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The Media The Almighty Buck

Web Ads Work Better Than TV Ads 158

Posted by samzenpus from the target-market dept.
Fohootville, We Hate You writes "According to a new study, Internet advertisements work better than television advertisements. Internet video watchers were reported to be 47 percent more "engaged" by the advertising they watched than were traditional TV viewers. The report does not mention whether pornographic internet advertisements were included in the study."
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Web Ads Work Better Than TV Ads More

Web Ads Work Better Than TV Ads

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  • Riddle me this: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by locokamil ( 850008 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:12PM (#21826354) Homepage
    Has anyone here ever intentionally clicked on a banner ad? A text ad? Any ad?

    • Re:Riddle me this: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Rude Turnip ( 49495 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {noitaulav}> on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:31PM (#21826484)
      Yes, several times when they offered exactly what I was looking for at exactly the right time. I clicked on a Google text ad this morning looking for custom rubber stamps. The fact that the merchant uses Google's checkout system, designated by the Google Checkout icon...*another ad*....sealed the deal for me.

      • Re:Riddle me this: (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Firethorn ( 177587 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @10:51PM (#21826884) Homepage Journal
        From what I've read, google is the master of targeted ads. I frequently click on the ads when they come up during google searches - they're usually pretty good. They easily have the best rate going.

        As a result, they have far better results than less targeted but more disruptive ads - as a result of TV, people already have a massive resistance to ads they're not really interested in. Add that to the fact that most television ads today are mostly brand awareness - can we really answer how much difference Coke/Pepsi ads make today?

        New products make more sense to advertise - awareness hasn't built up yet. Still, I've been deluged with so many ads that I've stopped watching television most of the time, and I've certainly built up resistance to advertising.

        Every so often the media companies go too far with advertising - resulting early on in people taping TV shows in order to be able to fast forward through them. Then they came up with auto-forwarding players, and players that would automatically pause recording during commercials.

        Then DVRs came and the same features popped up.

        On the internet, advertising just kept getting more and more intrusive until a backlash occurred - Firefox, pop-up blockers, various ad-removal services, etc...

        Meanwhile google tools along generating ad revenue by concentrating on providing useful, directed, but not intrusive ads.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Arthur Grumbine ( 1086397 )
          The ads on Tom's Hardware are also very useful and directed, e.g. ads for the latest quad-core when the Tom's article I'm reading is benchmarking that exact proc, and I'm seeing how totally freaking sweet it is. I have those perfectly targeted ads to "blame" for 1/2 of my impulse purchases. And, in some kind of weird self-destructive way, I enjoy having those ads around...
        • About that, I've been wondering how players detect ads. I can't think of a good heuristic way to do it, does anyone know how it works?
          • Many of the early ones, at least, used the sound level as a clue - Most television stations turned the volume up on commercials.

            I'm not 100% sure how this worked, but apparently it's like the volume difference between commercial FM stations and PBS broadcasts. I generally have to give the volume knob a half turn up in my car when I switch to the public station. This 'turn up' was detectable even when no sound was present, and overwhelmed even loud segments of most movies.

            They've gotten sneakier since then
        • If google is so good, then why do I keep getting ads for University of Phoenix, when I've already graduated from the University of Phoenix?

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Firethorn ( 177587 )
            Maybe they're hoping to have you back for an undergraduate degree? Or perhaps continuing education? ;)

            Seriously, that they're the best of the lot doesn't mean that they don't have misses. UoP ads are probably more directed for you than serving up ads for feminine products, joint pain, or for various medical issues I don't suffer from. I mean, you'd think that erectile dysfunction is a national crisis from the advertising I've seen on the tube(when I bother to turn it on).

            At least for search page results,

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fyrie ( 604735 )
      Yes, usually on genre sites such as movie and video game sites. I don't feel like I need a shower when I click on an ad for the Blade Runner box set for example (something I clicked on).
      • You buy things through banner ads?! About as reputable as infomercials. Just go to a trusted merchant (amazon, buy.com, etc) and search for Blade Runner. Why on earth would you risk a new merchant when a trusted merchant is offering the same item?

