Completely ignoring the complexities of life, I’ve managed to lump everyone I’ve ever met in marketing into two distinct groups.
1. Those who believe advertisers have a degree of social responsibility.
2. Those who believe it’s their holy duty to cram an ad into every available space on this planet.
For years, things have remained in relative balance simply by the force of nature. On occasion, ad agencies and clients would get too pushy — and negative reactions would make them take a step back.
However, there’s a disturbance in the force. These days, the rewards of being annoying can be so great, advertisers and their enablers are more willing to “tough out” the criticism just to keep the cash flowing. Maybe we don’t protest loudly enough, or we get tired of complaining. Whatever, we start to see excessive advertising as a necessary evil — even if it isn’t necessary at all.
Case in point: YouTube pop-up ads. Oh, how I loathe them.
Amazingly, they manage to offend on multiple levels.
Right at the moment you’ve chosen to be passive — watching a video — a pop-up ad forces you to take action. When it materializes, it’s like an annoying fly. You can try to ignore the distraction or you can take the time to swat the thing. Even if you swat, you’ve already lost a few seconds of pristine video. To see the whole video unblemished, you have to go back to the start.
If this technique is supposed to “personalize” my advertising experience with ads relevant to what I’m watching, it ain’t happening. In fact, Google Adsense pop-ups make little sense at all.
I watch Pink Floyd (still frame above) and I get an ad for the Ford Edge. I watch a video about sushi and get an ad for the Dell Inspiron. I watch Peter Gabriel and I’m invited to an Express Oil Change at Riley Car Care. No kidding. This is just advertising pollution, and someone should be very ashamed of themselves.
These ads operate on the same principle as junk mail. Show the message to a few million people, and a few may actually click. There is no respect for the customer here.
I once thought Google to be above such things. The creator of the world’s sparsest search page would seemingly have the good taste not to throw such garbage at their audience. Obviously there are minds within Google that value advertising revenue more than the user experience.
If you search around on the topic of YouTube pop-ups, you’ll find that they are hated by many. Sadly, the offended aren’t hating loudly enough. Rather than pulling back, Google is pushing forward, providing new self-service tools that make it easier to spread pop-ups far and wide.
I have a great love for advertising. My only problem is advertising that poisons the environment. Does Google have other choices? Of course they do. They could just as easily surround videos with ads that can be clicked or ignored without aggravating anyone. But they don’t.
Other sites (and some YouTube videos) simply show an ad before your video comes on. At least this makes some sense. Ignore the commercial and ultimately it will go away. The YouTube pop-up can’t be ignored. It’s like the Terminator. It will relentlessly pursue you until you kill it.
Google built a legend with its “don’t be evil” mantra. Maybe these days that’s too grand an ambition.
Personally, I’d settle for “don’t be annoying.”
Tags: google, google ads, ken segall, youtube ads, youtube overlay, youtube pop-up
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