Poll: Ads On The Internet = What???

[Jiggle Counter]

On the other hand, nobody pays attention to TV ads either, so in that regard the OP's argument is a little strange. Most people I know mute the TV during ad breaks, and even go off and do something like go to the toilet, or get something from the kitchen. (or talk) while the ads are on.

I mostly mute during the ads too, and yet I somehow remember all the jingles.

When I'm doing dishes, or cooking, I'll usually laugh along with the ads that come on.

For example, all those ads where a person grabs something we use EVERYDAY, like a blender, and the voice-over says, "Are you sick and tired of attempting to make refreshing fruit drinks?" And it'll show a person just being completely retarded, making a huge mess, and then they'll use the NEW product, which also happens to be a blender, and suddenly they're all happy, smiling, making fruit juice, also meeting beautiful women while rock-climbing... Because blender...

"Almost, But I Pulled Out Last Minute"

That's what he said.

Yeah, I wonder how many people voted that option just for the lolz.

The only ads I really hate are like, video ads when your browsing a webpage. So you have this ad in the top right, whatever, its normal, but instead of being static, it plays a video, complete with sound. Those infuriate me.

Yeah, I've had moments where I'm browsing a page that'll have many interesting links, so I'll open tab, open tab, open tab, open tab, open tab, open... *BLARGH!!! SOUND EVERYWHERE!!!*

Oh, that, and I use Adblock plus.

I got a warning from Escapist forum for that, didn't realise it was a rule.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/codeofconduct

"Ad Blockers - Do not link to, advocate, or admit to using ad blockers."

 

[duwenbasden]

Rarely. The only time is when Wendy's shows its bacon 'shroom melt, then I got one because Wendy's BMM.

But most of the time if something does interest me it's most likely things I've already researched enough the ad won't persuade me, or something completely irrelevant to my interests.

Now I miss Mike Chang/Flexbelt and their cadre of douchebags. It's a sight to see on how douchey those commercials feel.

 

[Bellvedere]

Yeah, like has been mentioned, product awareness is the big thing. That being said, I actually have started to question the effectiveness of online advertising since the XboxOne launch. I was browsing these forums and noticed a couple of topics about the XboxOne being out now. Not being interested in purchasing one myself I wasn't really keeping track of the release date but I was kinda surprised that was the first thing I saw about it being out, rather than you know any advertising. It was only after that fact that I actually took notice of banners on several websites I was browsing, including the escapist itself, advertising that the XboxOne was out now, that I just hadn't seen before wondering why I hadn't seen any ads.

If you've been on the internet for any amount of time, you're well aware of where the information you want to look at is located and where information that's likely irrelevant to what you're actually browsing for (advertisements) is normally, so you just don't see it. How much time do you spend looking at website headers or margins? It would kind of be interesting to look at eye tracking data for that. Audio is something that is probably more successful, but besides pissing people off, there's probably a lot of folks like me that only use headphones with their computer and don't wear them when they're not trying to listen to something. Even with ads that play in video your eyes will drift to where the skip button will be or your focus will be on the skip timer not on what's actually playing. What really bums me out is that websites that host the advertising get less (no?) money for people just not noticing advertisements after the advertisement companies themselves have spent years training people to not notice their content.

 

[SmugFrog]

User received a warning for this post...

You know, when I see one of those I always check to see what the offender did. Problem is, sometimes I can't tell! Did you change the original post or something? I like to know so I don't make the same mistake, you know?

Anyway - The only time an ad affects me is if I see something that is known to be a good deal; something I'm already interested in and considering getting. I would say very rarely are ads targeted to me as anything that I remember or desire to go out and buy. When I'm going to make a purchase, I'm going to do a lot of research to find what I want and get the best quality at the best price.

I have seen people that a commercial comes on TV or they see something and they instantly want to get it. I don't know their logic; and I hate that it works on those people because then advertising becomes more pervasive. I couldn't tell you the last youtube ad I saw; I only know that I just couldn't wait for it to be over or to skip it when the option comes up. I have, a handful of times, looked up a youtube ad when it was pretty funny. It seems like there was one a few years ago for a drink that tossed in every meme known at the time and I liked that one - but see, I don't even remember what drink it was and never bought it.

