Slashdot Mirror
Why Do You Block Ads?
flyingember asks: "With ad blocking becoming ever more popular among users, why do you block ads? And with what? Do you view internet ads as different from say, TV ads? What about in a magazine? Do you not buy a magazine because it has too many? I'm specifically talking about the ads in a webpage, but even popup blockers can cause problems with me using a site."
1. Most ads are taking too long to download. Even if I have broadband, I would rather use it on somewhere useful.
2. Most ads are too big and intrusive.
3. Most ads are irrelevant.
See the trend? That explains why Googld Ads is so successful.
Eyesore. Waste of screen real estate. Invasion of privacy.
Oh, and maybe to speed up page loading.
And to stick it to the man.
And to save electrons.
static ads don't bother me so much, but blinking, flashing, moving junk drives me nuts.
Flashblock for firefox solves 95% of this problem nicely.
If I could block ads in magazines, or stop them on TV I would.
flash, popup, anything to catch my attention, and I'll for sure try and block you, because I'm not an impulse shopper. I plan my purchases.
I hate how some companies feel that making sure you have 10 windows open on your desktop isa good way to do business. Get in the way of what I'm doing on the web, and I'll certainly have a negative image of your company.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
I Block ads because they take too long to load on my 56k modem.
Whenever I run into an ad online, I'm compelled to view the source, close down my browser session, and tweak my userContent.css/hostperm.1 to block it.
I don't recall having this aversion to advertising before popups got huge, so I think the advertisers just pushed me enough that I said "you know what? fuck you guys, I'm not going to see a single damn one of your bullshit ads."
there's more than one way to do me.
Personally, I don't block them until they a) blink b) slow down the page.
Animated crap and poorly designed pages that make the ad-links (ohh, and that damned javascript highlight words BS) get insta-adblock.
Sure, that policy has led to my adblock filter catching damn near all graphical ads -- that ain't my fault.
I still see Google's.
Back when I was first getting into computers, I always used to buy the Computer Shopper magazine. It was huge (250-350) pages, but only about half of it was ads. The rest of it consisted of, mostly, hardware and software reviews. It was also fairly cheap at the time, at around $2.50 an issue.
Then it went to $2.95 an issue and consisted of 2/3 ads.
Then it went to $3.98 an issue and consisted of 3/4 ads, but dropped down to only about 200 pages.
At that point I never bought another copy.
(Yes, the numbers aren't exact, but it makes my point.)
Right now, I only block popups, though I'm considering blocking far more. I used to block all of doubleclick's stuff, but they aren't as common as they once were.
If I bought a magazine and all the articles were blocked by Ads, I'd be pretty pissed.
And if I had to pay extra $$$ to read the same magazine with the articles unblocked, I'd be even more pissed.
Why actually; I don't buy magazines; for pretty much that reason. In 1994 I realised that most magazines on the shelf have very little substance to their articles, are 2/3rds filled with ads and cost (at the time) $3.50 to $5 each. Not to mention the fact that the usual story layouts around that point became really bad (this got worse a few years later when they started making ads which blended in with the story to deliberately cause confusion).
I don't mind some advertising, but the amount and intrusiveness of modern advertising is obnoxious enough that I do avoid buying magazines and I have had to take the time to figure out adblock and flashblock.
Recently in Barnes & Noble, I remarked to my friends, "I won't buy magazines because they're all full of ads. Why can't they make a magazine with no ads?", to which one friend responded, "What you want is a book."
So who should pay for content if ads shouldn't? Would you "subscribe" to a website?
---- join dshield.org Distributed Intrusion Detec
I block ads on the internet because they are usually completely useless to me. When I watch TV at least, the ads are for things I might buy at the grocery store, or they advertise a sale on at a local furniture store, or they advertise a car I might one day consider buying.