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by brown-eyed slug ( 913910 )
          If you ever start your own business, I hope for your sake that your potential customers don't all share the same view!

          The simple reason for risking a new merchant is that their price and/or service may be better.

          Of course, the more you're going to spend the more care you should be taking, and then a bit of research about the company may help. A new merchant may not have a lot of glowing reviews scattered around the web, but if they're ripping people off you can be fairly sure people will be writing about it

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by rtb61 ( 674572 )
            Now that is just plain wrong. What you should have said is the reason you would risk a new merchant is because of the add, it made you do it, it 'engaged' you, it was entrancing and mesmerised you. You must look at it, you must buy, you must buy it now, even if you don't need it or ever thought you needed it ;).

            Google add words are targeted at sellers not buyers. I got sick of the low end merchants, interstate/overseas merchants that it always seemed to spew up and used http://noscript.net/ [noscript.net] to permanently

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yeah,

      Once I figured out that Google only payed per click not per view, I started randomly clicking an add for the sites that I liked to support them. I've also clicked on interesting think geek items.

      • Re:Riddle me this: (Score:4, Informative)

        by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:47PM (#21826564) Homepage Journal
        Yeah, ya know they actually profile the time people spend at the site when they clickthru and correlate that with advertisers? Ya know that there are penalties for advertisers who click on ads on their own site to fraud revenue? Point being, you're probably doing more harm than good.

        • If he posts on Slashdot, there is a good chance he doesn't allow 3rd party cookies or even referer-logging. So other than IP address, how would they know?

      • Once I figured out that Google only payed per click not per view, I started randomly clicking an add for the sites that I liked to support them. I've also clicked on interesting think geek items.

        If you click on an ad for a website you liked, you just charged them money. They pay to serve you the ad, and when you click on it, because they are the advertisers.

        On the other hand, if you click on the ads at a website you liked, then they generate money.

        Think of the sites like TV stations. You wouldn't watch

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tuqui ( 96668 )
      Yes, I click all the MS Ad links here [linuxtoday.com]. MS is paying my Linux News.
      And by the way "Linux Reference Center by Microsoft" is a improper use of a Registered Mark, isn't it?.
    • I've clicked on ads when the ads have been extremely well targeted. Must've happened about 5 times maybe.

      What you don't realise is that, with google, many people are unable to distinguish from the adverts and the legitimate results. I'm pretty sure google are aware of this, and a lot of adsense ads essentially act as a paid search result.

      • Especially technophobes and the visually impared (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Almahtar ( 991773 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @11:39PM (#21827116) Journal
        I've been stunned by how often I'll be leading an older person around,trying to teach them how to find answers for themselves, and they can't tell the difference between the adsense ads and the normal results. I can't for the life of me figure out why, but it seems like they're so afraid of computers that they just don't bother applying common sense.

        It's like they've been so acclimated to computers speaking tech babble ("Illegal operation at 0x00ff0e9a") that they don't realize that some things (like web pages) are written in plain English (or whatever your native language is).
        • They probably just haven't learned to filter them out mentally yet. I'm sure banner ads will catch their attention too, whereas any image 468×60 pixels in size pretty much automatically gets ignored by more experienced web users.

    • Re:Riddle me this: (Score:5, Interesting)

      by weave ( 48069 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @10:09PM (#21826678) Journal
      Yes. I bought a car last month based on a banner ad. A Honda Fit. I had never heard of one before, rarely watch TV, and the ad caught my eye. I looked at the page, then dug further and further into the site researching it, then went hunting for reviews and opinions online. After a few days of this I was convinced and went and purchased the car.
      • Haven't got a TV now for around 7 years - it annoyed me more than it added to my life, partly because of advertisements. Probably would then (I guess in 200 years or so) it possible to watch TV again? Shows that make sense? Just a simple, mass-controlling media again with films sometimes and stuff?

      • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Hideous car! Jesus what a DOG of a car. Could it be ANY uglier? Holy Fucking Shit.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by jridley ( 9305 )
          Hey, at least it's not the same as every other damn car out there. You can hardly tell most cars apart anymore.
          • Honestly, it looks pretty much like the Chevy Aveo, Kia Spectra, Nissan Vectra, and a bit like the Mazda5. None of those cars are particularly good looking (IMHO), but the Mazda is by far the ugliest. Not that I'm bashing the Fit - if I had to buy a new car tomorrow it would be high on the list of canidates.

    • Re:Riddle me this: (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Blakey Rat ( 99501 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @10:30PM (#21826770)
      Once I saw an ad for a Burger King BBQ sauce burger and I went out and bought one on a whim. It sounded good, and I guess I was hungry. The irony is that I didn't actually click the ad, I just closed the window.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by s-orbital ( 598727 )
        Yeah, the same happened to me, except it was a Wendy's ad in the Facebook news feed, except it backfired, since the grill/brewpub is closer than any Wendy's, and has really good burgers.
    • Yes, many times.

      Have I clicked on slashdot ads? Never deliberately.
      Have I clicked on Google ads? Never deliberately.

      So which ads have I clicked on deliberately?
      * Webcomic site ads for non-webcomic products - although this doesn't happen with any regularity. If its for products I'm interested in (anime, etc), I do so more regularly.
      * Webcomic site ads for webcomics - This is where I mainly click on ads and do so fairly regularly.

      Want to know how many television ads I'm swayed by? 0%
      • I only right-click on ads. To tell Seamonkey to never again load an image from that server. I guess in a way it's click-through.

        I haven't seen a Slashdot ad in months.

    • Re:Riddle me this: (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @11:02PM (#21826942)
      Advertising is not Evil. Most of the time there are people with actual goods and services that could be a value to someone. I am fine with Adds just as long as they are under control. A flash banner add is not a big deal.
      It is not like the 90's and early 2000's where the adds seriously effected speed of the content, waiting for doubleclick to respond was painful even on high speeds. But lately I rarely ever notice performance issues with adds.
      Now adds are not the problem but the Greed of the Web Master. If they want to make a living with a somewhat popular web site they can do so with a tastefully targeted add placed per page much like slashdot, or osnews. But if they are greedy and want to try to make a lot of money they will try to put more and more adds to get the most money from the site.

      The Webmaster can fight with the Add agency to keep things at the right level. I found some very open about their dealing with adds, making sure sound adds are not played, and no popups etc... And they just explain to the add company if you don't do this we will switch to an another add company because our users won't stand for this.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by jridley ( 9305 )
        It's "ad" not "add". "add" is a mathematical operation.

      • Advertising is not Evil. Most of the time there are people with actual goods and services that could be a value to someone. I am fine with Adds just as long as they are under control. A flash banner add is not a big deal.

        I guess you aren't, but I'm offended by most ads because they are like bad movies; they are an insult to my (and everyone else's) intelligence and a waste of my time. For you to apologize for them makes me question the validity of your argument, frankly. Oh yeah, and it's "Ad", not "Ad

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AusIV ( 950840 )
        I agree (except for your spelling of 'ads'). There have been several occasions that I've purchased/used something based on a Google advertisements. Off the top of my head, I bought an IR receiver for my MythTV box after sending my dad an e-mail about homebrew IR receivers, and I found the wireless card in my desktop based on an ad after searching for linux compatible wireless cards. Now, if anyone thinks they're selling me something I'm not already looking for they're an idiot, but ads have helped me narrow

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sqrt(2) ( 786011 )
      Nope. Because I don't see them first of all, and if I did I'd never click anyway. I use adblock plus with an aggressive filter and no whitelist, along with Customizegoogle to remove all adsense and other google text ads such as those in search results. My screen, my choice what gets shown, and all ads are inherently intrusive. Some forms less than others, but they all require your attention to be diverted from what you're really trying to get done, wasting your time in the process.
    • I try to note the sponsors of especially egregious pop-ups in order to avoid purchasing their products.Spam, of course, rates a permanent boycott. I don't recall ever deliberately clicking on an off-site advertisement link. I am not much like a normal consumer however, and they aren't missing me.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HTH NE1 ( 675604 )
      I'm waiting for the opportunity to punch the real monkey behind that banner ad.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Raideen ( 975130 )
      Has anyone here ever intentionally clicked on a banner ad? A text ad? Any ad?

