Consumers Hate Online Advertising… Or Do They?
By Anna Johnson on July 1st, 2009Silicon Alley Insider recently asked usability testing firm Catalyst Group to help them come up with a list of online advertising formats people hate most.
Surprise, surprise, people hated all types of online ad formats:
- Banner ads below headers
- Ads that look like content
- Dancing ads
- Auto-expanding half-page ads
- Banners next to logos
- Billboards in the top right corner
- Google text links interrupting content
- Ads with hidden close buttons
- Interstitials
- Page Take-overs
But what do these findings really tell us?
Not much at all.
Now you could say that what people think might provide some helpful guidelines as to what kind of ad to display. But are you really asking the right group of people?
Isn’t it more meaningful, for example, to ask people who are in the market for a new car about which kinds of online car ad formats they like or dislike the most? Isn’t it more meaningful to know what might appeal to a given target market… that what doesn’t appeal to a general, likely uninterested audience?
Source: Nicholas Carlson, “The 10 Online Ad Formats People Hate Most,” Silicon Alley Insider, June 17, 2009
