Pop-up Ads Coming to A TV Near You 877
Muddie writes "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that television execs and advertising agencies think product placement and the 30 second commercial spot are not getting the respect they deserves from us consumers, so in order to combat us ignoring them, there will be pop-up ads taking up the lower quarter of your screen during normal programming. Not only that, but the ads will run during relevant portions of the programming (see a guy shaving in the mirror, get a pop-up ad from a razor company). Do "They" think we just don't see enough advertising in a day? If you aren't busy throwing things through your television yet, you can read the article over here (with no pop-up ads)."
Yeah and... (Score:2, Insightful)
Guh (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad I live in a country with advert-free TV [bbc.co.uk].
Why not in lieu of 30s programming? (Score:2, Insightful)
Hell most sports and stations already have things in the corner that move around and my mind's already learned to ignore them.
another reason (Score:2, Insightful)
This will cross the line me thinks (Score:3, Insightful)
Granted - nothing will keep me from watching West Wing and Law & Order - but beyond that when I just want to veg and watch TV - having popups in teh corner would be over the line for me - I'd do something else or watch a cable station.
I'd take brief ads screens during the pause in sat channel changes before I'd accept this type of advertising. Its too intrusive. I know the TV stations need to make money - but at some point ads will take over the show and I'll stop watching.
At some point overbearing ads will drive people away - I'm already ready to stop readnig NY Times because their ads pop up constantly, even using the Lizard.
Living without a TV is pretty nice (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Guh (Score:2, Insightful)
i just love how consumers are getting blamed for all of business' woes these days. business isn't so good? its not because their business model is bad or maybe the execs are practicing shady accounting, its just that us damn people dont respect commercials and love to steal music all day long, because the people who support all these companies are evil!
Gah is right. i swear in five years im going to end up a luddite.
Blame TiVo? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good saying about advertising (Score:2, Insightful)
Most all of the people on
However, the general population does not follow these companies regularly. So how does the company let you know they have a new brand/product/line/service/etc? Advertising. You watch a movie with trailers to other movies and items. You watch a TV and before it ends the station sometimes gives you info on other shows they have. Buy a video game and in the box comes a tie-in showing other video games they have.
So even if you have the money to advertise, you still need to do so to keep the money coming in, unless all your products are well known and you don't need to change them or add to your brands and products.
Re:another reason (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet I can think of a way around it.
*click*
Look! No ads!
If the Internet has taught us anything... (Score:3, Insightful)
Oxygen does this and more... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sometimes useful while watching Xena, but otherwise mostly annoying.
Re:Living without a TV is pretty nice (Score:2, Insightful)
Toss your TV. You'll like the results.
I've never understood this attitude. It's like saying "All books are just Harlequin Romances. Toss away your books -- You'll like the results".
Some programs are crap. Some programs are excellent. I never get tired of the Egyption specials on TLC. I remember one where they were trying different ways to stand a stone tower up using methods only the Egyptions would have had.
Or Biography is an excellent show. I particularly remember their "Top 100 figures in last millennium" countdown at the end of 1999 (please don't start on the whole "when does the century end" debate).
There is plenty of good stuff on TV, just like there are plenty of good books. You just have to be selective with your time.
Re:Big screens and acceptance of popups (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree. If I'm shelling out the bucks for a huge TV, I don't care what your excuse is, I want to watch programing on it. Now you're telling me I need to buy a 32 Inch TV to get the same effect as a 19 because the rest is ad space? Screw that.
It is a horrible deal. Even with a large TV. And what about tivo?
~Will
Re:hello.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be ridiculous. Can you honestly see a TV exec saying "We had $200 million in interstitial ad revenue in 2002, but since we've picked up an additional $80 million in pop-up ad revenue we can afford to accept $80 million less of interstitial advertising." Big business is after big money, and they don't care how hard they have to annoy consumers to get it. Your only option will be to turn off the TV or turn the channel.
The funny thing about all of this is that the advertisers feel that people don't give commercials the "respect and attention" that they think they deserve. That's because the consumers don't think that commercials are generally worthy of respect or attention. They started doing interstitial advertising and people started flipping channels because they don't want to watch ads. They increased the amount of interstitial advertising and people switch channels and stay longer or they buy a Tivo to filter it all out. I wonder why? Oh yeah, that's right. People don't like advertising.
So now they want to adopt the Internet's most annoying, least respected and most ignored form of advertising: the pop-up. That will get them the "respect and attention" that their products deserve. Nevermind that people have already learned to ignore the popup windows on their PCs, which should greatly ease the transitition to ignoring the popups in their TV programming.