      I will sometimes see an ad for which I think that the advertiser should pay a stupidity/greed tax. In those cases, I will click on them. (I've never clicked-through and actually bought anything). With Google, it's click-throughs so it still counts. It's how I help Google sponsor the Summer of Code and to help sustain my favorite web sites.
    • "Has anyone here ever intentionally clicked on a banner ad? A text ad? Any ad?"

      Think Geek.

      That's besides the point, though, you don't necessarily need to click for the ad to be effective. Before I had ever clicked on an Think Geek ad, I had remembered their name from their countless banners on Slashdot. When I had a lil spending money I wandered over there. Without the ad, I'd never have been their customer.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by arivanov ( 12034 )
      Depends which ads. I usually search for parts, components, gadgets using google. If I am looking to buy something, I often treat the ads like yet another search result and I go through them. If we throw out the odd "on-duty" E-bay and Amazon add Google ad targeting is usually nearly perfect. In some cases the results in the ad panel are actually even better than the search results. Example - search google.co.uk for shower tray or shower door.
    • If a web ad were well designed, we wouldn't be able to answer your question, because we wouldn't be aware we had clicked on an ad in the first place.
    • I use google text ads if I'm looking to buy something. I don't click on them otherwise, though.

  • Not banner ads, you idiots (Score:5, Insightful)

    by BadAnalogyGuy ( 945258 ) <BadAnalogyGuy@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:13PM (#21826364)
    The ads they are talking about are ads run inline in the video, not the crap surrounding the video frame.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by ShieldW0lf ( 601553 )
      I fucking hate those things. Instant, permanent goodbye to the site that I see them on.

      Advertising makes me think of men in suits being burnt at the stake.
    • ads are ads are ads are ads. They are all unwelcomed, unless I'm actively seeking them. But yeah, I'm an idiot.

  • That's because (Score:5, Insightful)

    by koan ( 80826 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:13PM (#21826366)
    That's because TV isn't interactive, I remember a study done once that measured the brain activity of a TV viewer and it actually declined, the internet *at a minimum* requires that you be involved.
    Your brain is in an awake state (well most of us) unlike a TV viewer.

    And no, constantly pushing the channel buttons is not interaction.

    • Re:That's because (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hedwards ( 940851 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:32PM (#21826492)
      It is actually true that the human brain is more active while sleeping than when watching TV. The other thing is that TV commercials are rarely of any interest to the people watching TV. Usually they are for products or services which don't appeal to a particular viewer. Ads on videos like that are far easier to target to the viewer than the ones on TV, radio or in newspapers.

      Additionally, if I can click on an ad and actually find out more information, I'm much more likely to pay attention to it than the same tired Mastercard commercial. For the most part, even the most amusing commercials cease to be interesting after 3 or 4 views.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by QuantumG ( 50515 )
        One should mention that most of you are talking about american television, which is almost 50% ads and boring ads at that. Other parts of the world have much more interesting television (and ads).

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Brickwall ( 985910 )
          Oh, pooh. The FCC limits advertising on TV to 16 minutes per hour, or a little more than 25%, certainly not 50%. And some ads are fantastic; the US advertising agencies spend enough money on them.

          What bugs me is when the same frickin' ad is played twice in one commercial break or four times during a single show. As amusing it might be the first time, by the time I've seen it four times in an hour, I'm never buying the product, no matter how much I might be able to use it, because I'm so annoyed.

