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.

I have previously complained to BigPond and The Age about this sort of ad.

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

Cheers,

Tim – Mumbrella

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.

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.