Media Trend Watching: Annoying Banner Ads
Labels: 2006, Ad dollars, Advertising, Annoying, banner ads, IAB, Internet, Media Trend Watching, New Media, PwC, Revenue, Snark
More ad dollars keep going to the Internet.
Last month, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) announced that Internet advertising revenues for 2006 were estimated to be $16.8 billion, a 34% increase over the previous revenue record of $12.5 billion in 2005.
Globally, 2006's Q4 totaled just under $4.8 billion -- the highest quarter ever reported.
Nine short years ago, total spent Internet advertising in the 4th quarter (1997) was just $424 million...more than an eleven-fold increase.
These ad dollars are being spent on search marketing, paid search links, streaming video ads, contextual GoogleAds, email campaigns and many other forms. Among all choices, the most popular -- and often most annoying -- are banner ads. Sure, they deliver "eyeballs"...but many of them are just plain bad. That can't be great for ROI and certainly not for brand building strategies.
American may love streaming video...but the only people who like the banners ads next to the video probably are advertisers.
I found an article for "The Top 5 Most Annoying Banner Ads on the Internet". No doubt you've seen these banner ads while visiting your favorite sites. They're everywhere. While it may be difficult to ever narrow it down to only a Top 5 Most Annoying (given there are so many available), the logic is sound (although there's no scientific basis for their list).
Here's the selections from Cracked.com (thanks, Cracked!):
The Jointblog avoids banner ads (except to get snarky with them). Which banner ads annoy you? And which ones do you think work?
5) TBS Very Funny Ads. This is everything that's wrong with the modern media in one convenient image, for the busy modern person who needs to lose faith in humanity 'on the go'. A website dedicated to the commercials which prevent you from watching the programs on television....Worse, they're targeting the most annoying demographic on the planet: the "I only watch it for the ads" vacuum-headed smirkers.
4) Win a Free Thing. Banner ads used to promise instant free prizes, but even the dumbest internet surfer eventually realized that just maybe there weren't magical love-powered companies dedicated to giving free electronics to everyone on the planet...One thing all these ads have in common is legalese fine print which, like mobile-phone cancer and minesweepers wrist, is a disease of modern society.
3) Surveys. It's looking for people to complete marketing surveys, but only gets the kind who click on banner ads. The sort who can be distracted from what they're doing by the chance to fill out a form! People who need time and a roughwork sheet to answer the question "Is this object shiny?"
2) Emoticons. In the beginning, there were text smileys. And it was good. People who could spell transmitted thoughts around the globe, finding uses for neglected keys to generally acting like smart people. But with the advance of technology the ability to "use a computer" or "think with mouth closed" are no longer required to get online and banner ads are ever ready to harvest the new subliterate hordes.
And topping the list (drum roll, please...)
1) Juggling Animation (scaled down in size to minimize the annoyance). The makers of these eye-wrenching monstrosities have fixated on "Get their attention," forgetting that it's part of the larger sentence, "Get their attention so they want to buy our product/service, and ideally aren't motivated to track us down, cement our legs into the pavement, and slowly tear our heads off with a length of chain and a monster truck."
Update at 6pm: The Fark forum board is posting many comments about more bad banner ads, such as this comment:There are worse banner adds (sic) than those. The mortgage dancing people, animals, anything with that freaking mortgage company. Anything that flashes so that I have a seizure while I am trying to do something. Then there is this annoying windows one I ran into yesterday. I thought it was because of windows but it only happened on this one website..and it was about weight loss...IT DROVE ME NUTS. So yeah anything that resembles any kind of error window.
Tell us more...what other bad banners do you despise?
posted by Unknown @ Friday, April 06, 2007,
,
2006: A Year in Media Trend Watching
Labels: 2006, Joint Communications, Jointblog, Media Trend Watching, Radio
2006 was the year user-generated viral video content became a trendsetter for pop culture.
It's an On Demand digital world and we're living in it with gusto. This "crazy" year was about small audiences creating massive buzz.
