Guy Phillipson from the IAB’s letter in Media Week last week was long overdue or at least put into words my personal feelings towards pop up ads…
By pop up, I don’t mean rich media, whizzy display ads that fly all over the screen when triggered by a user. I mean the 200×200 boxes of gubbins that some publishers STILL think is a good idea for the internet perusing population.
When I’m out and about, and get asked what I do at cocktail parties or cricket matches, when I say I work in online advertising I always, every time, get asked if I’m the guy responsible for those pesky pop ups!
Our entire industry gets tainted by the only negative thing users remember. They forget, or just don’t know, everything they do online is paid for by all the other great advertising platforms and products we peddle.
Sales people are to blame too. I remember getting pressured constantly as a traffic manager at BTLookSmart to take the frequency cap off pop ups so they could hit targets.
Reminds me of a great story of a sales guy who complained that whenever he clicked on one of our house ads he “got a pop up!” He said that it was a negative user-experience because “people hate pop ups!”
I had to waltz over to his desk and explain that he was by far the biggest dealer in the infernal things, and that he wasn’t seeing a pop up when he clicked on a house ad, but that he had screwed his IE settings and that was a new browser he was seeing – albeit shrunk to 200×200!
He stared at his screen, then back at me and barked:
“Well I don’t even know what a browser is Mel!!!”
I rest Guy’s case…
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