 

[Mezahmay]

Internet advertisement rarely consciously sways me to purchase anything online or otherwise. The closest I can think of was the YouTube user spotlight ads that actually did show me a few channels I subscribed to for a while. However, I have been consciously swayed into trying Little Caesar's pizza after years of their weird TV ads. Too bad none are located near me to try them. Some day...

Otherwise I see so many ads these days I hardly even notice them anymore. All they are is that image or flashing thing on the side of the screen that is not a part of what I'm actually reading and pop up ads are removed so fast I infrequently register what they actually advertise other than my annoyance.

It's a real problem that I don't think internet advertisers are equipped to solve or are currently unwilling to solve. The ads are all so very similar that I can't bring myself to involve myself in any of them, especially ones like YouTube video ads that actively prevent me from viewing the content I want every single time I get to a monetized video. It's also a shame that even with a marketing department like Google and a YouTube account they can't discriminate ad targeting better. I watch video game and video game related videos most of the time. I'm not in a financial situation that I can afford to buy fucking cars, YouTube. Stop giving me car ads to actively ignore. I actually miss the YouTube spotlight ads looking back. Some of those were actually channels I liked and did subscribe to for a while.

According to a book I found from a search on Google, Marketing Communication: A Brand Narrative Approach [https://books.google.com/books?id=rLt48XwnW1cC&pg=PA378&lpg=PA378&dq=diminishing+effects+of+advertising+on+consumers&source=bl&ots=QGDxip6df2&sig=WPctm6YQwaCs3bdBMfhXNXaKvu8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=8QeLVKC5C8rjsATR24LABg&ved=0CCwQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=diminishing%20effects%20of%20advertising%20on%20consumers&f=false], advertising has two competing effects on consumers: wear-in and wear-out. Wear-in is consumer familiarity through exposure and wear-out is when the repetitions become an irritant instead of a more positive sensation. As you can tell, both increase over time, and wear-out will almost always win out in the end, making it a functional attention tensile strength (if you're into basic material engineering anyway...I need to get out more).

 

[Evonisia]

User received a warning for this post...

You know, when I see one of those I always check to see what the offender did. Problem is, sometimes I can't tell! Did you change the original post or something? I like to know so I don't make the same mistake, you know?

He mentioned that which should not be named on The Escapist forums. It has something to do with a way people "deal" with advertisements.

 

[SmugFrog]

He mentioned that which should not be named on The Escapist forums. It has something to do with a way people "deal" with advertisements.

Ahahahah! Thanks, yeah I should've caught on to that. I should've known it was Voldem... whoa, almost slipped.

 

[RedDeadFred]

No. Honestly, Toyota could be a great car manufacturer, but I don't think I'm ever going to buy one of their vehicles after the amount of times I've had to write: "dependable" (or something to that effect) into captchas asking why it's so great.

 

[Ieyke]

Unless you count Steam Sales or "related to your search" things on Amazon, no.
I don't even notice ads.
I forget ads exist.

I've got the universe Adblocked to hell because ads don't do anything but annoy me and waste time.
Like, I know they happen, and I pay ZERO attention to the content of said ad, which is fortunate for advertisers, because I'd just gain a hate for their brand otherwise.

In the case of captchas, I completely disassociate whatever nonsense I'm supposed to type in the box from any meaning attached to it.
I'm, for example, dimly aware of something called a "hopper", but I have no idea what that is, and I don't care.

 

[Tanis]

Wait...why did the OP get a warning for this?
I'm confused.
Maybe I glossed over something in the post?

OT:
Not really.
I'm usually between 'have all my money planed out, ready to be spent' to 'broke as hell'.

So, yeah, ads don't do much for me.
Mainly because I either have no extra money to spend and/or I already know about stuff I'm interested in buying at some point.

 

[OneCatch]

Wait...why did the OP get a warning for this?
I'm confused.
Maybe I glossed over something in the post?

Probably the implication that he used adblockers. Promoting or endorsing adbockers is against the Code of Conduct, presumably because the Escapist doesn't want to scare off advertising revenue.