The only real difference between the Internet pop-ups and TV popups is that the TV pop-ups have the potential to be much more annoying. The first time that they pop up and block something important (the text of a suicide note in that mystery show, the car spinning out during the Indy 500, the outfielder failing to catch the fly ball that results in the game-winning run, etc) there will be ten kinds of hell to pay from every direction. Do the advertising agencies honestly think that by cramming themselves down our throats we will become more enamored of advertising? No, we'll just start watching channels that don't advertise with popups, if we watch TV at all.
The sad thing about this is that it is truly unnecessary. Actual commercials in general have been getting better over the years. Many of them are funny, some even quite entertaining. Adcritic.com built a web site that's sole reason to exist was to provide commercials for download over the net, and they were crushed by the demand and folded. What that says to me is that even though the average commercial is derided and ignored, people will go out of their way to see entertaining advertising.
If ad agencies made their commercials more entertaining then I wouldn't mind watching them so much. Ideas like the product placements in Survivor work well. You see the bag of Doritos, you see 7 starving contestants competing for the bag of Doritos, and you see the winning contestant chowing through them like they were ambrosia. Next time you get the munchies you think of Doritos. Advertising via sponsorship seems to work well too, at least in auto racing. Race fans are some of the most loyal consumers in the world, so long as their product is sponsoring their favorite driver or team. When choosing between two roughly equivalent products, I always choose the one that sponsors auto racing (if there is one), even if it is slightly more expensive. It makes sense to support those companies that support your interests, and I'm not the only sports fan that thinks that way.
It's interesting that TNT claims to have already trialed such a pop-up system last year during a showing of "Father of the Bride II" and didn't receive any phone calls complaining. What kind of ratings they got for that showing? How many people switched channels when they started seeing the ads? Does TNT realize that 90% of lost customers don't say anything about being unhappy before switching to a competitor? Would there have been a more significant response had they tested these ads during a more popular show? Just how many people actually tune in to watch a second-rate sequel that's seven years old on a second-rate cable network?
I guess in summary, there is a way to advertise effectively. If someone is thinks that pop-ups are effective then they obviously haven't figured it out yet.
Re:Guh (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Living without a TV is pretty nice (Score:3, Insightful)
The difference between TV and books is that you can buy a single book on what you're interested in. With broadcast/cable TV you get 5 pounds of honey and 600 pounds of raw sewage delivered to your house every day, no matter what. It's not worth the cost of cable.
There needs to be more "on-demand" TV with a menu of choices. Of course this would imply that TV watchers can think and choose for themselves and the media companies would rather just not address that tricky issue. And of course there's this whole "internet" thing that could be used somehow, but again, that's outside their scope.
marketed out of existence (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been targeted right out of the market.
I've had it. I can't take any more advertising. Television, radio, magazines, billboards, even the Internet for Christ's sake. Everywhere. Why do they keep targeting me? I never did anything to them. I don't even buy anything! They're wasting their time! Fast food makes me feel like shit, soft drinks make me dizzy, candy is disgusting, chips make my stomach hurt, I don't smoke, and any band that has ever been advertised anywhere sucks unequivocally. I eat tortillas and vegetables, I drink tap water. I ride my $40 bike for entertainment. I buy a new pair of Dickies at the army navy store every year and I get all my other clothes at Costco in 3-packs. My car works fine, I use my Internet connection for long distance, I've had the same boots for three years and re-sole them when they wear out. As far as booze goes, well, as long as it's wet...
So why do they keep attacking me? Why are they filling every square inch of every available space in my life? Above urinals, on concert tickets, underneath the ice at hockey games, on blimps, in video games, as props in movies, plugs in rap songs, on shitty Web Sites (No, I will not visit your motherfucking sponsor. If you're not in it for the love, and you can't figure out any better way to pay for your site than by slapping some ugly, corrupted banner across the top of your pathetic work, then fucking close up shop, kill yourself, and leave the Web to non-polluters). They'd advertise on the backs of my eyelids if they could get away with it, and I can't hack it anymore. They win. I lose. They succeeded. I failed. Like Brian Wilson, I just wasn't built for these times. I fold. Here are all my cards. Keep the pot, keep my ante, keep the goddamn jacket on the back of my chair for all I care, I can get another at Costco. I'll be out in the parking lot getting drunk and yelling at cute girls because I can no longer stand the taste of tentacles. Marketing has poisoned everything worthwhile under the sun, so I'm giving it all up. Everything.
