On-line advertising - good or bad?

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#1353208 28-Jul-2015 10:55

Perhaps it is a quality thing.

Print advertising can be astonishingly good, as can TV advertising. Provided that the budget is high enough and that the Agency talent is good.

However, getting the business owner on TV to shout at the customers or employing Voice Over Guy to shout at them instead, mainly about how cheap your stuff is (in every sense of that expression) and in a way that looks like the ad was shot on a Sony Handicam in your garage is not likely to appeal to any sophisticated consumer.

Also the sheer volume of online ads, combined with their usually poor level of design and sophistication, intrusive presence and so on is likely to turn people off too.

Geektastic

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#1353209 28-Jul-2015 10:55

Dreal:
Geektastic:
Dreal:
Geektastic: The thing is that it is clear that more or less nobody actually wants advertising.

I suspect that if it was possible to 'ad block' live TV at reasonable cost, almost all users would do so. The same for the internet.

Those advertising therefore ought to ask themselves why they persist in spending money on something that annoys so many....

Probably because its effective. Even if its intrusive. It's a love hate relationship, google search makes its money from paid ads, facebook the same. Live TV the same. Without that income, they wouldn't have the same budgets.

Consider this. HBO has a huge budget for game of thrones. What if everybody downloaded it, rather than watched or paid for it? There would be no game of thrones. It would not exist, at all. Everything works like this, music, tv, movies, services.

We live in a golden age of television right now, where fortunately, people still watch paid TV, and free to air, without qualms. When that is gone, and all we have left is product placement, pop-up ads, and low budget shows, people will complain. Movies can make money from cinema, but already we see a decline in quality based on pirating - cape movies anyone? Same with music - musicians have to make their money from products, and shows, so the pop engine has ground it up.

If your not prepared to either pay money, or watch ads, be prepared for a world where everything has the exact quality of freemium software in the google play store - or worse.

I don't understand how they make money from paid ads on Google - I for one simply ignore them BECAUSE they are paid adverts. As for FB, although I hardly use it and hate it with a passion, I have never actually seen an advert on it.

I'm fine with paying fair prices for content - I would far rather that than have it ruined with adverts.

As for live TV ads, well over 75% of them are so off-putting to me that they have the reverse of the intended effect and ensure I will never pay the company concerned a bean.

A fair number of people click on google adwords ads. I sometimes do if its the website I am looking for. Facebook ads are on the right. Adblocker blocks FB ads.

If google didn't make money from ads, for its search, we wouldn't have android I don't think. It's a free OS, the only profit is the play store, and google ads.

Obviously you don't respond to ads, but some people must, otherwise people wouldn't be doing them :P

iOS is also free....

Dreal

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#1353303 28-Jul-2015 12:18

Well yes, but they sell hardware, and services. Does anyone really want any apple OS without the apple hardware? Seems like the hardware is one of the main selling points.

Android is sold without hardware and you can avoid the services if you want.

Is iOS useable without the services? (IDK, I don't use apple products)

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Rikkitic

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#1353475 28-Jul-2015 15:06

Maybe it is time to be more specific. I don’t hate all ads, just the ones that are stupid and pushy. Unfortunately, that seems to account for the majority.

Years ago I became so fed up with Harvey Norman screaming at me every few minutes that I started making a point of reaching for the remote whenever their commercials appeared. This soon spread to hitting the mute button every time any commercial came on. Since commercial blocks are almost always four minutes, I sometimes go channel-surfing as well. I know I am not unique in this.

I rarely see any TV commercial these days. We get more and more of our content, commercial-free, from overseas. I use a variety of methods to block other content that offends me. One of the things that offends me is advertising that portrays people as morons. Along with the screaming, that seems to dominate on New Zealand television. As long as advertisers insist on wrapping their messages in dumbed-down drivel, I will exercise my option not to look at them.

Closer to the topic of this thread, I detest most on-line advertising because it is rude and I can’t stand bad manners. Rudeness is interrupting someone when they are busy with something else. It is jumping up and down shouting and gesticulating to demand attention. It is popping up uninvited on the screen you are looking at, blanking out whatever you are reading or viewing in the process. Especially, it is hijacking your browser and refusing to let you exit from the page you don’t want to know about. I don’t want flashing images or dancing banners when I am trying to look at something. I don’t want messages trying to manipulate or motivate me. I don’t want to be told things I didn’t ask to hear.