          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            by QuantumG ( 50515 )
            Yeah, turn on your tv and get out your stopwatch.. hint: the time between shows is not regulated. In any case, the reason why they are playing the same ad twice in a single ad break has nothing to do with advertising strategy, it has to do with the ever reducing number of advertisers. There is simply too many channels with too small a chunk of the audience to warrant the prices demanded for television advertising.

          • Re:That's because (Score:5, Informative)

            by Baricom ( 763970 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @10:29PM (#21826768)

            The FCC limits advertising on TV to 16 minutes per hour
            Please cite your source. I found nothing to corroborate this and a FCC document [fcc.gov] that directly contradicts you.
            • Comment removed based on user account deletion
              • Of course, news updates are ads themselves, it's just that they're advertising the local news broadcast. Most things masquerading as "updates" contain no information except some kind of teaser, and more major news tends to lead to a break in programming altogether.

                Station identification, while indeed required by the FCC, is essentially always worked in to some other aspect of the broadcast, such as the aforementioned news ads, other promos for the station, or simply superimposed on the screen at some point
    • And no, constantly pushing the channel buttons is not interaction.

      Clicking mouse buttons is somehow on a whole different level?
      • You need to see where en what you click as opposed to just pressing a button and vaguely aiming at the tv

  • Unsurprising, really (Score:3, Informative)

    by NovaX81 ( 1136085 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:14PM (#21826368) Homepage
    I know with most of the people I associate with, commercials are just a time to go get something done during a show, or talk about things while there's no content playing. No one's really paying attention to the ads.

    On the reverse angle, internet ads are streamlined into the content more often than not. Plus, with systems like AdSense at work, the ads are related to the page you're looking at (which is most likely something you're interested in), whereas while the ads on TV have a targeted audience, they aren't exactly 'user specific'.
    • I completely agree with you. I also have learned to completely tune out ads. It really is a bizarre acquired trait. I could watch a show and if somebody asked what commercials were playing I would be pretty much clueless. But like you, you do things during the ads.

      You could argue that I am clueless, but I have found when news breaks, or upcoming programs are talked about my brain reacts on a dime. I guess it is like a sleeping dog or cat. They don't ever really sleep, just close their eyes and rest until so
  • If I take notice of an ad it's because it's obnoxious and I want to avoid the product they are advertising. A perfect example is Head On. I'd let my head explode before I used any of their products. If you've missed these little gems flip on CNN they run every few minutes and some times several times in a row. I generally hit the mute button during commercials. Flashing and animated web ads are the worst for me. One of my favorite sites years ago got so obsessed with flashing ads I couldn't read the stories

    • Flashing and animated web ads are the worst for me. One of my favorite sites years ago got so obsessed with flashing ads I couldn't read the stories I was logging on for.

      Protip: When you come across a site with annoying flashing ads, press the escape key. At least in Firefox, this will stop any/all animated GIFs on the page.

      I also recommend NoScript for getting rid of Java/Javascript ads and script-based tracking tools. AdBlock is another nice tool that could be helpful.

      • I just have Seamonkey configured to not animate gifs at all. It's right there in the options. You can set it to cycle the gifs some specified number of times or not at all. The gif just stays frozen at the first frame. If it loads at all, of course, because right-click to block all images can quickly kill all images from the ad servers on sites you visit.

        Not having Macromedia flash installed is also helpful. There isn't even a native binary for the machine I browse the web on.
      • Protip: When you come across a site with annoying flashing ads, press the escape key. At least in Firefox, this will stop any/all animated GIFs on the page.

        This was a pro tip five years ago. Today almost all advertising/annoying/blinking stuff is flash-based.

        I also recommend NoScript for getting rid of Java/Javascript ads and script-based tracking tools. AdBlock is another nice tool that could be helpful.

        While you are at it, download an updates HOSTS file [mvps.org], to truly block ads at their source.
    • I can relate to the post it notes on the screen. I have made for my tv two special paper cutout to cover the "ticker" and the space where scores pop up without notice. I watch alot of sports and I don't want to know other scores. I've never understood why so many stations will flash the score on screen without notice of a game they themselves are timeshifting directly after the current one.