But the way I figure it, there's no real loss. I've seen all of the episodes of the Simpsons 200 times each. Most of the good writing was done 100 years ago. I haven't listened to FM radio in years. I could play all my records beginning to end alphabetically and I'd be 76 years old when I got to the Zeni Geva. Online culture is a fucking yawn, only good for buying stuffed goats on Ebay and getting cracked copies of $1000 software. Movies always end up at the 99 cent video store across the street eventually, and you can fast forward through those commercials. My girlie's cute and the corner bar has Pabst on tap. What else matters?
True, by shutting myself off to everything, I'm probably limiting my future potential as a 'community building' or 'bleeding edge' cog in someone's nightmarish vision of Internet profitability, but fuck, a simple read through my writing should've cured that anyway (Note to potential employers: The bidding starts at $120,000 a year with full dental).
So I'm out. No more.
I just feel bad for those of you I'm leaving behind. You'll be wearing your Slave Labor Nikes, sweating under a Third World Vest, listening to Everqueer or Fratboy Slim, your hair styled stupidly with gasoline and aborted pig placentas, trying to choke down a Double Meat Fuck Splattered Cow Testicles On The Slaughterhouse Floor Pus Coagulated Lactacious Secretion Yellow Dye #2 Deluxe. Man, will you be looking dumb. It makes me want to cry. You poor, oversugared demographic you. You're filling your apartments, your bodies, and your minds with useless junk. You stagger under your own weight, throwing money in random directions until you collapse and die, buried by a bunch of people who you failed to create meaningful human bonds with, who forget about you on the way home from the funeral.
Maybe I'm just oversensitive, but I actually feel those fingers reaching out at me - cute little girl fingers, feeling at my face like a bind man, pulling at the loose threads all over my brain, trying to find a sensitive one, one that tweaks me. Desires to be successful, attractive to the opposite sex, spiritually satiated, or conversely, the fears of disease, dismemberment, of being outcast, of repressed homosexual desires. Herd mentality as dictated by herd mentality. A gas mask of soiled wool, worn in a steaming shower of chlorinated pond water. A lumbering culture created by profit motive, existing as window dressing to disguise the brutal cynicism of the architects, the brassy checks and balances of accountants bleating commands to the flunky tastemakers on the production line. The subversion of anything subverting. The conversion of something dangerous into something profitable. The gutting of the lion and the championing of the taxidermist. And the puffy vests, my god, the puffy vests....
I give it one more shot.
I hit that little "on" button, and immediately this little red dot appears on my forehead. I feel the barrel rising on the other side of the glass as some powersuited executive attempts to get me in his sights. His scope is the best money can buy, but my nausea and skittishness mark me as difficult prey. I make a sprawling leap over a pile of books, spilling a glass of wine and sending my cats scattering. The TV takes a shot at me. It misses, but after the smoke clears, there's a shimmering can of Pepsi on the coffee table, seductively held by a well manicured (but severed) hand. Then the Taco Bell dog is outside, scratching at my window, singing "That's Amore", the secret code that alerts Col. Sanders and Ronald McDonald to get their tumor inducing grease guns at the ready. "We have a resistor! Alert Cap'n Crunch and Mrs. Butterworth. Tell Hogan to pull that Subaru around!" And then, as the entire posse of 1-800-COLLECT goons attempt to joke their way through the front door, a helmeted uberyouth does a backflip on rollerblades against the window, almost crushing the Taco dog, thankfully getting tangled in the iron jungle of security bars designed for such a moment. The severed Pepsi hand launches itself across the room onto the stereo, turns it to HOTROCK 99.5 FM and starts dancing suggestively on the turntable. Warm, gooey songs ooze from the speakers, blurring the lines between commercial and product, product and art. The walls are running with honey, blood, and Gatorade. Limp Bizkit tries to sign me up for the Rap Metal MasterCard, but is outvolumed by a chorus of creepy NY Gap models, dead eyed and Children of the Damned style, singing nostalgic 80s songs with cool detachment, trying to sell me vests. Close inspection reveals UPC codes on the backs of their beautiful necks and a legion of bulimic girls behind them, mascara mixing with puke on ten thousand toilet bowls. Budweiser frogs are crawling out of the toilet bowls. A one-eyed, mutilated Asian girl holds a pair of new Levi's against the window with a thin, purple arm and starts screeching "It's a Small World After All" at the top of her lungs. Magic, The Old Navy dog, is sniffing butts with the Taco Bell dog, who had since bit the Asian girl on the leg and now yelling something about Gordidas. A waifish beauty suddenly appears on my bed, vying for my attention, trying to talk me into a new car, her hand slowly unbuttoning her blouse, batting her doe-ishly brown eyes, "C'mon Mark. It's only a test drive. No one ever has to know."