I don’t object to ads that merely inform, as long as they are discreet about it. Occasionally one does appear and I often make a point of looking at it as a reward for not being offensive. I prefer static ads but I don’t object to videos or animations if they have a point and are presented in an intelligent and unobtrusive manner. Unfortunately, my ad-blockers are unable to make that kind of distinction so I have them just block everything. In other words, if you want me to view your ads, quit making them so obnoxious. Yet they are actually getting worse as the yapping jackals increasingly vie for attention.

I have become an old person and that means a lot of things that others put up with make me grumpy. It also means a lot of things that others take for granted I regard as miracles. High-speed broadband, modern Internet, mobile devices, amazing and wonderful technologies that didn’t exist even 10 years ago. We live in an age of miracles and wonders and all this is good. Yet there also seems to be a concurrent general degradation of human conduct which increasingly takes place at a distance. The result is not just growing rudeness and lack of regard for
the feelings of others, but ultimately the worst kind of cyber-bullying and other violent and ugly on-line behaviour. To my mind, much modern advertising is a reflection of this creeping social sickness that has infected modern society and is undermining the values like mutual respect and simple politeness that make it work. In that regard Geekzone is an oasis of civilisation in a desert of bad manners.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

Jas777

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#1353489 28-Jul-2015 15:19

How many people who use ad-blockers are actually willing to pay a fee instead? It would be a very interesting experiment. Especially to see those that say they are and those that would actually do it.

Of course with so many ways around things on-line the site/content creators/owners have no real way to avoid their site/content being viewed for free if they don't want it to be.

DarthKermit

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#1353510 28-Jul-2015 15:45

I like to support the little guy (in this case GeekZone) by paying my annual subscription.

Even when I haven't paid, the ads served up here aren't obnoxious rubbish like "Mom discovers $5 weight loss technique that angers doctors". You all know the type of ads that I mean.

tdgeek

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#1353657 28-Jul-2015 18:53

Rikkitic: Maybe it is time to be more specific. I don’t hate all ads, just the ones that are stupid and pushy. Unfortunately, that seems to account for the majority.

Years ago I became so fed up with Harvey Norman screaming at me every few minutes that I started making a point of reaching for the remote whenever their commercials appeared. This soon spread to hitting the mute button every time any commercial came on. Since commercial blocks are almost always four minutes, I sometimes go channel-surfing as well. I know I am not unique in this.

I rarely see any TV commercial these days. We get more and more of our content, commercial-free, from overseas. I use a variety of methods to block other content that offends me. One of the things that offends me is advertising that portrays people as morons. Along with the screaming, that seems to dominate on New Zealand television. As long as advertisers insist on wrapping their messages in dumbed-down drivel, I will exercise my option not to look at them.

Closer to the topic of this thread, I detest most on-line advertising because it is rude and I can’t stand bad manners. Rudeness is interrupting someone when they are busy with something else. It is jumping up and down shouting and gesticulating to demand attention. It is popping up uninvited on the screen you are looking at, blanking out whatever you are reading or viewing in the process. Especially, it is hijacking your browser and refusing to let you exit from the page you don’t want to know about. I don’t want flashing images or dancing banners when I am trying to look at something. I don’t want messages trying to manipulate or motivate me. I don’t want to be told things I didn’t ask to hear.

I don’t object to ads that merely inform, as long as they are discreet about it. Occasionally one does appear and I often make a point of looking at it as a reward for not being offensive. I prefer static ads but I don’t object to videos or animations if they have a point and are presented in an intelligent and unobtrusive manner. Unfortunately, my ad-blockers are unable to make that kind of distinction so I have them just block everything. In other words, if you want me to view your ads, quit making them so obnoxious. Yet they are actually getting worse as the yapping jackals increasingly vie for attention.

I have become an old person and that means a lot of things that others put up with make me grumpy. It also means a lot of things that others take for granted I regard as miracles. High-speed broadband, modern Internet, mobile devices, amazing and wonderful technologies that didn’t exist even 10 years ago. We live in an age of miracles and wonders and all this is good. Yet there also seems to be a concurrent general degradation of human conduct which increasingly takes place at a distance. The result is not just growing rudeness and lack of regard for
the feelings of others, but ultimately the worst kind of cyber-bullying and other violent and ugly on-line behaviour. To my mind, much modern advertising is a reflection of this creeping social sickness that has infected modern society and is undermining the values like mutual respect and simple politeness that make it work. In that regard Geekzone is an oasis of civilisation in a desert of bad manners.

If we got a thousand people to mark the ads they want and don't want you'd have 1000 advertising models.