  • Feeling engaged? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Futselaar ( 1103511 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:17PM (#21826386) Homepage
    maybe I don't quite get marketing, but I would prefer not to measure the success of advertising in terms of 'feeling engaged', but rather in terms of 'units sold'.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tonsofpcs ( 687961 )
      Engaging viewers is great for brand marketing, the goal there being to get the branding (name) known, not necessarily the product or service. A big example of brand marketing is mMode/mLife in the 2002 Super Bowl

      • mMode/mLife
        Who? What? Looks like they failed at brand marketing. Now if you were to have said, "just look at the last 35 years of Budweiser ads", that would be crystal clear.

  • Video, yes. Images, no. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fastball ( 91927 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:19PM (#21826398) Journal
    Web ad videos are more "engaging," because video player controls are usually disabled for the ad before the actual content you want to see is delivered. Naturally, with TV, the advertiser doesn't can't disable your remote.

    As a consequence, there's almost no video I'll click anymore unless I know for certain it's ad-free. Still, I'm sure most folks just gut it out and let the ad play so they can see the content that follows (maybe open a new browser tab, etc.). So in a way, it's "engaging," but I'd be curious to see what percentage of folks abort and move on without seeing the content.

    If I had video content online that I'd want people to see, I'd be leary of prepending a ad video that folks couldn't skip.

    • Re:Video, yes. Images, no. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by LoverOfJoy ( 820058 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:39PM (#21826524) Homepage

      Web ad videos are more "engaging," because video player controls are usually disabled for the ad before the actual content you want to see is delivered. Naturally, with TV, the advertiser doesn't can't disable your remote.
      You must be using a browser without tabs. I "change channels" all the time in opera when I'm avoiding the ad before the content.

    • Web ad videos are more "engaging," because video player controls are usually disabled for the ad before the actual content you want to see is delivered.

      Only with Flash can they "disable" the "player controls". Avoid Flash, and you can fast-forward through any video if it's technically possible to seek, and sometimes, even if it's not (ie. cache)!

  • "The report does not mention whether pornographic internet advertisements were included in the study."

    I'd say if it was porn, the subjects could have been involved in:

    - Digital More-ass
    - Quantum slipstream
    - Black holes
    - add-vert-tize mints
    - Quad-drastic wormhole

    with a combination of weak and strong forces bonding and binding the at-tension...
  • Anybody ever deliberately follow ad links? The only times I ever click on them is by mistake.

    These type of "studies" are mostly to convince companies to shell out money for more internet advertizing. There's no real feasable way compare the effectiveness of TV and internet advertizing. As for people that are more "engaged" to online advertizing, maybe the real reason they are so engaged is because they are trying to find the (X)that's often camouflaged in the ad or the mute button in annoying video ads

  • TFA didn't mention if ad blocking was taken into account.
  • I actually stopped watching TV a few years ago, sure I watch the very occasional program but usually I don't watch anything at all. I average less than an hour a week watching tv and when I do it's turning on the news for 10 minutes every three or four days. I believe that I'm actually more fully engaged with the Internet and gaming as they are active forms of entertainment and having made the transition to them, well, I really don't even miss tv all that much.

  • no porn? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jollyreaper ( 513215 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:34PM (#21826506)

    47 percent more "engaged" by the advertising they watched than were traditional TV viewers. The report does not mention whether pornographic internet advertisements were included in the study."
    If they did include porn, I think that would read "47 percent more 'engorged'".

    Regardless, the TV ads these days are rubbish, bad ads and too many of them. From the family gathering this year, I can see that everyone has finally made it over to my side of the argument which is slightly more radical than Bill Hicks. Even my mom is sick of it and this is someone who likes advertising, who responds positively to "cute" commercials. When they lost her support, they lost everyone.

    I download everything I want to watch. When I am exposed to commercials, I feel zero sense of persuasion, just a growing, burning anger that can only be quenched by dick-stomping the next advertising exec I meet. They are ruining our culture and our lives.

