Everyone knows how annoying pop-up ads can be. But advertisers have been using them anyway, because at least people notice them.
    A new study suggests there may be a price to pay for this sort of noticeability. Statistical Research Inc., a media research firm, has found that consumers think less of companies that use pop-ups in their online campaigns.
    This means that pop-up ads may actually damage a brand's image.
    The study uncovered this attitude by giving respondents statements with which they could agree or disagree, either "strongly" or "somewhat."
    Confronted with this statement--"Companies that use these ads are industry leaders"--57 percent of respondents disagreed when pop-up ads are the ads in question. That included 23 percent who disagreed strongly.
    Meanwhile, only 24 percent agreed with the idea that companies that use pop-up ads are industry leaders, including only 7 percent who agreed strongly.
    Banner ads scored somewhat better. Forty-eight percent disagreed with the idea that companies using banner ads are industry leaders, including 15 percent who disagreed strongly.
    The study does corroborate conventional wisdom about pop-ups being more noticeable than banner ads. Forty-nine percent of respondents agreed strongly with the idea that people notice pop-up ads on a web page, compared to 33 percent who said the same about banner ads.
    But consumers don't appear to appreciate this much noticeability when they are trying to do whatever they came online to do.
    As such consumers are nearly twice as likely to consider pop-ups to be more intrusive than banner ads. Fully 84 percent of web users say that pop-ups interfere with their reading or use of a web page, while 54 percent feel that banners get in the way.
    One reason that consumers might find pop-up ads so irritating is that when they go online, they’re there for a specific reason, such as conducting research or shopping, and don’t want to be interrupted.
    In fact, 91 percent cite product research as a dominant reason for going online, according to SRI.
    Pop-up ads may also be associated with second-rate companies, suggests the survey, because of what in users’ minds makes for effective web advertising in the first place. 
    The survey asked people if they could identify at least one brand, product or company that has done an "outstanding" job of advertising on the web. Just 24 percent said they could.
    Those respondents were then asked why this company or product's advertising was so good. The most common trait cited, by 29 percent of the group, was informative content. 
    People are impressed with ads when they are useful, not when they jump around and intrude on their web activity.
    Of course, the fact that pop-up ads first gained prominence in the porn industry does not help lend an air of prestige and sophistication to the ad type either.
    For this study, Statistical Research surveyed a random sample of 1,288 people ages 12 to 64, both internet users and non-internet users. The survey took place from February to April of this year.

May 9, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.

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