My Pet Peeve – The Pop-Up
Posted by PRGirlz Alumni on November 25th, 2008
I recognize the need for advertisers to get creative with their methods in a time when consumers encounter ad impression thousands of times a day. But my personal pet peeve has become the gigantic pop-up ads which are now appearing on major news outlet sites. I visit most of these sites almost daily, and am continually greeted by some huge ad of which I can barely find the ‘close’ button. I think I liked the pop-up windows better!
Now, this is annoying to me, usually because it takes a few seconds to close (when I can find the button) and well, I don’t like things popping up at me that I didn’t click on. But I find myself thinking about my mom, a technologically stunted individual who loves her hotmail, but was completely lost when MSN did a redesign not long ago. (I love you mommy!)
I think if these ads were to pop-up at her, she’d fall off the chair and give up the internet forever.
Are they really necessary?
Maybe companies should look into taking the cost of their pop-up ads and investing it into an effective PR program.
Posted to Advertising, Ranting
November 25th, 2008 » 3:29 pm
They should either invest in a good PR program, or invest more money in creating content (ads) that you actually want to see.
November 26th, 2008 » 11:43 pm
I agree! My poor mother is always calling me to help her with the internet and its many tricks and traps, so I fear for her sanity now that she has massive pop-up adverts with small close buttons to deal with!
November 27th, 2008 » 2:40 pm
@Parker – agreed. Make an appealing ad that is targetted at me and I’m all over it…but forcing me to look at it just doesn’t work for me. In fact, I don’t think I could even tell you what those ads are for. They just annoy me and I look for the ‘close’ button.
@Alexandra – So true. The internet can be hard enough to navigate when you’re a newbie. The ads just make it worse.
December 8th, 2008 » 5:34 pm
Have marketers actually run research on whether these ads are even effective? General consensus says that it turns people off, yet companies keep shelling out big bucks for them.
Ah well. Some people never learn….