  • Here's why I don't mind the ads in net videos (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rude Turnip ( 49495 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {noitaulav}> on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:38PM (#21826522)
    I'm referring specifically to video podcasts that I can download for free through iTunes, Miro, etc. First of all, most of the videos are in plain, standard MP4/H.264 that I can stream to my Xbox 360 or Apple TV...that means I can fast-forward if I choose. Second, a lot of the ads are voiced by the hosts of the shows I watch (Diggnation, Web Drifter, just about anything from Revision3), so they feel a little more personal.

    Overall, the ads are for something you might actually be interested in since a lot of the shows are very tightly focused. The fact that the hosts voice the ads helps you draw the connection that these ads are paying for the shows.

    That said, I would never touch any of the flash-based web videos offered by ABC, NBC, etc. Too "corporate" and impersonal. If I can't stream it to my TV, it does not get watched.
    • I am skeptical of the "corporate" web episodes experience too, but am very pleased with the ABC one. The HD shows are very good (after they spool up enough to be clear). The NBC one, however, is trash. What an awful-awful-awful player. And the double kick in the nuts is that they pulled their content from iTunes. At least on iTunes I could purchase The Office and watch it at my leisure WITHOUT "brief commercial interruptions". The web version is so choppy and pixelated at times that it is unwatchable.

  • Hang on (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:46PM (#21826558)
    Are you trying to say that there is porn on the Internet?

  • Captain Obvious (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dachannien ( 617929 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @09:54PM (#21826602)
    Obviously, the one defining difference between normal TV and web-based TV is the remote control, and the ease with which you can change the channel. Commercial comes on? Flip flip flip flip flip. You get to ignore commercials, zone out, and satisfy your OCD all at once. Eventually, your show comes back on, and you flip back.

    There's no channel to change with web-based TV shows. Sure, you can alt-tab to another browser window, but once the ad is done, you'd have to task-switch your brain back away from whatever it was you were doing to distract yourself from the ad. It just doesn't have the same feel-good feeling of repeatedly pounding a dinky little worn-down button on the remote.

    On a side note, could overlay ads on TV possibly get more annoying? Sometimes they take up 50% of the screen and include loud obtrusive noises. Fox and TBS are especially annoying in this respect. What happened to the good old days, before Spike became Spike, when they'd just take a tiny strip of the screen at the bottom and tell you what was going to be on next? Do people really watch more Sex and the City just because they plaster Sarah Jessica Parker's old and tired face on top of whatever it is you're actually trying to watch?
    • I agree whole-heartedly about the banners on the bottom half of TV shows now a days. It's absolutely awful and reminds me of pr0n pop-ups when you mistype a URL. I guess it's par for the course for networks like Fox, which built their entire empire on trash tv.

      Another thing that drives me nuts is when they play the same commercial six times during a half hour show. I don't mind watching some advertisements, and well, there is some entertainment value in good ads, but watching it over and over again re
    • "Commercial comes on? Flip flip flip flip flip. You get to ignore commercials, zone out, and satisfy your OCD all at once."

      a.) Commercials are syncrhonized across nearly all channels.

      b.) I doubt this is all that handy for those of us using Digital services with 500 channels and a pause between each channel change.

      "Sure, you can alt-tab to another browser window, but once the ad is done, you'd have to task-switch your brain back away from whatever it was you were doing to distract yourself from the ad."

      Heh.
      • Commercials are syncrhonized across nearly all channels.

        This is the advantage of switching to a sports channels -- e.g. baseball breaks between innings, not by the clock. Football on change of possession. Tennis, every 2 games. Basketball -- well, heh, who really watches basketball? Seen one dunk, seen 'em all.

    • What happened to the good old days, before Spike became Spike, when they'd just take a tiny strip of the screen at the bottom and tell you what was going to be on next?

      I hope you aren't blaming Spike for pop-ups. They originated with AOL-Time Warner (pop-ups are one of the wonderful things that merger brought consumers), and got their first use on the USA and TNT networks.

