for my downloads" button. You don't even know about the large download until after it's done!! That's the offensive part.
One can only hope that the sites which feature these ads have a warning.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
According to Unicast, each advertisement is aprox
15 seconds
300k file size
Full screen
Plays between pages during consumer transition
300KB/7KBps == 42+ seconds of *extra* download time, presuming the user is downloading at a full 56kbps. Just think, if every page has this ad technology, this is going to make for some very long browsing sessions for modem users. I don't know about the rest of you, but I never was able to reach a full 56kbps when I used to be on modem. It always dropped back down to 26kbps or a similar speed.
Imho, it is advertising suicide. Then again, not every user knows there are alternatives to MSN, ESPN, etc...
If you check out the specs sheet of the "Superstitial" full screen ad format here: http://www.unicast.com/formats/htmlspecs_fs.asp?do cument=FullScreenSpecs%5F05277521%2Epdf. At least the specs are reasonable.
- All ads are essentially Flash movies with set limitations
- max file size 600K
- limit to 15 seconds max
- *MUST include sound off button
- *MUST include a skip commerical link
- if no buttons are visible at any point during the commerical, clicking on the commerical itself will allow the user to "bail" from watching it.
- embedded videos can be no larger than 320x240
And all interactivity and motion/animation is done in flash, most using actionscript. It almost seems like a crime to pass this off as new technology, when it fact it just appears to be flash movies forced to run full screen.
And no I don't agree with what they're doing, and I don't believe that I should have to pay with my own bandwidth to watch someone elses ads, but at least they're giving up the option in these ads to skip them... Which isn't much a silver lining but..???
The most important thing is that when we see these commercials, we should not click on anything but the "skip" button. If we make sure the skip them all, I think our message will be heard loud and clear by advertisers.