• by George Simpson , Featured Contributor, January 15, 2015

A friend of mine who has been a loyal follower of CNN took it permanently off his desktop this week, upset by an autoplay video ad that launched while he was reading serious news further down the page. According to another, CNN apparently now has abrasive ads all over the place: “The autoplay thing is awful. The entire experience is disruptive and unpleasant."

I confess I am seeing the same thing at many sites I visit, so much so that I am developing the fast-twitch skills of a 14-year-old video-gamer by moving as fast as humanly possible to kill the ads.

I am not certain this is what brands had in mind when they agreed to buy these annoying units. I am certain they were shown stats that proved that the autoplay ads somehow "engage" audiences longer than ads that must be launched, and that users "convert" at a triple figure increase (left unsaid: off a base of .000000037% of folks who bother).

While I am entirely sympathetic to publishers that need to wring every dime out of marketers -- and sometimes, subscribers -- in order to cover the costs of operating their digital platforms, we seem to be using newer technology to return to the bad old days of pop-ups, takeover pages and redirects. And it is having the same effect on users it did then: it pisses them off, they swear off your site and go find pretty much everything you have to offer elsewhere. Reputable brands run for the hills, leaving the bottom-feeders to "complement" your editorial environment. It seems to be a lose-lose-lose. Yet it goes on.

You would think we might have learned from what has happened to TV commercials, the most disruptive of all forms of advertising.  Increasingly, audiences are recording nearly all programming (with the exception of major sporting events), and when playing it back, skipping past the commercial blocks that can now run up to four straight minutes.  The result? You can watch an hour-long drama in about 40 to 42 minutes. And anyone who says that consumers still pay attention to recorded ads is clearly on the pipe. They may let them run, but the mute is on, and email is being examined.

All of my kids have proudly announced they have Adblock on their laptops, as if they have discovered it as a new technology. Any explanation of the value exchange between publishers, audiences and the role of advertising goes in one ear and out the other. They have grown up expecting to be in charge of media experiences, and while they may take note of ads that are being passed around social media by their friends, they otherwise avoid ads, assuming the spigot of free digital information and entertainment will flow regardless.

Although digital advertising continues to grow at a good clip, it is still a low percentage game. So too are all forms of advertising, although it appears that TV is trying gamely to claim attribution by tying ad exposure to sales. That might eliminate some waste in spending, but will it necessarily grow audiences who are now spread over thousands of media options? 

And therein lies the point. There is so much competition to reach audiences with an ad that will turn them into buyers (or at least reinforce their loyalty), why would you ever agree to ads that by the nature of their delivery (never mind the content and frequency) are annoying? I honestly do not understand why anyone would want to be part of that endless ad block in prime-time shows, nor why they would serve an ad that pops on without warning or covers content.

The greatest creative in the world won't matter if there is little thought given to how it is delivered.