Are you seeing this when you visit your favorite high volume blogosphere sites these days? Video ads that start running even when you never went anywhere near them, or in many cases, never even saw them on your screen?
It has been happening to me with increasing frequency and it is really irritating....like the unwanted phone calls at dinner time advising me "There is nothing wrong with your credit card account, but if you call now....", or "Can I talk to whoever handles your electric light bill...."
But the video ads are really insidious.....you land on a page and start reading, and suddenly your hear advertising audio blaring out of your speakers, even though you see nothing on your immediate screen to indicate where it is coming from.
There may be a way to stop this, but it will require some cooperative efforts. My proposals on what each of us can do, below the orange tangle of frustration.
First, it is important to note that this phenomenon seems to be fairly new and also seems to be the latest in clear attempts by on-line advertisers to find ways to push THEIR message under your nose and get you to respond. Earlier iterations have included those messages with a graphic including a photo of an unusually ugly individual...clearly designed to draw your eye to the message.
Then there have been the ads with the vibrating graphic.....the picture that wiggles...sometimes so much it can make you nauseous.
More recently there have been the ads that start on the right side of the screen, slide down the scroll bar and park themselves at the bottom, but in a spot where the X box you need to click to close them is behind the scroll bar and not accessible at least for the first few attempts.
Finally there are the ads that temporarily expand and take over the entire screen until you click to close them (with the more recent wrinkle of doing everything possible to make the closure tab as hard to find as possible.)
But now we are at the auto run ads. The immediate response, of course, is to first locate the miscreant. It often found on another part of the page and not immediately visible, so you have to do some scrolling to locate it. Then you have to find the video control bar and hopefully click on the right arrow to halt it. But some advertisers are adding another wrinkle....making it impossible to stop the ad. And in at least a couple of cases, I have run into situations where two of these automatic ads are on the same page and start running simultaneously.
So how can we collectively bring a halt to this before it grows bigger and even more frustrating? I am suggesting the following:
First, we all need to understand that sites like Kos, Talking Points Memo and others don't have direct control over advertising. Ad agencies and media brokers "buy" Internet ads and they often get placed on given sites, sometimes without the knowledge of even the advertiser, as has been made clear when some advertisers learned, to their own surprise, that their messages were running on Rush Limbaugh.
Secondly, Kos, TPM and other blogs depend heavily on ad revenue to support the extra staff and servers and resources which make them successful. We need to recognize that and acknowledge that sometimes an ad does tout something we are interested in and WE can make the choice to respond.
But that said, it is clear that while the advertiser may not know exactly where their individual messages will be placed by a broker, they have to know the auto-run technique being used. And that is where we must all pitch in to stop it.
First, I send a message directly to the site managers telling them how much I loathe this practice. I tell them that if I want to click on an ad, that is my choice. The advertisers choice to force their message on me is NOT my choice and I deeply resent it.
I do acknowledge in my message to the site managers that I understand their role in ads appearing on their site is limited, but I also urge them to let all their media sources know that at least in my case, this practice is creating a BIG negative for their product or service.
A recent message to Talking Points Memo, where these ads have begun appearing, generated a swift and positive response from their staff. They said these kinds of ads do NOT meet their standards and they have so advised their media outlets. From the content of their note to me, it appears filters can be set up to stop these ads from being placed. However, it also appears the problem is not resolved as far as TPM goes, they are aware of it, and trying to put a stop to it because they have received more complaints than just mine about this problem. Your similar feedback can clearly help.
Secondly, I immediately locate the website for the product or service using an auto-run net ad, find the Contact Us area and, where possible, try to locate the e-mail for the Marketing/Advertising Manager and direct my message to them.
Because I know that this is going to be an ongoing correspondence issue, I have created a generic message to offending advertisers that I can copy and paste each time I need it. Feel free to copy, tweak and perfect to your own needs:
You are currently running video ads on the net. These ads auto launch. I land on a web page and your ad is somewhere downstream, but suddenly there is the audio track blaring away touting your product. I have to go find the offender and halt it. This makes me very angry, especially towards you and your products. I am even angrier if I discover you have eliminated any way to halt it.
Let me advise you as I advise all companies who seem to think this is a great marketing ploy:
1- If I see an ad for your product and am interested I will make the choice to click on it.
2- If you start it running without my choice and selection, you should be aware that your product goes immediately onto a growing list of goods and services I will REFUSE to have anything to do with. Yours is now one of them.
I have enough problems with unwanted spam phone calls and e-mails. The last thing I need is 100 advertisers automatically running their ads at me on-line.
STOP NOW!
Note to site, note to advertiser, Rinse, lather and repeat. Hopefully, if enough of us do this and soon, it will nip this puppy in the bud....and quickly.
So far I have written to the makers of Woolite, Delcym Cough Syrup and.....how could I have guessed...Walmart. Woolite responded with a canned promise to reply. I have not heard from the other two. But if others join me in making their feelings known, hopefully we can stop this sooner, rather than later.
What's your experience? Are you also seeing these kinds of ads? Do they irritate you as much as they do me? Have you taken any action on your own? Do you have any other ideas to help bring a halt to this practice? Add your thoughts to the discussion below.
After that, maybe we can tackle all those irritating ads which start with the phrase, "Here's one weird trick to.....(fill in the blank.)