The vast majority of ads on the internet are either completely disinteresting to me - trying to sell me a server appliance, or telephone deals in another country. Or they are advertising online casinos that I would never visit. Or they are scams - you know, the "Your computer is not OPTIMIZED click HERE" crap. If interet advertising was actually relevant to my every day needs, and didn't all come across as a cheap scam, then I might be more tolerant.
In fact, I am. I'm quite happy to view the Google ad-words ads, because they have, sometimes, shown me something I might be interested in.
-"I still believe in revolution; I just don't capitalize it anymore." - srini!
Back in the early '90s, we used to buy Computer Shopper magazine *specifically* *because* of the ads. That thing was at least 2 inches thick; not like today's version.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
...dogs lick their balls?
Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
That would just be plain unfair.
The Mothership
Pretty much I use Adblock with the most up-to-date definition from pierceive.com.
What ads do I see? None, or very close to it.
What legitimate content gets blocked? None, or very close to it.
Why? Having IFRAMEs dissapear makes the page shorter. Less to download. Less crap in my way. And nothing is safe either (including Google textads). If I don't like something the definition does, I just change it.
So why? There are many reasons. Lets start with the net. While they take time to download and eat up CPU cycles (I've always wondered how much battery life Flash ads eat up when surfing the 'net on battery), there is a bigger reason.
What do ads look like on the 'net these days. Are they simple? Are they like google ads or the banner ads of yesterday? No, I see 3 things. I see large moving objects covered with names of states trying to sell me mortgages (peacocks, palm trees, all sorts of crud). I see 20 smiley faces dancing and bouncing like all those stupid pages people put up when animated GIFs first appeared. Last thing? Shoo the _____ to win a _____. DO IT NOW. NOW NOW NOW. TRY IT. WIN A ______. CLICK HERE.
Yeah, THOSE make me want to try/buy. Some companies ads are fine (the MS ads here on Slashdot are fine with me). But because people don't click them (see reasons above), they have decided to make things worse. Now they open BIG WINDOWS when you mouse over (or just enter a page). They bounce things around your browser window. They play sounds and songs and other crud. I keep my computer muted all the time (unless I'm listening to music) for precisely this reason. I got tired of surfing and randomly having some loud car-screech-peel-out or stupid music.
TV? I watch more ads than ever. Instead of being annoyed by most (BUY THIS CAR NOW AT JOE BOB FORD), I can skip all that. But when fast-forwarding if I see something that catches my eye I'll stop and watch it out of curiosity. No longer are am I just "watching" the ads (in the sense I'm in the room and theoretically watching TV), now I actually WATCH them. I don't tend to miss any commercials that I wish I'd seen (haven't heard about any good ones recently I didn't already know about). Interesting ads work, but it is only because of my TiVo I even bother.
As for radio, things have gotten worse also. That is one of the reasons (there are MANY others) that I've moved to listening to NPR so much (and my iPod even more).
My biggest complaint with mass media has to be how smutty it is. It used to be you could watch TV or listen to the radio. Now if I watch TV I get to see "male enhancement" ads, some of the most appalling and horrifying ads I've seen in my life (Tag body spray, Axe shower gel, some gum brand, and some others). Radio is the same. Everything I watch/listen to wants to sell me male enhancement drugs, recreational sex drugs (Viagra et al), some scan diet pill (that is probably causing millions of people kidney disease), 12 year olds dressed like hookers ('cause it's COOL), etc.
There are some fun commercials, and I've watched 'em. I enjoyed the iPod commercials, the Old Navy swing commercials from years ago, HP's recent printer campaign with the photos, and many others. The Toyota Prius commercial (from the Super Bowl) and many others have been great. But to watch those I get assaulted by tons of stuff that annoys me (car ads), sickens me (male enhancement), or just makes me want to cry that something like that would be broadcast (Tag body spray, Axe shower gel, etc).
But the biggest problem, the BIGGEST problem is seeing the same commercial 3 times per show. For every show. On every network. Non-stop play. Same thing over and Over and OVER and OVER.