On topic - the rationale for the advertiser is that it generally raises profile and it's very very cheap.
And even if one finds ads really fucking annoying, people tend to hold it against the website rather than the advertiser themselves (the rather heated response to a Jimquisition episode on Adblock proved that), so there's little risk of negative publicity for the brand itself.

Ads online aren't necessarily the centre of attention, but they can be far more readily tailored to the user with the use of tracking cookies and so on, and also enable the gathering of demographic data with which to plan further campaigns (which I think in it's current form is unethical but there we go). So there are upsides for the advertiser.

 

[Twinrehz]

I will admit that I use that which must not be mentioned by name, and I started using it for one reason: Flash ads. There is no more evil force in this world than online ads that make noise.

Let's say I'm browsing the web, I might be listening to music, I might not. I enter a website, and out of nowhere, someone starts talking, or random music plays (often a song that I loathe), or it's just a regular noisy commercial. I forgot to mention, I usually wear headphones, and various programs and youtube require different volume, meaning I could be deafened by a single rogue commercial. It's happened on this website as well, in a period where I wanted to be nice, and whitelisted the site.

Many years have passed since then, and I haven't found any reason to stop using "it". I was surprised when I learnt (in 2013, I think) that it blocks youtube's pre-video ads as well.

There was actually one more reason to use it. For years, I browsed the web on an iMac G5, purchased right before they switched to intel processors. This meant my computer aged quicker than expected, as dual core became the norm, and my G5 couldn't even play 720p video without clogging the framebuffer, going into a panic and mess up the video badly.
It also meant that flash commercials, which was all the rage online at that time, was a serious performance-hit on my computer, and made browsing the web a total pain. Websites lagged when I tried to scroll, and the system could quickly become unresponsive if I had more than a few tabs open. This was of course also a result of flash being poorly coded for PPC machines, and with the advent of intel macs, adobe ditched supporting PPC almost immediately, I think.

So yeah, not only is it because ads can be absolutely annoying, but from a hardware standpoint, in a day where mobile devices are getting more frequent (and more powerful than my old iMac from 2005) it's detrimental to performance.

The days of performance-weak computers is for me over, but ads is something I've come to dislike more and more. Mostly because entertainment, and commercials in particular, demand that everyone is catered for, which lowers everything to the lowest common denominator. Commercials are stupid, and I'm worried that I'll become stupid if exposure exceeds the minimum level that I've set for myself.

 

[MHR]

Have web ads for trash ever worked on me? No. Regular ads don't even work because I don't have money for anything but utilities, Steam sales, and food.

I think the idea of advertisements are funny though. The only ones dumber than paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to air some dumb sing-song ad for overpriced trash are the people falling for it. Burning truckloads of money plastering brands everywhere and being as obnoxious as possible so people remember them and somehow tricking stupid people into buying the wrong stuff. When I was a kid I thought it would be funny to be an ad-man and put sandwich boards on roadside cows advertising some trash and go paint the moon with the Pepsi logo. To me, the parts of the world that didn't already have advertisements were ad space being wasted. Because that was the most trollful thing I could think of that would get me paid and get on Forbes magazine's "worst people evar" edition. I wasn't the most likable kid.

 

[CrystalViolet]

I have an active filter in my mind that automatically blocks any ads from getting to me.

Brrr.... ads.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

It's adorable how many people said no.
Of course they have, indirectly, at the very least, and most probably directly as well, although it'd be with stuff I'd already be interested about. Film and Videogame trailers are ads, y'know.

Ha! Exactly my own thoughts. If someone is interacting with pretty much any kind of media, they're getting exposed to advertising in some form. Those ads create awareness of a brand or service and it will inevitably result in someone, somewhere, buying the product or service. Create enough awareness, even subconsciously, and a company will rake in the $$ and keep advertising. It's pretty basic marketing and human nature. The folks claiming they're "immune" to advertising are clearly delusional.

I try to research brands and products when I make purchases, but there are countless small transactions in my day to day shopping I don't even really think about that I'm sure are simply things I've seen advertised and that are easy buys. If I'm going to spend more than $20 on a new gadget, I'll probably do a little research, but if it's not a huge expenditure and there's a recognized brand on the shelf, I'll probably buy it, just cause.