All year long, the Jointblog has been tracking and watching media trends as they happened. What did we see?
Among the top themes:
Radio was everywhere but not on your typical device. Old radio, new radio...it created a lot of pondering and overall listening. Yet radio seemed to grow tired of being so public (or serving Wall Street demands).
Howard Stern's move to Sirius drove millions to search for him online once he disappeared from traditional radio, messing up morning radio listening habits. He pimped on Letterman while getting finger wagged by CBS Radio, Rolling Stone and analysts.
Stern's first traditional radio replacement sucked, creating car wreck radio. Former outcasts replaced the replacement.
Air America said it was "business as usual". It wasn't.
The White House also said they were making progress in Iraq. 3,000 U.S. soldiers and 158 journalists covering the war might disagree...if they could. But they can't...since they're dead.
The World Wide Web turned 15...but the net's neutrality was endangered as Congress debated it.
The definition of TV permanently changed. User-generated content was often better to watch. So was Lazy Sunday on YouTube.
Not all viral videos worked...just ask Chevy about their Tahoe effort.
Yes, YouTube became America's favorite water cooler place online to watch Zidane's World Cup head butt, the Hoff's latest music video or Michael J. Fox's political message.
This got Google's attention...so they bought YouTube.
Of course, Faith Hill probably didn't like YouTube's honesty. And Michael Richards wished cellphones didn't have cameras while Britney wished she remembered her panties.
"Truthiness": Word of the Year plus A Vote For Word of the Decade as fake news was the buzz. Update your dictionaries.
In a related ColbertNation story, Stephen Colbert made George Bush frown.
Bill Clinton gave FoxNews a few choice words, helping turn election momentum and reminding Democrats how to get it done in front of a camera.
A tipping point was reached with "The Long Tail".
Women drove social networking website growth due to their Internet preference to form communities (men just like the experience -- watch porn). Meanwhile, MySpace became more than just a teen hangout; Baby Boomers liked it, too. Or they just formed their own version.
You don't piss off Oprah.
But you do idolize American Idol.
Google went on a buying spree, aiming to Googlize old media advertising. And search marketing remained a hot media trend all year.
Big Media was scared as it kept losing control.
Ringtone sales were off the hook.
Scarlett Johansson made HDTV look real good on The Tonight Show while Borat gave high fives everywhere.
The world's top brand name -- Apple -- made some great TV ads and was the key starting the viral video engine...while, at the same time iTunes reaching its one billionth download (Coldplay's "Speed of Sound") (now at 2 billion and still growing strong, contrary to false reports elsewhere). On-going Apple success spurred mainstream media attempts at podcasting.
But so can you.
Snarky humor was the rule if you wanted a blog hit. However, 50% of blogs die within 3 months. Still, the blogosphere doubles in size every 6 months.
MTV turned 25. How'd they celebrate? By firing one of its founders.
Traditional radio tried to ward off iPod (more popular than beer, by the way) and Internet radio users with HD Radio...with very slow results and few listeners. At the same time, radio did try to fight back against the FCC's indecency movement.
Google denied the government's request for search data...while AOL got in trouble for accidently releasing user's search data.
Identify fraud rose...while hypocrites like Mark Foley and other got caught as teens put themselves at risk online.
Product placement advertising made a serious move online as strong content mattered. Meanwhile, old media complained online search engines steal content.
Radio still couldn't find consensus for electronic people-metered ratings. Cellphone, Apollo Project, Arbitron or Other? Or ever?
Oh, a Desperate Housewife was visible from space, thanks to Google Earth.
The Jointblog's #1 article drawing in readers from organic search results? "Katie Couric's legs are apparently searchable and newsworthy"...and they were, even if she didn't like it. At least she broke a glass ceiling anchoring the CBS evening news.
You are the Person of the Year. Keep the net neutral.
Goodbye 2006, it was nuckin' futs. Hello 2 double oh 7.
posted by Unknown @ Sunday, December 31, 2006,
,
