Annoyvertising- Does anyone really think that it works?

We are bombarded by ads every day. 7.5 minutes of every half-hour of television are dedicated to them. 15-20 minutes out of every hour of radio they broadcast them. There is an ad at the bottom of your email: “Do you Yahoo?” Only when in the Swiss Alps.

Billboards. Newspaper. Sponsored events. Magazines. Free games on your phone. Magazine ads with a little barcode that takes your smartphone to more ads. Banners on the top and sides of web pages.

Companies turn you into walking billboards. That $30 T-Shirt (it cost them 30 cents to make) that says “American Eagle” on it in huge letters, really defines your style and announces your sense of taste (namely, none).

That Sunoco bumper sticker you put on your car in the hopes that you will win free gas reminds everyone else: Buy gas at Sunoco.

An advertising department’s wildest dream is to create a culture for their product where individual fanatics will “evangelize” on behalf of their brand, for nothing. Beneficial to a company without any personal return. For more on this, see Evangelism Marketing and also one of its most successful uses, Apple Evangelism.

I am not saying that I am against advertising. It is a critical part of our economy. I don’t think dropping a cool million per 30-seconds during the SuperBowl is necessary, but the market thrives on getting the word out on your product.

However, there are advertisers who are deliberately annoying. A couple of examples of what I consider Annoyvertising:

On the Internet:

When you watch a video on YouTube, sometime during the first 10 seconds of the video an advertisement will take up between 30 and 50% of the viewing area, and refuses to yield until you manage to locate and click the little X in the corner. The intention is that you will have spent time focusing on their ad and you had to make a conscious effort to avoid it, and the time spent searching for a way to disable it embeds their product in your brain as though they had written “Crest Whitestrips” on a cinderblock in Sharpie and surgically implanted it there.

This is the same intention for Popup ads and PopUnder advertising, in addition to the ever annoying Hover Ad. These advertisements obscure what you want to be doing on your computer, and linger after you have finished your primary objective. I have no need to see singles in the greater Ft. Wayne area, thank you.

Something else that annoys me about YouTube lately is that it makes me watch a 45 second commercial before a 30 second video clip. Why? Ads should be proportional, so if you watch a half hour of content, you get 7.5 minutes of ads, so 30 seconds of material should merit 7.5 seconds of commercial.

Another thing that annoys me about most places that do television online, like Hulu, is that their advertisements seem to be in higher quality than the content you want to see. Sure, you can’t make out the finer details while watching last week’s CSI: Manitoba, like plot critical evidence or whether the principal actors have, in the strictest sense, noses. It takes 10 minutes to get through that darn commercial where Sarah McLachlin wails over scrawny cats and dogs, by which time the Winnipeg Wringer will have claimed at least one more victim.

On Television:

I don’t watch television too often, but here I will say any ad where Carrot Top has been the spokesperson. Future ones also.

On the Radio:

In the Toledo area, there is a particular commercial that has given me tennis elbow from having to lurch for my radio dial. It is for a local electronics superstore called Car Stereo One. The radio ad always starts with some creep called “Steve” pronouncing the name of his store as Caaaaaaaaaar Steeereoh Wwwwoooooone. He does that about four times in 30 seconds. I wish that Seal Team Six would make him their next major priority, because as far as I can tell, he is the cause of most automobile accidents and traffic delays, tennis elbow complaints, and probably high blood pressure in the tri-state area.

Steve doesn’t get a hyperlink.

Also, another local ad, this one for David Fairclough Jewelers. I don’t think that he is intentionally annoying, I just find that Mr. Fairclough doesn’t know how to use a microphone, as he speaks as though he has a damp washcloth stuffed into his cheeks. You can hear him squelch his mouth directly into the microphone during every commercial and it drives me up the wall. They call their location in Toledo “The Castle” as in “[squelch] Come on down to The Castle and [squelch] see our selection of engagement rings [squelch]”

The point of all of this is that do they really think that Annoyvertising is an effective marketing plan? I know that personally, I have pledged to never, ever go to Car Stereo One for any of my electronics needs, and additionally I always say disparaging things about the store whenever I drive past it, which in turn annoys my Fiancé and makes her never want to ride in the car with me. Obviously Steve has to go.

Many of the things advertised on YouTube I will never, ever give money for, almost especially because they had to pester me and force me to make them go away. Banner ads and commercials are one thing, but being intrusive on what people consider to be recreational is not the way to go.

I hope Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups will never get the word out through Annoyvertising. I don’t think I can take swearing off their peanut-buttery chocolate goodness.