I've heard rumblings of going back to "Kraft Foods presents: Medium on CBS". That's fine with me. I can't WAIT. It has GOT to be better than what we have now. And for those of you saying "Just give up on TV and watch the shows when they come out on DVD", I'm VERY close to that. VERY close.
Whether you agree with my stance on certain commercials being vulgar/etc; you have to admit... commercials seem to be trying to get louder and more annoying (like car dealership commercials are the best thing out there or something).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That's a hell of a lot of marketing information that is being trawled for, without permission from anyone.
Those who view HTML-based e-mail have similar problems - any spam you open with a blank, embedded image link (provided you view images) will result in the spammer instantly obtaining vast amounts of data about you.
To me, that is simply NOT acceptable. If you think that Big Brother is bad (and not just the show), then Big Ad Exec is far, far worse.
Besides which, I was born in the UK, grew up on advert-free television, and resent the hell out of having 20-30 minutes of adverts for every hour timeslot on American TV. If I wanted to watch promotional material, with clips of TV show included, I'd go to one of the home shopping channels, thank you very much. I do not choose to go to the lairs of thieves and I never invited those lairs to come to me.
As you might have gathered, I don't watch much TV in America.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I block google ads. They're less annoying, but thats like saying someone who punches you in the face is less of an asshole than someone who kicks you in the nuts.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I pay for bandwidth therefore I should be able to choose what uses the bandwidth I pay for. The model of ad delivery on the internet is different than a magazine. Before you buy the magazine you can, theoretically, determine how much space is taken up by advertisements and decide if it's a fair trade for your money. With internet ads, you pay first, and you find out how much bandwidth is taken up by an ad after you get it.
Time is limited, advertising isn't a fair trade for my time. I lose minutes of my life, what do I get out of it?
I use the adblock extension for Firefox. Before that, I used Ad-Shield for Internet Explorer.
It all started with animation. There is nothing worse than trying read some articles with dayglo green-on-pink spinning, flashing, !CLICK HERE! on top. I can't... think... with that there! Junkbuster fixed that.
Then there was cookie management. I only log into a handful of sites, why does every single one need cookies to the end of time? JB again to the rescue: it could convert cookies into session-only cookies, and leave the ones I need alone.
Then came the spam. Back then I was using Netscape 4, and it would dutifully load remote images off the web, with no way to stop it. Privoxy helped there by letting me blackmail IPs. Not great, but better than nothing.
Since it's a proxy, all this worked for the times I was also forced to use IE, which I tried to resist as long as possible. Since neither Netscape or IE had any of these features, it was a great add-on.
As everyone around here has said over and over, text ads don't bug me. I could go militant anti-ad and start filtering text ads with Privoxy, but I don't. Google got it right. God bless 'em.
These days, things have changed for the better. Mail clients can disable remote image loading, and actually prefer text over the HTML bullshit. Browsers have per-site cookie management and allow you to accept session cookies silently. Firefox has ad-block.
"Maybe ads aren't so bad anymore", I think, "maybe advertisers have learned their lesson, and I should stop blocking". Then I use my parents' computer without adblock on a Christmas break. The ads now are movies, overlay the entire screen, with swooshing rock soundtracks. Result: adblock not only stays on, but gets installed on permanently on their computer too. And anyone else's I work on.
At home, I picked up a ReplayTV 5040 (the geek PVR) -- two babies made following "24" impossible, and I was tired of swapping tapes. I dumped the stupid VCR the day we got it. Automatically skipping ads was just a pleasant bonus, and saves lots of time.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
I would like to use Opera, as it seems to run faster than Firefox on OS X, but given that it doesn't offer something like adblock, as far as I'm concerned, the web is unusable with it. I'm a very easily distracted and hyperstimulated person (I suspect that I'm a high functioning person with Asperger's syndrome), and the nature of ads these days is so obnoxious (shaking banner ads, bright and flashing colours that can have no purpose other than to induce epileptic seizures) that unless I block these graphics, I feel physically sick after several hours of using the web and cannot focus on the content of the page I'm trying to read. Because of this, I've blocked all the ads I've come across, and for months now that I have adblock configured to my liking, I've seldom seen a single one.