Realizing my one escape, I yank my battered wallet out of my back pocket and pull out a twenty dollar bill. The entire scene freezes. All eyes are transfixed to the damp, smelly piece of paper. Andrew Jackson snickers and you can almost smell the cannibalized Indian on his breath. A miraculous cross breeze flows through my apartment, and I let the money go. It catches an upward draft, a hot air thermal, and is gone out the window.
And then, something even stranger happens. The spokespeople, animals, models, body parts, and corporate whores all disappear in a anti-climactic 'puff' of yellow smoke, leaving a slight smell of perfumed intestine twisting through the air. My twenty freezes in mid flight about thirty feet above the ground. A helicopter drops out of the sky, and lowers a rope down to the cash. A man in a business suit slides down the rope, commando style, and captures the money in his mouth, gives a contemptuous snort, mumbling something like "sucker" under his breath. And then the helicopter is gone, vanishing somewhere behind the radio towers spiking the top of Queen Anne Hill. Everything is quiet again.
I didn't just turn that TV off. I unplugged the motherfucker.
Yes you can live without TV (Score:4, Insightful)
My wife made a good point about this a while back. If I spend an hour or an evening watching TV, I can almost never remember what I did with that day. However if I work on the house, read something (even slashdot), workout, or go to a nice resturant, I remember it much more vividly. I'm not wonderful for watching very little TV, but I do get a heck of a lot more done. I think my life is more full when TV is an activity I choose rather than the default. YMMV.
Besides, when I watch I have a hard time turning it off, even if there is nothing on. Channel surfing is addictive.
Re:Living without a TV is pretty nice (Score:3, Insightful)
Time for the next TV crackdown, no Ed, no Smallville.
One small piece of advice... (Score:2, Insightful)
For all of you who like to watch television, I have a book for you: "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury. If you couldn't locate the public library if it was up your ass on fire, here is a web site for you:
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/
If all else fails, consider getting off the couch and going for a walk. You might even consider showing some affection to your significant other. Whatever you do, know that the sooner you turn off the TV forever, the sooner life gets better for you.
Re:Yeah and... (Score:3, Insightful)
The postman does not force me to read the junk mail as a condition to read my other, important mail.
Most mail rooms have large recycling containers for junk mail. From my point of view, I don't even receive the junk mail - it goes directly into recycling. On the other hand, if the postman starts inserting junk mail inside of other envelopes, then I may be upset about that...
Hmm.... well written, but I'll bite anyway..... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Pop culture" is a sort of glue that holds us together and helps us make bonds/relationships with others. When you want to strike up a conversation with someone new, you start looking for "common ground". It really does you no good to break into a big discussion on an obscure topic the other party has no previous knowledge of. They'll get bored and walk away. Communications is a 2-way street. You listen and respond, listen and respond.
You can go on attacking popular music ("Fratboy Slim" as you prefer calling him, or "Everqueer"), or lambast the latest Hollywood movie productions and TV series. Whatever floats your boat. Still, it doesn't change the fact that all of these little blips on life's "radar" provide common experiences that people can relate to and talk about in daily life.
Useless junk? Well, sure it is. All entertainment could be classified that way. Sports too, and drinking for pleasure. Humans need breaks. We can't *always* be doing "productive" things. We need some down-time, and some plain old "fun time" to recharge our bodies and minds.
Fast food exists primarily because it's inexpensive + convenient. If McDonalds never ran a television ad again - do you think they'd go away? Doubtful - although they might not like having less opportunity to remind you that they're a breakfast/lunch/dinner option. People would still go there and eat their processed foods. People's tendencies to eat this sort of unhealthy fare are much more complex than mindless brainwashing by commercials. If you think otherwise, I'm afraid you sell all of us short.
Re:Guh (Score:1, Insightful)
Insightful? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm amazed (Score:3, Insightful)
LS
Re:Hmm.... well written, but I'll bite anyway..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Still, it's not wise to equate advertising with modern culture.
Yeah, I wish advertisers got that. If you look at the majority of our modern culture, it is awash in advertising tie ins. Britney Spears, musical icon to many, is almost a wholly owned subsidiary of Pepsico. And I don't think we can count how many musicians have a renewed popularity because of being featured in a car commercial. Dave Brubeck, Nick Drake, various techno artists.