      And no, I don't like the smaller pop-ups telling me what's going to be on next. I can find out extremely easily on my own, and if they

      • I hope you aren't blaming Spike for pop-ups.
        No, but I remember (almost with nostalgia, at least in comparison to the crap they plaster all over our shows now) when TNN (i.e., before Spike became Spike) would run a tiny little text-height bar at the bottom of the screen for a few seconds during the daily TNG marathons indicating that yet another episode of TNG would be on next. I don't get why that's not enough, unless the networks want to piss off their viewers.

  • Can you hit Mute on the computer, walk to the fridge during an online ad, or fast-forward through a streaming ad? Not usually.

    Do not mistake this as "more effective". Accurately this "less avoidable" than TV ads.
  • A web ad for a tech product or service that's served up on slashdot or thinkgeek is more likely to be something I'd be interested in than, say, anything sports or feminine hygiene related. So it's rather contextual a priori. 99% of the ads you see on TV are totally irrelevant and therefore irritating. Geico ads? No thanks, we take the subway.

    Google's AdSense is helping push advertising from something that irritates the hell out of people to something that might be somewhat useful, in that the ads are ev

  • Engagement (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Triv ( 181010 ) on Wednesday December 26, 2007 @11:16PM (#21826992) Journal
    "Engagement" was in quotes in the summary, and rightly so - it's an advertising metric. Think of it this way:

    Nielsen numbers ideally measure how many people are watching a given television show based on a percentage of a demographically relevant sample, but they don't measure how much attention people are paying, so TV on in the background when a person is preparing dinner is weighted the same as someone who's involved in the show.

    Engagement, usually through things like questionaires based on show content, measures how much attention people are actually paying.

    Engagement is a Big Deal, big enough so that many TV networks have started factoring Engagement numbers into their formula for determining how much blocks of advertising are worth in any given show.

    --Triv

  • ..."pornographic internet advertisements"

    I read that as 'phonographic internet advertisements'.

    I'm so embarrassed.
  • The difference is in relevance. Most TV ads are irrelevant to most people - unless you have children in the right age group, you won't care much about a Pampers advert, and on tv you can't search for things, you just see what happens to pass by. On the web you will be looking for things, mostly, and therefore there is a bigger chance that the adverts are relevant - and that you are motivated to take an interest.
  • Because I don't see them. Whether that's because I frequent sites without a lot of advertising or because I use adblock with Firefox, I don't know and, frankly, I don't care. My web surfing experience is not affected one way or another by ads or the lack thereof.
  • ... shouldn't that be 47% more enraged by the advertising?
    :)

  • Time to grumble about Slashdot ads (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Alioth ( 221270 ) <no@spam> on Thursday December 27, 2007 @05:37AM (#21828272) Journal
    Slightly OT rant, but of all the places I would have thought would have better sense not to run obnoxious advertising, it'd be Slashdot. But recently, we've had ads on Slashdot with sound (it took me a while to figure out which computer was making the sound of a door slamming), and now an HP/AMD ad that rolls out a large graphic on top of whatever you're trying to read. Normal banner ads on Slashdot are fine, and if it's for something interesting I'll click on it. Obnoxious ads are not - they push me to want to install ad-blocking software, and then everyone loses: I don't find out about potentially useful products, and Slashdot doesn't get any ad revenue from me.
  • I have to call BS. Not that I have a better study to point to or anything, but online ads are far easier to ignore than TV ads, because TV ads take up the whole screen. At one point, sporting events actually got advertisers to agree to letting the sports game stay on at the bottom of the screen during the commercials. The advertisers quickly balked because, surprise, nobody paid any attention to the ads, even though they took up 80% of the screen and had the audio. Same thing goes for the web, except in
  • Oy, Scotty - man the phasers and load the forward torpedo tubes. The Bush-Rove-Borg are moderatin' agin.

    Fire at the sight of Rove's thighs - he controls the entire news cycle. Take him out and Alberto-the-whiny-voiced and Monkey-man will have no power left in their nacelles. Karma be damned - FIRE AT WILL!

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