I feel similarly about movies and television. The ads on both of these mediums are designed to grab attention and maintain it, but I find them too intensive; the constant movement, colour, etc. makes me dizzy and anxious to the point that I feel extremely unpleasant and need to retreat to my home to relax. I now download ad-free content using Bittorrent and watch all my TV shows sans ads and my movies in the comfort of my own home, free of charge. Is this stealing? Absolutely, but given the psychologically manipulative tactics used in advertising these days, I don't particularly care. I'm fully aware that two wrongs don't make a right, but I feel no inclination to behave with the slightest bit of decency towards industries that treat me in such a vile manner.
(On the other hand, I fully do support companies that I feel treat me well. I happily pay for their products. I go see my favourite musicians in concert and buy their albums and make a point of saving money beforehand so that I can buy their albums and merchandise there to show my appreciation for them.)
The whole point of advertising these days is to be as intrusive as possible. For example, in Toronto right now, a movie theatre along one of our major highways, the QEW, wants to erect a huge LCD screen to present highway drivers with movie previews. The problem is that their proposed screen surpasses the size limitations set by the city. They're fighting to change the bylaws. Opponents are claiming that the ad will distract drivers and increase the probability of accidents, while the movie company is stating that there is no evidence of such a thing. The sad thing is that the city is even considering it, from my understanding. The entire purpose of the screen, it seems to me, is to distract drivers as the screen is not visible to anyone other than people in cars on this highway, so I can't even fathom how the theatre's claim has any merit whatsoever. It boggles my mind.
I mean, we're constantly being bombarded by advertising. Now when I go to the gas station, I have LCD screens ON THE GAS MACHINES blaring loud advertisements in my face. Similarly for the subway stations, which have essentially become painted with ads for TV shows. The hubcaps of taxis are now advertisements for TV stations. It's rare that I have a day where I don't end up using a urinal that forces ads into my face. Often, these ads are so wasteful from a resource perspective that I can't wrap my mind around it; for example, we have a TV show up here in Canada called Canada's Worst Driver. One of their advertising mechanisms is for a tow-truck to pull around a severely decimated car with a huge advertisement for the show printed on the side of the car. This is permissible in an era where gas prices are soaring and smog is becoming a huge problem in Toronto?
How can I possibly show even the slightest hint of respect for an industry that gladly stomps on my toes at every possible opportunity it gets? As far as I'm concerned, there is no lifeform worth less on the face of this planet than those in advertising, who bring almost nothing beneficial or worthy to the table of humanity, only forcing more mental pollution upon us. I once met someone with whom I was quite compatible, but upon hearing that this person was in college studying marketing, I sent them packing as I could never date someone with those ambitions, regardless of how amazingly we got along.
I don't block ads. I block annoyances, such as popups. I don't mind the ads. I certainly prefer them to having to pay subscription fees. Then again, ads these days are far less annoying than they were 3 or 4 years ago. Heck, I even find the occasional thinkgeek ad interesting. I don't think advertising is automatically evil. I can understand being against the annoyance, but I've seen so many extreme views here that are really quite obnoxious. "Even though these ads are what is keeping this site I enjoy so much alive, I'm blocking them because of the principal of it." Yeah, right. If you were really operating on principals, you'd pay the fair price for viewing the site. Sadly, this sort of attitude doesn't earn as much karma around here.
.gif based ad instead of Google's text based ads. They had comics rotating through the ads. I found myself glancing up there regularly so I could catch the latest comic. I miss that. In that sense, it was more like TV. The ads became tolerable because I was being rewarded with content. Fair enough. I think some would-be cartoonists could make an interesting living, there. I think this is the right idea. Unfortunately, most sites try to play it as though the content they're providing is enough. Pity, really. Tripping over ads is not the way to keep your userbase. That's what drives people to block the ads. I can certainly understand that. Heck, even TV isn't immune to this. Lost is very hard to watch without a PVR. Tone it down, dudes.