What if all advertising was banned? We can't just pick on online advertising, and we can't pick and choose what advertising we want. So, advertising goes south. Its just a simple matter of replacing ad revenue with a pay system. Every webpage costs say one cent. Every newspaper increases in price. Some news websites in the US charge already. No Harvey Norman ads? Cool. We will have to go there frequently to see if there is a sale. Well, we wont need to go to review sites to get a price on a UE Boom Mega, as we wont know they exist, unless we luck in on a review site, at one cent a page or minute. I don't like ads, I don't like having to watch a 5 second or 15 DAMN SECOND ad on a news website video clip. But we need it. I don't want to pay for the internet which is currently free. I dont want to budget my $ and think about my browsing time as thats now an auto credit card charge. Some may think I'm taking it too far, but advertising is everywhere, and a lot of it is a window into whats out there. You can't expect individuals to pick and choose their advertising they will accept. Everyone will have a different model. Its easy to make everything user pays, well it is now, expect if we remove advertising we still have to pay, in cold hard cash.

Take GZ. Pay $25 per year. How many others will we have to pay $25 per year? 2? 3? 12?

How do you buy a new car? No ads. Its everywhere, we just need to accept that, or pay for everything we do to replace that revenue. And not run a business, ouch.
In the meantime we can do stuff to mitigate what we don't want to be pushed on us.

roobarb

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#1353678 28-Jul-2015 19:10

Geektastic: I suspect that if it was possible to 'ad block' live TV at reasonable cost, almost all users would do so. The same for the internet.

When I was a kid the way to 'ad block' was to watch BBC rather than ITV, we hardly saw any adverts, nowadays kids don't stand a chance with indoctrinated consumerism and abysmal attention span.

Here in NZ, on supposedly 'ad free' days on TV ( Easter Sunday, Christmas ) only means no commercial adverts, they still interrupt you every 5 minutes to tell you about a program you are not watching.

Dreal

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#1353734 28-Jul-2015 19:49

I think the creep of 'manners' is far deeper than that. We have two things. One is the 'online inhibition effect' that has been known about since the 70s, via studies into computer mediated communication - this derives from anonymity - in much the way sprawling cities have increased crime, decreased empathy, community and belonging, the internet with its lack of real names, real consequences, real voices, real faces does it moreso.

And the second is that behaviour is learnt. So if you are cultured by an online environment, that culture will tend to increase, and pass over into real life.

There are only a few saving graces, moderation, the use of live video and audio, real identities, people standing up to bullying and the fact that such anti-social behaviour has been shown to be contextual - that is defined by the context of the online enviroment.

So what I expect to see is this getting much much worse, in certain locations on the internet, with some communities, and audio, video mediums becoming more normal, more like reasonable real life people.

I can't tell if the whole thing is going to sweep up generation after generation, or if there will be an 'disconnect' backlash (disconnect btw is the name for all this, or one name, smart phones, lack of empathy etc). But what we see already is cultures emerging tumblr for social warriors, 4chan for troll types, etc - and here as you say, quite reasonable.

And if it does end up like that, perhaps one day it will be like real life with smart parents saying, don't you go hanging out with those 4chan kids :P

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Dreal

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#1353741 28-Jul-2015 19:58

Banning or blocking all advertising? there is no way.

Already we have sponsors, product placement, banners and so on. Ad blocker has a deal with some companies already - and there position is a tenous one.

If all ads were stripped from tv shows, movies, the internet, it would all be subversively placed within the content itself - which I know everybody will agree is much worse.

I think the biggest issue with the internet, and has been for awhile is lack of regulations. Cyberbullying, blackmail (including sexual blackmail), trafficking, threats, encouraging suicide, theft, identity theft, AND unregulated advertising, false claims, scams

Now it seems sadly, copyrighters have been getting in there first, and whilst people are still championing a free internet, our kids are being bombarded with god knows what, and school kids have having their lives ruined by bullying, sexual blackmail and worse.

We have laws in real life, IMO, we need laws on the internet. It would require an agreement between nations, but that would be a lot less messy than individual laws about bullying and so on, which is what is happening now. And I don't just mean an extension of ordinary laws, because on the internet, people can be untraceable, or the situations can be more complicated - the need to be laws that afford appropriate powers and regulations for the environment.

And at the same time, scammers, false claims, overly intrusive ads could be banned. Which everyone would be happy about, because it would open the medium to some more classy magazine and tv style stuff.

Just my 2c. I reckon its only a matter of time before cybercrime because a major news topic (and I mean more than bullying and suicide), and then the subject of regulations will come back on the table. I only hope that these champions of free internet, see that we can't live in a wild west where people can get away with serious crimes via anonymity and so on.

