Irritating ads

By Ashok Argent-Katwala

Chris Anderson (of Long Tail fame) has an apology for an ad that Wired ran on "practically every page" of their Web site that accidentally stood on top of the content you might reasonably want to read.

It makes me think about what makes an ad irritating – or entertaining – and I think getting in the way of what you're watching/reading/doing is the main point.

Google text ads were a breath of fresh air, because they didn't do so many of the annoying things that other banner ads did – garish flashing, other animation, sound, Flash or Java grunge and so forth. Ads that don't stay in their box are an extra layer of annoying, even when they have a close button.

Clearly, television breaks with five to ten 30 second ads annoy people. They take you out of the television programme you are watching and off to ad-land. If they didn't annoy people, there wouldn't be tools to skip them. Shorter breaks – like those on Joost, until they 'fix' that – could well be much better, because who wants to irritate their customer?

What we're seeing instead – alas – is ads that infiltrate the programming itself. I love Heroes, but watching Hiro jump up and down plugging a particular Nissan car is just sad, and grubby. Ditto the West Wing's Leo alcoholically rhapsodising about a swish Johnnie Walker whisky. I'm definitely more aware of those particular brands, but I also know they've invaded my space – they have stood in the way of the content, just like Wired's ad that is out of its box. So, even as a fan of expensive whisky, I'll take care to avoid that one now. (It isn't so hard; what are Johnnie Walker doing making supposedly drinkable whisky anyway? I didn't think it was really their thing.)