For those of you that think all ads are evil, I have some random bits of info for you to read:
- I have my dream job right now because of a community site supported by ads. It is a massive site that is expensive to run simply because of the sheer number of users. I know others that can tell a similar story.
- Slashdot, an ad driven site, has provided me and LOTS of others many many hours of entertainment. (admittedly, it's the extreme twerps that provide the most entertainment for me.)
- Serenity, the movie trailer that lots of Slashdots tripped overthemselves to get, is an ad intended to get you to spend $8+ at the local theater.
- Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, Star Trek, Babylon 5, and even Futurama were made for the expressed purpose of tricking you into watching commercials.
- Any time you get excited by the latest processor or the newest video card or even the whoop-de-shit gaming system coming out, you're hearing about it because of advertising. Despite popular belief, there's really not that much difference between news and advertising.
Anyway, I'm done ranting. Moving on to a more constructive topic: I think advertising services are missing a critical component here. Opera had it right for a while. Way back in version 5, they actually used a
"Derp de derp."
My eyes gravitate towards whatever article/information I'm reading and completely ignores the peripheral ads. Once in a while, I see something that I like, and if I do, I click on it.
Many slashdotters think its really kewl to block ads, but ads pay for the sites you are viewing, ads pay for slashdot (not nearly enough of us subscribe to keep this site running).
On the other hand, we do have the right to block ads, its our computer and bandwidth. But if enough of us do, then most of the sites we know and love will cease to operate. As someone working in the ad-serving and tracking industry, ad blockers (not popup blockers -- popups are evil) are beginning to show up as a serious chunk in the stats. Advertisers and their agencies are now up in arms. Not being able to tell the ROI of an ad, means agencies can't tell if its worth showing or now.
By us not clicking on the crappy flash ads -- that sends a message. Blocking it does not.
Newsfollow.com
This is apparently a very complex social issue as very few people seem to regonize that this treshhold exists. Certainly not those in power, it explains why our "leaders" are so often confused when we suddenly rebel against something we have quitely accepted before.
It happens in all sorts of places in our society, from important to trivial, the resistance against immigrants (muslims mostly) that "suddenly" came to a rise in europe. Has politicians totally baffled. The young male "suddenly" no longer watching tv (and more important tv commercials) has tv bosses claiming the world is coming to an end.
What has simply happened that a constant level of annoyance has grown to the point where people are no longer just content to let it lie.
When that "okay" radio starts cranking out ad-blocks of more then 5 minutes it perhaps becomes rewarding enough to simply switch the radio off and take the effort to bring in your own music. When that tv program you sorta watch is interrupted beyond the point where you can actually remember what you where watching then perhaps you don't switch back (is there any human out there who can watch a full dutch tv ad-block?). Perhaps you don't switch the tv on at all when all you ever watch are half of a tv-show.
So I block ads EVERYWHERE because they have grown to irritating. They reached my treshhold where I go from simply being irritated to taking action.
And just as the current backlash against muslims in europe went from tolerance to hatred in a flash I am now very extreme in my ad blocking. ALL image ads are blocked and screw even those sides where I can fully understand they need ad income to survive.
My current solution is getting a bit old but for now the ads that do slip through are not yet irritating enough to make me spend an hour or two finding a better solution and implementing it. When it does my browser will once again be totally ad free and many a free site will loose yet another tiny slice of income.
Then again who cares about sites like those game sites with bloody redirects to full page ads? Or slashdot with it showing a linux user MS ads? Geez talk about adding insult to injury.
Will I ever go back to unblocking ads? Perhaps. Someday I will buy a new computer and install a clean version of my OS on it and then I will probably be to lazy to install an ad blocker immidiatly (then again the blocker is part of squid so this is only when I replace my "server") and if I find that the ads then are not irritating enough I may not bother.
