Annoying TV Ads

If you have watched any shows on TNT lately, you know exactly what kind of ads this article from the NYTimes is talking about, the ad industry calls them a snipe, but they are annoying as hell when you are actually watching the TV show. The ones with noise are really disruptive and annoying, and I hope they do not become some form of industry standard, as many networks plan on running them, backlash or not. ABC has already tested some in July, sans sound, thank God, and are planning on using them more and more this fall. Oh joy.

Snipes are just the latest effort by network executives to cram promotions onto television screens in the age of channel surfing, ad skipping and screen-based multitasking. At first, viewers may feel a slight jolt of pleasure at the sight of a new visual effect, they say, but over time the intrusions contribute to the sense that the screen is far more cluttered — not just with ads, but with news crawls and other streams of information.

That may be so, network executives say, but the extra content is here to stay. The snipes — not to be confused with bugs, those network logos that pop up in screen corners during shows — are important enough to the beleaguered television industry that the networks plan to tolerate the backlash.

ABC tested the icons in July and will introduce them gradually this fall to get viewers familiar with the shorthand. To minimize complaints, ABC will keep the icons and all similar visuals silent.

Viewers say that snipes and bugs are degrading their experience of watching television. Even some performers seem to resent the assaults on their work’s integrity. At last week’s Emmy Awards, the comedian Lewis Black delivered a blow against screen clutter, yelling, “We don’t care about the next show. We’re watching this show.” Source: As the Fall Season Arrives, TV Screens Get More Cluttered

I can see Lewis Black saying that right now, and he is right, we want to see the show we are watching, not stupid little ads interrupting it. Who gives a shit about what is coming on next if the ad interrupts what is on now. All it is going to do is end up making people more and more resistant to ads anywhere, I know it will me.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Ad Injection, Advertising, Branding Mistakes, TV 3 Comments » September 2007

Vonage Funding Spyware

In one of his amazing and detailed writeups, Ben Edelman exposes Vonage as the spyware supporters they are, in this post How Vonage Funds Spyware.

I ought to be a Vonage enthusiast. I support Vonage’s efforts to protect network neutrality. I applaud their flexible voice over IP service and their efforts to compete with incumbent phone companies. I’m even a VoIP customer (albeit using a competitor’s service).

But instead of praising Vonage, I have to criticize them — not for their core business (which seems robust) or for their customer service (which others have repeatedly criticized), but for their reckless advertising practices. Vonage spends huge amounts on advertising — more than $20 million per month. (source) Unfortunately, among this spending is widespread and substantial spyware-delivered advertising.

For years, my manual and automated testing have documented Vonage ads appearing in all the major spyware programs. Now that Vonage has completed its IPO — itself promoted as a way to raise more money to buy more advertising — this page presents twelve recent examples of Vonage ads appearing in spyware.

The best way to kill spyware and adware is to stop supporting the companies that still use it, like Vonage. Legislation will be as as good at stoping spyware as it it at stopping spam, so the only way to get these guys is by cutting off their funding, and we need to do it now because the longer this stuff is around, the more used to it everyone will be and it will eventually be considered a cost of going online.

I also wanted to include this statement from the end of his article.

Last month Vonage won an “Effie” award for the “effectiveness” of its advertising campaign. I can’t speak to Effie’s criteria in granting this award. But advertisers might appropriately hesitate to praise an advertising strategy that, whether intentionally or recklessly, includes buying ads in spyware.

I know Google loves this part, a Vonage banner ad is injected into the Google homepage when requested from a PC that has Fullcontext installed. Wonder how much some businesses would pay to get one of their banners on Google’s homepage? Google should called Vonage and give them thier “rates”, especially considering they do not sell banner space on their site.

Added: The image at the top of the page after a user posted it on flickr.

Added: Spywareguide has posted a follow up to Ben’s article here.

I was intrigued by this question and what seems to be a relatively dead tactic coming to life the field. So I queried Ben for a discussion. In short he wondered aloud whether banner injection might be “the next big thing.” He told me that until this past month, he had only seen one spyware program injecting banner ads into others’ sites: DeskWizz’s SearchingBooth. but then this past month he found two more — FullContext and DollarRevenue. that’s a startling and rapid growth — suggesting there may be more to come.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Ad Injection, Online Marketing, Spyware No Comments » July 2006