News Digital: We won’t serve uninvited audio ads
News Digital Media has taken a decision to decline ads that play audio unexpectedly, the publisher’s chief commercial officer has revealed.
Ed Smith told the Media Week programme on the Sky News Business Channel:
“It’s quite humiliating in an open plan work environment to suddenly have sound start up. Australia is the only large digital market that allows advertisers to do that so we’ve made a network decision that we won’t run sound-on content.”
Fairfax and Crikey are among the major sites that sometimes autoplay ads when a user opens a page.
Smith warned: “I think it can damage advertisers’ brands and campaigns. Advertisers need to be very wary of having the sound on.”
Speaking on the same programme, Lisa Giacosa, media agency OMD’s head of digital, said: “As advertisers we need to respect consumers.”
News Digital’s pledge should not come as a surprise. In May the company released a survey of 7000 visitors which said that 70% found ads unexpectedly using audio was not acceptable.
July 26th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
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Comments
26 Jul 09
8:29 pm
How is that different to bloody ads that hijack the entire page and ruin your reading experience? If you go off to read a story and come back to the front page, the whole thing goes off again. Pain in the ass.
26 Jul 09
8:33 pm
Now if they will just do the same with whole page ads popping up then it would be even better!
26 Jul 09
11:54 pm
a wise decision made by News because that is one thing I can’t stand about looking at their rival’s The Age website
27 Jul 09
9:03 am
It’s rare that NDM take any decision in favour of reading enjoyment over ad revenue. Congratulations NDM on a good decision.
27 Jul 09
9:11 am
and here i was thinking / hoping that Fairfax would be the first to take the high moral ground. kudos NDM on an excellent (albeit a little late) decision.
27 Jul 09
9:19 am
Good on them, those audio ads are my main reason for avoiding SMH.com.au. Fairfax really needs to follow this now, it’s a shame they didn’t take the initiative, now they’ll look like they’re following NDM (again).
27 Jul 09
9:21 am
Good decision by Ed and the team. Uninitiated audio is a frustrating experience as a user.
27 Jul 09
11:10 am
As much as site overlays are annoying, audio is more annoying so News Ltd’s decision here is most definitely welcome, and you can only wish that Fairfax follows the lead.
27 Jul 09
12:26 pm
Agreed. If I hear that ‘ahem!’ one more time – at the start of the Vicks ad on smh.com.au again….!
27 Jul 09
12:39 pm
I guess it could fairly easily be argued that seriously annoying ads like ones that start playing audio uninvited might push more people into installing ad-blockers, which progressively reduces the market for News and everyone else. If I was making that argument within a media business, that’s the research I’d be doing to support my claims, anyway.
27 Jul 09
2:00 pm
I’m sure it’s as much a client education issue as it is a (welcome) supplier side initiative. The interruptive nature of repurposing the 30″ TVC for digital streaming requires sound for the ‘full experience’ and if digital agencies are selling this as a solution to their clients for additional reach to their spot schedule then they’ll only have themselves to blame if it’s done poorly. Solution = made for interactive media content. Then again as Ogilvy used to say “advertising is about selling”…
27 Jul 09
2:05 pm
Ditto to above comments. Kudos to the decision makers.
27 Jul 09
2:23 pm
Widescreen totally agree … running those uninitiated side popup/expanding AV ads (like the ones on The Age/SMH) is by no means “a TV extension” as it’s often positioned.
The two ad products (a TVC on a TV and a TV in a small window on a news website) are entirely different. One is a lean back, solus environment that consumers tolerate at worst … the other is an interruptive, annoying, pixelated, unrequested surprise that runs over content and other ads.
They do absolutely nothing for the wider digital advertising industry. I don’t know what agency would sell them in as a legitimate TV extension.
There are so many better things we can do in digital than grab TVCs and autoplay them to users who are already getting more ads per page than they can take in. It’s a short term view.
27 Jul 09
2:47 pm
Ben, I’m not sure if it’s the agencies that are pushing them. I would have thought it’s the publishers (or, rather, the sales strategy people at the publishers) going “hey, if we tell them we can just put their TVC in an ad unit, they won’t have to pay a small fortune to make new creative. It’s a no brainer, bring it on!”. Not sure though, I’m (thankfully) not selling this stuff.