Lets face it, that is not very likely eh?
The response by marketing to the increasing resistance against ads is to make the ads bigger and more intrusive.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Actually, I don't actively block the less intrusive ads, but as the advertising techniques used become more aggressive and privacy intrusive, I do respond with increasing vigor. Of course the worst bastards are the jackasses that are trying to infest my computer with browser hijackers and various other forms of spyware, but they are only extremists on the same scale. Therefore I say the fundamental problem is the "free lunch" mentality created by "free" radio broadcasts. Radio broadcasts were not really free, but by having the advertisers sponsor them, the radio stations were able to build a profitable business model. However, the chickens always come home to roost, and the result of this kind of "free" was ultimately very bad, especially as applied to television, and now as it is invading the commercial Internet.
The interests of the advertisers are NOT the same as the interests of the public. The advertisers do not want people to be well educated and well informed, because in that terrible case (from their perspective) the best product value (in each product category) would be known, and that product would capture the bulk of the sales. Except for the sellers of the best product, the companies who are paying for the advertising want people to be as easily manipulated as possible, so that they can twist as many of them as possible into buying not-so-valuable products. Actually, from the perspective of the "purest" advertisers, selling nothing at the highest price possible is the ultimate goal.
In conclusion, take a close look at Dubya to see what they can sell. Your children and grandchildren (and more) will be paying for that "sale" for a long time.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
If you were american, you'd send a bill to accounts payable for consulting hours.
Democrats and Republicans only disagree about how to enslave you
I block ads because advertising doesn't fit the sort of consumer I am. While I understand the desire for companies to advertise (and the desire for sites to provide free content in return for advertising), that only works for consumers who are sensitive to advertising. I am not like that, however. I am a different sort of consumer. I am the knowledge-empowered, researching sort of consumer. Not only will advertising not get you any points with me, but will probably work against you.
When I'm online reading stuff on a web page, I'm not in a frame of mind to be advertised to. I'm working on something else, thank you very much. Interrupt me and it's not much different than a salesman calling me while I'm trying to eat dinner or enjoy a good book. If I'm ready to purchase something, I will then do research and find reviews sites, discussion forums, and other such stuff. I could care less what the manufacturer says about its own products. Half of it tends to be lies anyway. So advertising gets a company absolutely nowhere with me. If you have a product worth buying, it's going to have to stand on its own due to its merits, and not because you spent $X million advertising it. Some of my best products I've ever purchased are well-known only to enthusiasts in the field, and usually never advertise. Because they don't need to.
Not every consumer is like me. So granted there is a market for advertising. I am not that market, however. So why should I waste my screen real-estate and bandwidth for material which will never obtain its desired purpose with me?
I use AdBlock with Firefox and block EVERYTHING with a ruthless passion.
However I don't deny the success of advertising and I do use it a tiny bit myself. Other consumers are passive and depend on advertising to proactively notify them about products, vs themselves doing the work.
why do you block ads?
Well:
And with what?
Firefox's adblocker, the AdBlock extension, and a list of the worst advertising offenders in a "block stuff from these" file.
Do you view internet ads as different from say, TV ads?
What about in a magazine? Do you not buy a magazine because it has too many?
Don't buy magazines very often. . . But when I do, I'm happy for them to have ads. They don't have "peel off this ad to view the actual content" ads stuck all over the pages, or ads with flashing lights or so-called humerous noises. They have well-designed, undemanding ads that are relevant to the rest of the content.
It all really boils down to: Most internet ads seem to have been designed for no other purpose than wasting my time and pissing me off. So I block those ads. If that makes life hard for a website I use, then they should either: Offer a "pay for ad-free pages" like Slashdot does; or find advertisers who aren't determined to push ads that will alienate the very users the site depends upon.
