Audio ads - you're fired!

From: Mark Welch <online-ads_at_markwelch.com>
Date: Fri 22 Jun 2001 14:54:41 -0500

Okay, this is one of those gripes that I've carried for
more than five years: unwanted internet audio.

You click on a web link, go to a new web site, and BOOM
suddenly a brisk Souza march is playing at 90db.
Annoying, infuriating sometimes. A clear sign of an
immature webmaster, someone just dumping in a feature
because they just figured out they could do it.

Now, fast-forward to June 2001. Imagine that you are
at the office, and it's 4:45pm and things are slow.
There's an office policy against surfing to entertainment
sites on office computers, but heck, we all check for
movie times or traffic reports or whatnot.

So you jump on over to http://realguide.real.com/
because you want to know what their reviewer thinks of
"Tomb Raider." You click on "movies" (or "entertainment")
and up comes the screen, with a brief bit on Tomb Raider
and a link to the review.

But before you can do anything else, suddenly you hear
some musical notes, and the screen is occupied by a
clever interstial ad for "A.I.", the upcoming Steven
Spielberg film. The music plays -- there's no mute or
stop button -- and the brief interstitial ad runs,
and then the ad "shrinks" down into the right margin.

Your boss, alerted by the sound of music, comes to your
desk, sees that you're surfing an entertainment site,
and drops off the pink slip. It is, of course, nobody's
fault but your own, but you probably wouldn't be
interested in hearing that from Dan Russell (VP at Real
Networks, drussell_at_real.com, (206) 892-6068 -- he's the
fellow who approved the A.I. audio interstitial ad.

Unwanted audio ads are annoying, period. Why don't
internet companies "get it" ??

Mark Welch



Received on Fri Jun 22 2001 - 14:54:41 CDT