Jennifer Tennant's Blog

Have you ever been reading an article online and had an advertisement pop up, blocking your view of what you were reading, and causing you to lose your place? These ads that pop up, whether it is in a separate browser or something that just rolls over whatever you’re reading, seem to constantly invade my personal internet browsing space. I know they’re meant to help break through the clutter of everyday life and virtually hit us in the face with the ads in an attempt to make us actually remember the product or service, but when does it become too much? When do those ads start to work against themselves? Personally, if I have something pop up on my screen, I immediately think that it could be a virus, and exit the pop up browser. However, not everyone would do that; many people would likely view the page. Typically however, the ad is something that seems like it has little value attached to it. Why then, would a company advertise in a channel that seems so useless? My guess is that those products or services that are being advertised would likely be for companies that feel as if they may not get much success selling their products or services in many other places…so making pop up ads may be the best option for such companies.

On another note, how would you feel about being asked to take a survey every time you go to a certain web page? Say you had just bought a product online, and then were asked to take a survey. Would that annoy you as much as a pop ad would? Probably not. But would it possibly decrease your chances of browsing that particular web site again? Maybe. Although you are given the choice of taking the ad or not, would you feel some obligation to take it, since you just bought something? Maybe, maybe not. My guess is you would only take the survey if you had something definite to say: maybe you were not impressed with the web site, or maybe you enjoyed your experience of browsing the site. That leads me to wonder… would asking people to take online surveys decrease the overall positive response to the product itself?