Slashdot Mirror
Consumer Ad Blocking Doubles
Dotnaught writes to tell us about an InformationWeek article reporting that, according to a Forrester Research report, consumers are fed up with ads. From the article: "In the past two years, the number of consumers using pop-up blockers and spam filters has more than doubled.. More than half of all American households now report using these ad blocking technologies to block unwanted pitches... Today, 15% of consumers acknowledge using their digital video recorders to skip ads, more than three times as many as in 2004." The study would have been more meaningful if it hadn't conflated spam blocking with ad blocking.
Consumers have always been fed up with ads - they just never had a way to avoid them before.
It probably won't be long before some clever ad makers create a secondary level ad within an ad that seems static at normal speeds and becomes a more active/interesting animation as people fast forward with their DVRs.
Advertisers and networks are getting clever at sneaking ads past us DVR users. So far, I've seen:
/.er in the broadcast industry knows more?
1. Ads styled to resemble the program they interrupt: this is common during the Daily Show, especially during the last commercial break.
2. Experienced DVR users note that the blank-screen pause length between shows and commercials is generally longer than that between two commercials. I've observed other people responding both consciously and unconsciously to this, unpausing shows quickly during that period of blackness. Who doesn't like being precise with the remote and avoiding the post-commercial rewind? I've noticed that some networks, for the greater part of this past year, put a longer pause between the second-to-last and last commercial. Usually, some of the ad's audio is played before the FF function is rapidly restored; sometimes, people will just sit through the ad. The fact that I've only seen this with this particular timing (it wouldn't make sense to do this between two early commercials, because the viewer's brain isn't cued up to unpause the DVR) is what leads me to suspect it as a deliberate ploy; perhaps some
Anyone noticed any more of these little tricks? If I was an advertiser in a market with a high proportion of people likely to use DVR, I'd try a 15-second, unchanging, large-text ad with voice-over to at least propagate the brand and slogan for a few seconds of FF time.
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
It isn't like people just get DVRs just to skip ads. And people don't download the Google toolbar just because it blocks popups (actually, I bet more do this than buy DVRs to skip ads--before switching to Opera, I used to use the Google toolbar to block popups, but I would not actually show the toolbar, so I was actually only using it for its popup blocking ability, not for its search features. But I bet the majority of users download it for the search function).
The article could more correctly say that "people are fed up with ads" if it were showing that people are going out of their way to block them. Instead they're showing that a lot of people downloaded the Google toolbar and discovered that it also blocks ads, and a lot of people bought DVRs so they could watch shows whenever they want, and discovered they can also fast forward through commercials.
A better measure of people's "fed-upness" with ads would be keeping track of the increase in use of products like ad-block in Firefox, or see if there's a major increase in the use of products that block ads that cost money (far fewer people would use such a product, but a dramatic increase in usership could likely be extrapolated to the general attitude of a population).
What can you expect when ads are intrusive and frequently block themselves over using Javascript over the text you are trying to read.
I got so fed up after yet another wired blog was covered over by their own paid advertising I started to block them, if they would have be un-obtrusive (for example google who I think do a good job in balancing the ads to be there but not in your face!) I wouldnt have bothered.
Until companies like Wired stomp on this practice rather than encouraging it they are going to be seen as just as much as (well not quite this bad) a pariah as companies such as zango.
Darren
The funny part is that when you significantly reduce advertisments in a persons world they becom hyper sensitive to it.
My daughter has lived pretty much AD free for a long time now. I use privoxy at home so no ad's come throughthe net, we only watch PVR Tv so ad's get skipped and she listens to only her ipod or sirius in the car. Our DVD player is a cheapo lite-on that is hackable to remove the must watch restrictions on DVD's. so she can press stop-stop-play to start the movie right away or simply press menu to skip the warnings and ad's.
when she goes to a friends or relatives house she cant stand how their TV has unskippable ad's or that they cant skip the junk at the beginning of the DVD, or that the internet is full of annoying ad's.
My wife and I also notice this in ourselves. Advertisments annoy us enough to swich off the cource the momen they start if we cant skip them.
Today advertising is getting even more annoying. we stopped PVR'ing anything on Spike-TV network as their damned blipverts in the show do nothing but ruin it. More networks are going to this and more shows are no longer watched because of it in our home. This is what people are seeing, Advertising is no longer an annoyance it's getting downright rude.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The lack of interesting content on TV is a related problem that is just as important. I, for once, just stopped watching TV altogether 7 years ago and haven't had any kind of service since. My decision was 70% motivated by luck of content I was interested in and 30% by annoyance of commercials.
No, I don't whine about the ads in print magazines I purchase.
I just don't re-sub to them. Recently subscribed to several National Geographic publications and found that they contained so much advertisement that they weren't worth even the deeply discounted rates they offered to resubscribe.
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
Please explain, what is this gold class? Never seen that here in NY.
It's a smaller cinema with 4 rows each with 6 seats arranged in pairs. The seats are much larger, more comfortable, and include recliners, footrests and a small table in the middle of each pair. They are arranged such that your view of the screen cannot be blocked by a tall person with big hair in the front, and you still have a good view in the back. They serve food and drinks (including alcohol) inside the cinema (you order before you go in and they bring it to you), and there are foods they serve in gold class they don't serve in the candy bar.
But in reality? You pay MORE for your movies?
Yep. Like I said, it's priced out of range of the annoying younger people who like to spoil movies.
Save that money and buy yourself a decent home theater setup.
This is not so effective for things not yet on DVD.
Would enough people pay $9.95/mo for, say, commercial-free Sci-Fi channel to make it worthwhile?
I would, so long as it didn't require continuing to pay $39.99 for 400 channels of crap just to get Sci-Fi Channel, USA, and a decent feed of local channels. Oh, and Cartoon Network and Disney. $5 for local channels + $10 each comes out to spending $5 more than I'm paying now without all the junk and without all the commercials. You bet your @$$, I'd do that.
Would I pay $40 in addition to my current bill? Hell, no. And that's precisely why we won't ever see those stations in an ad-free fashion until the majority of content is obtained by direct download rather than broadcast/satellite (which is already well on its way to becoming a reality).
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
When i quit watching tv it was exactly because of this. There was no tivo around back then, and one day i said to myself if they try to sell me another goddamned pickup truck before this show is over ill toss the fucking tv out on the curb & never turn one on again.
The VERY NEXT COMMERCIAL was for ford pickup trucks, no kidding.
I took it as a sign and threw the damn tv out right away. Best thing i ever did.
And youre right, it has made me more sensitive to advertising, I cant bear commercial radio these days, and i would never even dream of going online without an ad blocker. Ive simply had enough. If i want your product i will seek it out, otherwise leave me the hell alone, the more you shove your shit in my face, the less i want it.
Ive found that nowadays advertising has opposite the intended effect on me. When i do see an ad for the latest movie/product it makes me want to avoid seeing/buying it. When im at the store i ALWAYS look for generic/always save/no-ad brand (yes there actually is a brand called no-ad, and it is my favorite precisely because they dont advertise)
So advertisers, when you pop up in front of me & say "buy X-brand widgets" what *I* hear is "stay the hell away from x-brand widgets, they suck balls"
When I block your ads, i'm doing you a favor.