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tdgeek

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#1353765 28-Jul-2015 20:13

Dreal: Banning or blocking all advertising? there is no way.

Already we have sponsors, product placement, banners and so on. Ad blocker has a deal with some companies already - and there position is a tenous one.

If all ads were stripped from tv shows, movies, the internet, it would all be subversively placed within the content itself - which I know everybody will agree is much worse.

I think the biggest issue with the internet, and has been for awhile is lack of regulations. Cyberbullying, blackmail (including sexual blackmail), trafficking, threats, encouraging suicide, theft, identity theft, AND unregulated advertising, false claims, scams

Now it seems sadly, copyrighters have been getting in there first, and whilst people are still championing a free internet, our kids are being bombarded with god knows what, and school kids have having their lives ruined by bullying, sexual blackmail and worse.

We have laws in real life, IMO, we need laws on the internet. It would require an agreement between nations, but that would be a lot less messy than individual laws about bullying and so on, which is what is happening now. And I don't just mean an extension of ordinary laws, because on the internet, people can be untraceable, or the situations can be more complicated - the need to be laws that afford appropriate powers and regulations for the environment.

And at the same time, scammers, false claims, overly intrusive ads could be banned. Which everyone would be happy about, because it would open the medium to some more classy magazine and tv style stuff.

Just my 2c. I reckon its only a matter of time before cybercrime because a major news topic (and I mean more than bullying and suicide), and then the subject of regulations will come back on the table. I only hope that these champions of free internet, see that we can't live in a wild west where people can get away with serious crimes via anonymity and so on.

I agree, but when internet censorship, which is what you are suggesting, all hell will break loose, as the internet is open, free and wild, let it stay that way. Thats what will hit the web waves. There seems to be this mentality that the internet needs to be the last bastion of freedom, but freedom, which means no rules, has a price.

Noodles

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#1353797 28-Jul-2015 20:49

For those who use ad blockers what do you think of Google Contributor? It's a service where you pay up to $10 a month to hide ads on participating sites. Google uses the money you pay to bid for ad space (in Adsense/Ad Exchange/DFP). When your bid beats out other advertisers it will show blank ad or another image (of your choosing).

Google says:

For $2 a month a typical user sees 5-15% less ads
For $5 a month a typical user sees 15-25% less ads
For $10 a month a typical user sees 25-50% less ads

Depending on the site it may take between $0.001 and $0.003 per ad view ($3 CPM) to show a blank ad. Google and the website owners share the money. That way site owners can afford to keep developing new content and keep servers online.

Sideface

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#1353812 28-Jul-2015 21:00

Advertising is a personal insult.

I actively avoid all commercial radio, all commercial television, and all newspapers, because of their intrusive "push" advertising, which gets worse every year and raises my blood pressure.
I always use an ad-blocker when surfing. Always. No exceptions (sorry Geekzone

)
If I find a website where ad-block doesn't work, I will never visit it again.

On the other hand, if I want to find out about pricing or availability of something that interests me, I will seek out advertising and read it carefully. Informative advertising rather than garbage shoved down my throat.

Call me a Grumpy Old Man if you like, but avoiding saturation advertising keeps me Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise

Sideface

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#1353825 28-Jul-2015 21:10

Sideface: Advertising is a personal insult.

I actively avoid all commercial radio, all commercial television, and all newspapers, because of their intrusive "push" advertising, which gets worse every year and raises my blood pressure.
I always use an ad-blocker when surfing. Always. No exceptions (sorry Geekzone )
If I find a website where ad-block doesn't work, I will never visit it again.

On the other hand, if I want to find out about pricing or availability of something that interests me, I will seek out advertising and read it carefully. Informative advertising rather than garbage shoved down my throat.

Call me a Grumpy Old Man if you like, but avoiding saturation advertising keeps me Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise

To me someone who uses ad block on my site is an insult. I equate it to getting a plumber to do a job, then refusing to pay them (but on a smaller scale). If I could block anyone using ad block I would, it's not worth the bandwidth/server/dev/editorial resources.

freitasm

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#1353835 28-Jul-2015 21:14

Some people who use ad blockers on forums (such as Geekzone) claim they are creating the content. Rightly so, but if everyone blocks ads, then creating content or not is irrelevant as there's no revenue made from that content.

Reality is that we still pay software, servers, colocations, CDNs, tax, GST, etc, etc... Money needs to come from somewhere.

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