J
joe
Guest
JOHN HEINZL
Friday, August 23, 2002
Pop-ups are getting a dressing down.
Faced with a groundswell of consumer complaints, some Web sites and Internet service providers are curtailing those annoying pop-up ads that pitch everything from wireless spy cameras to on-line casinos.
A few sites have banned them almost entirely, much to the relief of frustrated Web users. Women's portal iVillage.com, for instance, plans to remove virtually all pop-ups from its family of Web sites by the end of September, a move that could spur others to do the same, analysts say.
The move followed a survey showing 92.5 per cent of iVillage.com visitors consider pop-ups "the most frustrating feature of the Web," the company says. Its research also found that, while pop-ups can generate considerable brand awareness, they can also harm the advertiser's image.
"There has been a sea change in attitudes about on-line advertising and pop-ups in particular. It's definitely changing for the worse," says Rudy Grahn, senior analyst with Jupiter Research in New York. "It's the sheer quantity of pop-ups that is causing the . . . aversion to them."
The number of pop-ups has skyrocketed in recent months as even major companies such as American Airlines and Amazon.com use them. An estimated 4.8 billion of the ads appeared on U.S. computer screens in July, up from 1.4 billion in January, according to Internet research firm Nielsen/NetRatings.
As consumer frustration grows, many Web sites are capping the number of pop-ups that appear during a single session. Internet service providers are also helping customers eliminate the pesky ads.
Bell Sympatico plans to make ad-blocking software available to dial-up and high-speed customers "in a matter of days," spokesman Andrew Cole says. Customers who purchase an anti-virus or firewall security service will get the ad-blocking feature at no extra charge.
Atlanta-based ISP EarthLink, meanwhile, this week announced it will offer free pop-up blocking software to its 4.8 million customers. The software will also zap "pop-unders," which appear after the browser closes.
For Web sites that use pop-up windows as a part of their own business, such as financial institutions, customers can specify Web addresses where pop-ups will not be disabled.
What bothers people most about pop-ups is "the hassle and irritation of having to get through them . . . it's the intrusive, invasive nature of pop-up ads," says Rob Kaiser, vice-president of narrowband marketing for EarthLink.
Although outright bans are uncommon, many Web sites now impose limits on the frequency of pop-ups. The on-line version of The New York Times, for instance, allows a maximum of one pop-up and one pop-under for each user session.
The site, http://www.nytimes.com, is trying to strike a balance "between a good user experience and offering a valuable advertising opportunity for our clients," says Christine Mohan, spokeswoman for New York Times Digital.
At Bell Globemedia Interactive, pop-ups are not permitted on the home pages of any of its sites, which include globeandmail.com and globeinvestor.com. Pop-ups are allowed on inside pages, but each user will see a particular ad only twice for the duration of a campaign.
"Typically, we would not have more than a few pop-up campaigns running at any one time," says Gary Fearnall, vice-president of sales for Bell Globemedia Interactive. Pop-unders are banned, he adds.
One of the keys to making pop-ups more palatable is to run them in a relevant environment, adds Mr. Fearnall, who is also president of the Internet Advertising Bureau of Canada. "Pop-ups in the right context can work."
For instance, when the sports-oriented site TSN.ca ran a Nike pop-up campaign, the ads did not generate a single complaint, he says. The same was true of pop-up ads for Subaru on the car site globemegawheels.com.
Consumer irritation usually arises when there is no link between the site's content and the product or service being advertised, he says.
Web sites are experimenting with more engaging forms of on-line advertising, such as animated images that dance across the computer screen and TV-like ads with motion and sound.
Although such ads also interrupt Web surfing, they are perceived as more entertaining than a rectangle that suddenly appears on the screen promoting cut-rate flights to Las Vegas.
iVillage.com, for its part, is using an ad format called the "interquizzal" -- a branded window that appears while users are waiting for the results of an on-line quiz or other interactive feature.
The window closes and the ad disappears once the results are tabulated.
Users are presumably more receptive to interquizzals because they have to wait for the results anyway. iVillage.com says it will continue to use pop-ups, but only for research purposes and in-house subscription pitches.
Mr. Grahn of Jupiter Research says he wouldn't be surprised to see other Web sites follow iVillage.com and ban pop-ups. Premium Web sites that are concerned about protecting their brand image will be the first to eliminate them, he predicts.
As much as consumers despise them, however, pop-ups are not going away, analysts say. That's because, like telemarketing calls at dinner time, they work. And there are plenty of advertisers who are willing to annoy a large proportion of the population to reach the tiny percentage of people interested in an ad.
"Pop-ups . . . are such a cheap vehicle to generate sales that there is probably always going to be a temptation to use them," Mr. Grahn says.