27 Jul 09
2:52 pm
Good call Ed. Relationships matter and interrupting ads of any kind cause tremendous damage to the relationship when your audience is there to read the news. Looking forward to seeing the end of takeovers and autoplay video ads too…
27 Jul 09
2:56 pm
agree anon – it’s definitely led by publishers but there’s some agencies biting (well that’s what they’re all telling me is the case when i air my concerns about the format and surely no one would be exaggerating …).
27 Jul 09
3:18 pm
Ben,
I’ve had the exact same conversations with publishers, where they tell me how happy other agencies and advertisers are with these ads and how amazing their CTR’s and response rates are. When I propose that they are dreadful and that perhaps 50% of the clicks are surely people scurrying to silence the ad before their boss yells at them for “surfing the web” during business hours I receive looks like I’ve declared the earth is flat.
It’s great to see that News have decided not to serve uninvited audio, Fairfax need to catch up or risk seriously damaging the perceived value of their inventory in the long run.
27 Jul 09
4:06 pm
Fairfax please take note – I’m seriously curtailing my surf time on smh because of those fucking noisy state government ads. All forms of unsolicited pop-up advertising, whether with audio or not, are the digital equivalent of the foot in the door. They’re shit thrown at the wall in a vain hope of adhesive. Piss them off, because they’re pissing people off. To quote my mate Voltaire: “It’s not enough to conquer. One must also learn how to seduce.”
27 Jul 09
6:19 pm
I work for Crikey and want to clarify that we do not autoplay audio within ads. All audio in ads is user-initiated.
27 Jul 09
6:38 pm
Not for me it’s not, Robert. I’ve had film clips and all sorts start on me. It may be that it doesn’t happen on all platforms (I’m on IE), but I’ve definitely experienced it on several occasions. I don’t see any at the moment though but I’ll flag it up for you next time it happens.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
27 Jul 09
10:03 pm
Just like Nova – using their insights to provide a solution that works for both consumers and advertisers alike. Its a shame there arent more publishers/broadcasters like this. It takes backbone to stand up to the advertisers and ensure the consumer will be around for years to come, and therefore provide the long lasting relationship that same advertiser can build with it’s loyal consumer. Im not sure who drives the bad experiences – is it publishers selling out? Is it agencies pushing for the best deal? Is it both? What I do know is only dead fish swim with the current…. so Good job NDM!!
27 Jul 09
10:16 pm
My advice. Use firefox and install the add-on AdBlock Plus (with EasyList subscription). No more flash based ads on any webpage you visit. Saves on loading time and the ads eating into your download allowance.
28 Jul 09
10:03 am
Love the bitchin’ and moanin’ in some of the previous comments!
Do it right – take control of the ‘ad’ experience when you are surfing the web. There is no reason you can’t do it on your own terms.
I offer a very simple solution that anyone can use to get control of their browsing experience.
Use FireFox (or another advanced browser – IE does not qualify!) as your browser. In your setting do not allow pop-ups then load the following extensions and activate them: ‘AdBlock’, ‘FlashBlock’ and ‘No Script’. This will stop pop-up ads, it will block adds that you do not want, it will stop Flash playing automatically and ‘No Script’ will stop scripts and virtually all other nasty stuff hi-jacking your page/surfing experience (or even from loading nasty software on your compure as a ‘drive-by shooting’). Best thing is – this software is free, all it will take is a couple of minutes of your time.
I admit it is an extreme way to go . . . ahhh, compare this to the price you pay for doing the advertiser loaded way (that everyone is complaining about!).
Enjoy!
P.S. You will still see all static ads that are in graphic format and other non-intrusive ads. It blocks most of the annoying cr-p. You can select to view it all (if you want to . . .).
yours in ‘pain-free’ surfing,
‘pain in the ass’ contrarian
28 Jul 09
2:09 pm
A good decision.
I have previously complained to BigPond and The Age about this sort of ad.
28 Jul 09
4:03 pm
Good move by NDM, however it’s not as if this move is groundbreaking. Other publishers/portals have banned them for a long time, Yahoo! for example. Whilst it is good that they are finally getting it sorted, not sure if the mass pat-on-the-back is neccessary.
p.s. it is the creative agencies doing all the pushing (with pressure from the clients obviously). In my experience publisher specs tend to insist on user-initiated sound, however the guideline is quite often ignored.