Annoying Advertising

In a recent lunch meeting, I was minding my own business making a delicious turkey sandwich when something on the deli bag caught my eye. It was an advertisement for a television show…on the deli bag sticker! What? Is there nothing sacred anymore? It is understandable that ads might be on a brand name box of chips. This is something I expect, and of course, completely ignore. However, when ads start popping up on the store brand’s deli bags, the ads have gone too far.

Have you watched a movie on cable lately? You have to love the ads at the bottom of the screen that come zooming into focus like some poorly thought out PowerPoint Presentation and completely interrupt your focus on the movie. And it happens on the Internet too. Ever been surfing around and all the sudden you come to a Web page where there is some obtrusive human person speaking loudly about the benefits of some program, and every time you go to a new page they repeat their speech all over again? The only way to get rid of these people is clicking on them. Talk about inflated click-thru rates.

To be fair, advertising is necessary to promote the growth of brands and alert consumers of products and services that meet their ever growing needs. And it is also true that as more and more companies advertise, that viewers get more and more inundated and only the truly innovative ads stand out in the clutter. But innovative doesn’t have to mean annoying. And while we sometimes remember those annoying ads more than other ads that get lost, it is highly likely that the brand gets a negative image. If someone comes across a brand that they relate to as annoying, they likely will not buy it out of spite. To be successful at advertising, try creating ads and messages that speak to the audience and make them want to watch the ad (i.e. Super Bowl ads). Don’t annoy your audience, no matter how high your click-thru rate is!