[email protected]
Friday, August 23, 2002
Pop-ups are getting a dressing down.
Faced with a groundswell of consumer complaints, some Web sites and Internet service providers are curtailing those annoying pop-up ads that pitch everything from wireless spy cameras to on-line casinos.
A few sites have banned them almost entirely, much to the relief of frustrated Web users. Women's portal iVillage.com, for instance, plans to remove virtually all pop-ups from its family of Web sites by the end of September, a move that could spur others to do the same, analysts say.
The move followed a survey showing 92.5 per cent of iVillage.com visitors consider pop-ups "the most frustrating feature of the Web," the company says. Its research also found that, while pop-ups can generate considerable brand awareness, they can also harm the advertiser's image.
"There has been a sea change in attitudes about on-line advertising and pop-ups in particular. It's definitely changing for the worse," says Rudy Grahn, senior analyst with Jupiter Research in New York. "It's the sheer quantity of pop-ups that is causing the . . . aversion to them."
The number of pop-ups has skyrocketed in recent months as even major companies such as American Airlines and Amazon.com use them. An estimated 4.8 billion of the ads appeared on U.S. computer screens in July, up from 1.4 billion in January, according to Internet research firm Nielsen/NetRatings.
As consumer frustration grows, many Web sites are capping the number of pop-ups that appear during a single session. Internet service providers are also helping customers eliminate the pesky ads.
Bell Sympatico plans to make ad-blocking software available to dial-up and high-speed customers "in a matter of days," spokesman Andrew Cole says. Customers who purchase an anti-virus or firewall security service will get the ad-blocking feature at no extra charge.
Atlanta-based ISP EarthLink, meanwhile, this week announced it will offer free pop-up blocking software to its 4.8 million customers. The software will also zap "pop-unders," which appear after the browser closes.
For Web sites that use pop-up windows as a part of their own business, such as financial institutions, customers can specify Web addresses where pop-ups will not be disabled.
What bothers people most about pop-ups is "the hassle and irritation of having to get through them . . . it's the intrusive, invasive nature of pop-up ads," says Rob Kaiser, vice-president of narrowband marketing for EarthLink.
Although outright bans are uncommon, many Web sites now impose limits on the frequency of pop-ups. The on-line version of The New York Times, for instance, allows a maximum of one pop-up and one pop-under for each user session.
The site, http://www.nytimes.com, is trying to strike a balance "between a good user experience and offering a valuable advertising opportunity for our clients," says Christine Mohan, spokeswoman for New York Times Digital.
At Bell Globemedia Interactive, pop-ups are not permitted on the home pages of any of its sites, which include globeandmail.com and globeinvestor.com. Pop-ups are allowed on inside pages, but each user will see a particular ad only twice for the duration of a campaign.
"Typically, we would not have more than a few pop-up campaigns running at any one time," says Gary Fearnall, vice-president of sales for Bell Globemedia Interactive. Pop-unders are banned, he adds.
One of the keys to making pop-ups more palatable is to run them in a relevant environment, adds Mr. Fearnall, who is also president of the Internet Advertising Bureau of Canada. "Pop-ups in the right context can work."
For instance, when the sports-oriented site TSN.ca ran a Nike pop-up campaign, the ads did not generate a single complaint, he says. The same was true of pop-up ads for Subaru on the car site globemegawheels.com.
Consumer irritation usually arises when there is no link between the site's content and the product or service being advertised, he says.
Web sites are experimenting with more engaging forms of on-line advertising, such as animated images that dance across the computer screen and TV-like ads with motion and sound.
Although such ads also interrupt Web surfing, they are perceived as more entertaining than a rectangle that suddenly appears on the screen promoting cut-rate flights to Las Vegas.
iVillage.com, for its part, is using an ad format called the "interquizzal" -- a branded window that appears while users are waiting for the results of an on-line quiz or other interactive feature.
The window closes and the ad disappears once the results are tabulated.
Users are presumably more receptive to interquizzals because they have to wait for the results anyway. iVillage.com says it will continue to use pop-ups, but only for research purposes and in-house subscription pitches.
Mr. Grahn of Jupiter Research says he wouldn't be surprised to see other Web sites follow iVillage.com and ban pop-ups. Premium Web sites that are concerned about protecting their brand image will be the first to eliminate them, he predicts.
As much as consumers despise them, however, pop-ups are not going away, analysts say. That's because, like telemarketing calls at dinner time, they work. And there are plenty of advertisers who are willing to annoy a large proportion of the population to reach the tiny percentage of people interested in an ad.
"Pop-ups . . . are such a cheap vehicle to generate sales that there is probably always going to be a temptation to use them," Mr. Grahn says.
[email protected]
