Broadband ads under-wow users

Broadband ads
under-wow users

Forget the hype. Surfers still find them annoying

By Marty Beard

    Just a couple of years ago, the notion of high-speed internet access carried a promise: With faster web connections, people would actually get excited about internet advertising.
    The hypothesis: Users would not only tolerate banners and buttons and pop-ups but they would actually enjoy them because the ads would load more quickly and would be able to deliver more in-depth, entertaining messages, like television.
    But it turns out that broadband users’ reactions to online ads differ little from dial-up users’ reactions, according to a recent study by Forrester Research.
   They don't like them any better. They share the same ambivalence as dial-up users, accepting ads as a feature they must tolerate as part of the web experience.
    "The traditional thinking is that once people switch to broadband, ads are not going to affect download time as much and people will be less annoyed," says Forrester analyst Christopher Kelly.
    But Kelly says research shows that users continue to be frustrated with ads and that broadband has done little if anything to change their feelings.
   Thirty-one percent of both broadband and dial-up users complain that online ads make their online experiences less enjoyable.
    And only a slightly smaller percentage of broadband users--36 percent--think that ads slow down their surfing, as compared to 40 percent of dial-up users.
    The findings suggest that to consumers the advantages of internet advertising outweigh the disadvantages, to a large enough extent that people regard the ads with ambivalence rather than anger.
    In fact, half of all broadband users--50 percent--agree that online advertising is necessary to support their content-reading habits, compared to 47 percent of dial-up users.
    "People do find some moderate value with advertising that they find online," Kelly says. "Consumers see ads as a necessary evil to keep content free."
    Just 3 percent of broadband users say that they are willing to pay subscription fees for ad-free online content, compared to 2 percent of dial-up users.
    There is software out there, such as AdSubtract and WebWasher, that lets users turn off internet ads. But when it comes to actively stripping web sites of these ads, few consumers are willing to shell out the $20, whether broadband or dial-up users.
    Ten percent of broadband users say they’d buy and use such software, as compared to 14 percent of consumers who dial up for internet access.
    The study also found that broadband users are slightly more apt to not notice internet ads.
    Thirty-seven percent of broadband users say they don’t notice internet ads while they’re online, as compared to 35 percent of dial-up users.
    Still, that means that 63 percent of broadband users are, in fact, fully aware that they’re seeing ads.
    And as for people not clicking on ads, Kelly says, that’s becoming less and less relevant, particularly since 13 percent of both dial-up and broadband users go so far as to say that that online ads are a good way to learn about promotions.
    "Think of it more as a billboard than something more interactive," he says. "When people are online, they may value seeing an ad or promotion for something, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they want to click on it and leave where they originally intended to go."

-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.

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