Study after study has found that consumers dislike pop-up ads and the companies who use them. Now they’re even starting to dislike the web sites where they appear.
   That’s the finding from a new report from U.K. behavior consultancy company Bunnyfoot Universality, which says that consumers have an extreme negative reaction not only to the companies advertising with pop-ups but the sites that display them.
  Sixty percent said that they distrust sites that carry pop-ups and advertisers  that use them, and 50 percent click the ads off before they’ve even finished loading. Only 2 percent of the time did respondents allow ads to load long enough to see the entire company logo.
   “Most surprising was the fact that absolutely everyone we tested spontaneously said something derogatory about pop-ups,” Bunnyfoot director of business behavior Robert Stevens says. “We have been carrying out tests for four years and have never seen a consensus of opinion like this – ever.”
   Bunnyfoot sent users to two different sites, MoneyExtra.co.uk and MoneyNet.co.uk, and monitored their reactions to the ads there.
   The study found that although pop-ups take an average 8.5 seconds to load, surfers usually close them after 2.5 seconds, meaning they rarely get a look at the entire ad. Thirty-five percent of the ads are ignored completely.
   Perhaps that’s why only 2 percent could remember the brand being advertised by the pop-up. That may be good news for advertisers in some way – then annoyed users aren’t associating the brand name with a negative. But it also means they’re not absorbing product information.
   It also could mean that the negative associations for pop-ups get stuck more on the site that’s serving it.
   “Online advertising is the new kid on the block in an established and sophisticated neighborhood, and it shows,” Stevens says.   
   “There are moments of brilliance, but for the most part today's online ads are like the point-and-smile TV ads of the 1950s, not sophisticated, and we live in a sophisticated world."
   Long hated by internet users, pop-ups continue to live on because even the minimal response rates they generate are still double that of banner ads. During third-quarter 2003, the most recent numbers available, almost 20 billion pop-ups were served, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, a 150 percent increase from third quarter 2002.
   According to Forrester Research, 87 percent of internet users say that pop-up ads interfere with their internet browsing. But just 14 percent of internet users have downloaded pop-up blocking software (up from 1 percent a year ago).
   The lesson here seems to be that if you’re going to risk employing a pop-up ad, make sure it’s an effective one.
   “It is possible to get good ROI from pop-ups, but as we state in the paper everything about the proposition has to work; idea, creative, media and brand,” Stevens says. “It will be interesting to look back in 10 years time and carry out the same study.
   "Hopefully we will get a different, more positive result towards pop-ups because we would have learned how to make great pop-up ad campaigns.”