|
|
sales to combat pop-ups
Hot new web ad format raising wrath of surfers
By Marty Beard
Software that deletes internet ads has been around for a couple of years, but for a long time ad-zapper sales were lackluster at best.
That's changed over recent months and the reason, say manufacturers, is the explosion of pop-up ads on the internet.
While web surfers seem to accept banner ads, there appears to be a growing resentment over pop-up ads, which appear on the computer screen automatically.
WebWasher and AdSubtract are two of the leading ad-zapping tools, allowing users to surf sites without seeing either banners or pop-ups.
Frances Schlosstein, Web Washer’s vice president for sales and marketing, ties its increase in sales to the Internet Advertising Bureau's decision in February to give a stamp of approval to the new oversized web ad formats, including pop-ups.
"The topic of ad-blocking got a real boost from the late February introduction of the new oversized internet ads by the Internet Advertising Bureau, which, combined with the shaky performance of the internet advertising industry as a whole, seems to have created an irresistible target for the media," Schlosstein says.
A rash of news stories about ad zappers began appearing in March, which in turned spurred a boost in sales.
Obviously, there are advantages to these technologies for web users. Web pages load faster without ads, and fewer ads mean fewer distractions. Turning off ads also adds an extra measure of privacy by blocking ad-serving companies from collecting personal data.
WebWasher claims that its product blocks 45 percent of the so-called junk data and code tied to ads that is built into many web sites.
WebWasher also filters out cookies, the data files that web sites leave on users’ hard drives to track their activities.
WebWasher costs about $29. Ad Subtract offers several products: a low-end free product blocks cookies and ads, even emitting sound effects as it zaps ads. A a high-end product, at $29, allows users to manage cookies.
AdSubtract Pro also keeps secret the referral data that reveals the path a user takes to a web site. It can filter out bandwidth-clogging animation and background music.
But even with the explosion in pop-ups, and the increased sales of ad zappers, marketers don't expect their use to become widespread. So far, they aren’t really scared, just a little wary.
"I don’t see it being that big of a deal," says Jerry Courtney, an interactive media strategist with Austin, Texas advertising agency GSD&M. "Of course, we like to look on the bright side of things."
By now, consumers have come to expect ads and realize that their media consumption might be less feasible without them.
"People understand that there is no free lunch and that advertising does play a role, just like it does in every other channel," says Gene Kincaid, a partner at email-forwarding service Austintexas.com and a lecturer in the advertising department at the University of Texas.
Says Mike Potter, creative and production director at MFP Interactive in New York: "There might be WebWasher technology, but somebody has to pay for the content. It almost becomes a trade-off. If people are paying for services that get rid of ads, they’re essentially paying for content they were getting for free before."
Additionally, consumers tend to be lazy about such things.
"I don’t know if people would understand how to implement it, or if it’s that simple," GSD&M’s Courtney says of ad-erasing technology.
"It could be embedded in IE or in the Netscape browser, maybe. Then there’s the whole issue about turning cookies off in your browser. How many people do that?"
The answer is not many. A study by internet research company WebSideStory appears to suggest that consumers don't mind cookies. The study found that even though browser software allows consumers to turn cookies off, they do so just 0.68 percent of the time.
WebSideStory concluded that the figure is too low to suggest that people don’t know that they can reject cookies. Disabling cookies can be more trouble than it’s worth, because it obligates users to accept or reject them on a case-by-case basis.
And without cookies users must log in afresh each time they revisit a web site--a trying task for those who have registered on a lot of different web sites with different log-ins and passwords.
So far, ad-washing technology has not been adopted by a majority of internet users. For example, only about four million people have the Web Washer software. The Opera internet browser can be configured to zap online ads, yet Opera remains a distant third behind Netscape and Internet Explorer.
"Unless someone’s going to do some kind of campaign to let people know that, hey, ad-washing software is out there, you can get rid of this stuff, I just don’t see it taking off," Courtney says.
Ad-erasing technologies actually could force interactive advertising to improve. The creative will simply have to be compelling enough that consumers will be less inclined to wash the ads right out of their hair.
"One of the real challenges in the future is to have ads that have both entertainment and content," says Kincaid. "All of these things are going to force advertising to do a better job. Anything that gets rid of poor advertising is good, in my mind," Kincaid says.
"In a way, it all comes down to how good the creative is, and how good it can be," says Potter. "If it’s captivating, people will pay attention to it. In some cases, advertising can be great. Nike ads can be inspirational, and Budweiser’s ‘Whassup’ ads have become a piece of pop culture."
June 6, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.
Printer-Friendly
Version | Send
to a Friend
Cover Page | Contact
Us