So.. it has come to this
Oh, they aren't pretty compared to, say, a flower in a vase. But, bless their little hearts, they just sit there. They don't blink. They don't flash. They don't scroll by the top of the screen. They don't periodically hop in front of the content I'm trying to read. They don't even cycle through a handful of images, updating every couple seconds. They just sit there and get noticed when I feel like noticing them.
::blankfaced drool::" It could be golf of all things. My ability to filter out noisy moving sh*t has gone away. So, if I end up at a website with even just a couple animated ads around the edges, I have a supremely hard time reading the article of interest before I've nuked all the ads. That includes that scrolling headline marquee so many news sites seem to love. (I love the Nuke Anything extension to Firefox.)
And that, my friends, is beautiful.
I've actually clicked on some Google Ads purposefully. But I generally won't click on a banner except by accident. Sites that affront me visually like the Vegas Strip are less likely to get a return visit from me.
You see, I don't watch TV regularly. I haven't for a decade or so. Now, when I go to restaurants, when there's a TV on somewhere, my eyes will drift to it: "Moving picture box funny!
So maybe it's just super common among the handful of us that don't numb ourselves on the boob tube every night that really get annoyed by ads. Dunno.
I do know I usually don't bother with the newspaper or most magazines (and get annoyed playing "find the article" in the latter when I do), and I still don't turn on TV. (Who wants to see the same feminine hygene product commercial 3 times in a single commercial break? You do? Ok, I prescribe watching TBS and UPN for the rest of your days.) What magazines I do subscribe to (Mother Jones and Pontiac Enthusiast) have low ad content of high relevance. They get my renewals year upon year. (Heck, I would've never learned of ZZPerformance if it weren't for a tasteful ad in Pontiac Enthusiast, and they've gotten a few thousand $$ from me over the years.)
Ditto with websites. I return to the ones that don't assault me like a gaggle of epileptic clowns, and make my visit worth my while. Google text ads are a tool to enable that, and that my friends is beautiful.
--Joe
Program Intellivision!
To whatever marketing consultant posed this question - the parent gets it in a nutshell one you need to read. I block flashing/moving ads. I block large ads. I don't go quite so far as to block ads that don't fit the colour scheme, but I just might start.
/. for a year before I decided to check out one of those thinkgeek ads (and glad I finally did). If you get blocked, you won't have that chance, even if you get them to look over at "that damned flashy thing" the first time it loads. It's just another annoying ad of many. On sites like this especially - where viewers are coming day after day, month after month - you will want to design many different ads promoting different aspects of your business/product. Only after a proper gestation period will the viewers begin to consider the product.
For ad designers - many ads only make it to the viewer's brain after 20 or 30 page hits. I was on
For site owners - don't alienate customers with your ads. It doesn't even need to be said that the flying-across-the-screen-close- now-or-I-block-the-article ads are a disservice to your customers. I (and others here) have stopped going to entire websites specifically because of their ads that are designed to get around the blocker-of-the-day. Ad-blockers aren't the root of the problem - the sheer disrespect for the page viewers is.
Another quick note for advertisers - I *always* de-animate my gifs, so make sure all your info is on the first frame. Even better, don't animate - you risk blockage.
Last post!
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself. No, no, no it's just a little thought. I'm just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they'll take root - I don't know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself. Seriously though, if you are, do. Aaah, no really, there's no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan's little helpers, Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you're going, "there's going to be a joke coming," there's no fucking joke coming. You are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself. Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, "he's doing a joke... there's no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a friend - I don't care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking machinations. I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, "Oh, you know what Bill's doing, he's going for that anti-marketing dollar. That's a good market, he's very smart." Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags! "Ooh, you know what Bill's doing now, he's going for the righteous indignation dollar. That's a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We've done research - huge market. He's doing a good thing." Godammit, I'm not doing that, you scum-bags!
Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet!
"Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill's very bright to do that." God, I'm just caught in a fucking web! "Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar..." How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don't you?"