We in turn become bathed in pop culture/ advertising - i.e. we equate advertising with modern culture. How many people do you know that started shouting "Wassssssuuuuuup!" for 3 successive months after those Bud commercials came out.
I know several people who at one time or another had collections of Taco Bell Chihuahua stuffed animals because of those commercials.
My uncle's jokes come from commercials now...
I agree it's unwise to equate advertising with modern culture, but, it is our culture now.
Useless junk? Well, sure it is. All entertainment could be classified that way. Sports too, and drinking for pleasure. Humans need breaks. We can't *always* be doing "productive" things. We need some down-time, and some plain old "fun time" to recharge our bodies and minds.
All entertainment could be classified as "useless junk" or... unproductive, definetely. However, the aim of advertisement, of creating a mass phenomenon out of a band such as Everclear or Fatboy Slim (which I will admit to liking at times,) is to make a productive use the time and money we use for entertainment. There are no pop culture icons that exist to make us feel good about being unproductive while listening to or watching them.
Our popular entertainment is not meant to relax us. It offers us escape, but where to? Escape to a series of places engineered to make us feel inadequate. That is what advertising is designed for, to create a desire. The majority of our cultural icons are toned, slender, clear skin, impeccably coiffed and dressed. Which inspires us with dreams of our own, and that is important, but our dreams are mostly channeled down avenues of desire.
Fast food? It is a boon for productivity! What would happen if we sat down for hour long dinners every evening? A definite loss of productivity!
Anyway, I agree with your point that pop culture is a way that we gain common experiences as a society, but it comes at a serious price to those who create the culture (in that their "artistic vision" is merely a byproduct of an advertising office) and at a price to those who relate to the culture. How long does any cultural experience last today? The "Wassup" fad lasted about 3 months. Also, I'd rather my common cultural experiences not involve huge explosions triggered by muscled Austrians.
Re:BBC (Score:2, Insightful)
Bad for advertisers (Score:1, Insightful)
The pop-up ads on Discovery/Eurosport tend to last around 15 seconds and mostly refer to upcoming programming, which I actually don't mind since I never look at the paper/web based schedules anyway.
I doubt many people will turn off programs because of the newly widespread popup ads since they still want to watch the program, however it the ad takes up more than 1/4 of the screen then the viewer will likely believe that it is distracting and that they are 'losing' some of the program picture, thus the complaints will fly.
The problem is, people are highly unlikely to take any more notice of popup ads than they are or traditional ads today, especially when you factor in the actual purchase figures.
When a consumer wants something and can pay for it, s/he goes and get it from a supplier based on price, value, what it says on the packaging, and occassionally recommendations from friends, reviews or sales staff. The idea that they are influenced by television or radio advertising is somewhat invalid since the telly ad doesn't figure in the consumer's mind at the time of product descision or purchase.
The only thing I have ever seen a television campaign influence is the amount of shelf space a product carries. This is bar far a more powerful weapon to the producer. The only thing an ad does for the consumer is advise him/her that the product exists, and perhaps a few well-placed specifications, which are of course normally twisting meanings and words which the consumer knows anyway and thus hold little respect for.
I would prefer a BBC licensing system myself, purchasing a license to watch telly without adverts, but it would need to be on a sliding scale, you pay half the full cost you see some types of advertising but not all of them (i.e. a license to have the popups turned off).
When this happens, I stop watching. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't watch much TV, and I skip over the ads of what I do watch with my Tivo. Ad-free TV has been nice, and I'd even be willing to pay for the shows I enjoy (one at a time-- I'm not paying for all the crap to get a few good shows a la cable), but if the options are ad-covered, distorted-aspect-ratio crap or nothing, nothing wins hands down.
TV's new business model (Score:2, Insightful)
"It's not my fault the TV networks' business model is obsolete. If I want to skip commercials I will and if the networks don't like it they should stop whining and come up with a better business model."
Well, here's that better business model you asked for. If you don't like it, stop whining and come up with a better PVR!
Revoke their TV station licence (Score:2, Insightful)
It is just a matter of deciding whether the public or the TV companies run the government. If the TV companies run the government, then you DON'T have a democracy - if you do have a democracy, why can't you revoke their licences until they behave themselves?
Don't "THEY" Watch TV Too?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Aren't these folks retaining some semblence of human-ness? It's like, if you piss in the pool it's messed up for YOU too.. not just the other people in the pool.
I guess I just don't get it.
Vortran out
Choose Life (Score:2, Insightful)